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 Space Development Agency says it’s on track to issue its next batch of missile warning and tracking satellite contracts this month after those awards were delayed by the Pentagon’s decision to divert funds from the agency to pay troops during this fall’s prolonged government shutdown.
