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Pentagon plans widespread random polygraphs, NDAs to stanch leaks

UPDATED: Wed., Oct. 1, 2025

The Pentagon plans to impose strict nondisclosure agreements and random polygraph testing for scores of people in its headquarters, including many top officials, according to two people familiar with the proposal and documents obtained by The Washington Post, escalating Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s war on leakers and internal dissent.

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Hegseth says soldiers from Wounded Knee will keep Medals of Honor

UPDATED: Fri., Sept. 26, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Thursday that U.S. soldiers who received Medals of Honor from the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre will be permitted to keep them, reviving a debate about a fraught moment in Native American history.

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Hegseth orders rare, urgent meeting of hundreds of generals, admirals

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 25, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered hundreds of the U.S. military’s generals and admirals to gather on short notice - and without a stated reason - at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, sowing confusion and alarm after the Trump administration’s firing of numerous senior leaders this year.

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Did the National Guard lower crime in DC? What data shows before, after Trump sent troops

UPDATED: Tue., Sept. 23, 2025

The initial phase of President Donald Trump deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., wrapped up last week. But how effective were the first 30 days of this mission to get tough on crime?

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Army identifies 4 soldiers killed in helicopter crash: ‘Sacrifice in service’

Mon., Sept. 22, 2025

The U.S. Army has released the names of the four soldiers killed last week when their military helicopter crashed in Washington state.

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‘The scene is on fire’: Helicopter crashes in Washington state, rescue efforts underway

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 18, 2025

Emergency responders are on the scene of a helicopter crash near a military base in Washington state, an official confirmed Thursday morning, Sept. 18.

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Lawmakers recall Sept. 11 attacks that launched their military service

UPDATED: Thu., Sept. 11, 2025

Rep. Troy Downing remembers being on a moose hunt in rural Alaska when planes hijacked by terrorists attacked the Pentagon and felled the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, in the deadliest attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor.

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Aging US nuclear missiles could be extended until 2050, Air Force says

UPDATED: Wed., Sept. 10, 2025

Air Force officials have told congressional auditors it’s feasible to extend, until 2050, Boeing Co.’s aging Minuteman III nuclear missiles that have been the ground-based leg of the US-nuclear triad arsenal for more than half a century.

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National Guard troops deployed in D.C. add sanitation, landscaping duties

UPDATED: Wed., Aug. 27, 2025

The August air was crisp Tuesday as members of D.C’s National Guard, a key component of President Donald Trump’s federal takeover of the District, scooped, spread and smoothed mounds of mulch around the city’s treasured Tidal Basin cherry trees.

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The Wall that Heals rolls into Spokane to remember all the lives lost in the Vietnam War

UPDATED: Tue., Aug. 26, 2025

The Wall that Heals is a traveling three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. that bears the names of 58,281 soldiers who died serving their country.

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Trump wants a ‘Department of War.’ Here’s why it’s not called that anymore.

UPDATED: Tue., Aug. 26, 2025

President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated his desire to rename the Department of Defense the War Department, saying the United States had enjoyed an “unbelievable history of victory” in wars fought under its old moniker, which was used until 1947.

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Monument honors resilient Spokane family forced into WWII internment camp

UPDATED: Fri., Aug. 22, 2025

He was only about 5, but Harold Kawaguchi remembers when U.S. soldiers came to their Seattle farm, tossed him and his family into the back of an army truck and temporarily relocated them to a horse stall at the Puyallup Fairgrounds.

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Hegseth fires head of Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse

UPDATED: Sat., Aug. 23, 2025

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, the latest senior military or intelligence officer to lose his position in a wider purge of national security agencies’ top ranks, according to two people familiar with the matter.

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Hegseth’s expansive security requirements tax Army protective unit

UPDATED: Wed., Aug. 20, 2025

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s unusually large personal security requirements are straining the Army agency tasked with protecting him as it pulls agents from criminal investigations to safeguard family residences in Minnesota, Tennessee and D.C., according to numerous officials familiar with the operation.

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New work rules could deny food stamps to thousands of veterans

UPDATED: Tue., Aug. 19, 2025

After a year in the U.S. Navy, Loceny Kamara said he was discharged in 2023, because while on base he had developed mental health issues, including severe anxiety and nightmares, and had fallen into alcoholism.

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She built a sanctuary for monkeys. It’s now a haven for veterans with PTSD.

UPDATED: Fri., Aug. 15, 2025

John Richard barely slept Monday night, kept awake by traumatic memories from his three years in the U.S. Army. He struggled to get out of bed the next morning, so he drove to his recent haven: a monkey sanctuary.

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Every VA medical center has severe staffing shortages, audit finds

UPDATED: Tue., Aug. 12, 2025

The independent watchdog for the Department of Veterans Affairs said the department’s health system is facing a severe staffing shortage of clinical and nonclinical workers that has worsened since last year - at the same time the department has shed tens of thousands of workers and recruited fewer medical workers.

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Pentagon plan would create military ‘reaction force’ for civil unrest

UPDATED: Tue., Aug. 12, 2025

The Trump administration is evaluating plans that would establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

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Trump’s plan to hold migrants at military bases begins taking shape

UPDATED: Thu., Aug. 7, 2025

The Trump administration’s plan to install large-scale detention facilities on U.S. military bases is taking shape, with Fort Bliss preparing to detain at least 1,000 undocumented immigrants starting this month on the Mexican border, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said Wednesday.

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5 soldiers shot at Fort Stewart in Georgia, officials say; gunman apprehended

UPDATED: Wed., Aug. 6, 2025

ATLANTA — A lockdown at Fort Stewart has been lifted after five soldiers were shot in the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team area, according to the U.S. Army base. The shooter was apprehended at about 11:35 a.m. The soldiers were treated on site and then transported to Winn Army Community Hospital. "There is no active threat to the community," the base stated. The base, near Hinesville, about 40 ...

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