Congress may be on the road to authorization of pilot programs that would enable some servicemembers to leave the service for perhaps three years and then return with no loss of time or grade. Apparently the idea started in the Navy, which has found it is losing some young female officers who want to make the service a career but who found they had to make a choice between a military career and family. Markups of the 2009 defense policy bill do not indicate that the legislation would be limited to women.
The Air Force budget would grow to $234 billion while Space Force spending would shrink to $26 billion under the White House's yearly ask.