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Military families are built tough, but some everyday habits are quietly burning them out. Here’s what’s really going on behind all that “we’re good” energy.
Military families don’t always fall apart dramatically like your favorite reality show. Most of the time, it looks like normal family behavior. Schedules handled. Kids fed. When asked how they are doing, the response is, “We’re good.”
Also Read: The invisible weight of loving a service member while protecting yourself
But if you’ve been in this life long enough, you know the truth.

Summary and Key Points: In June 2025’s Operation Midnight Hammer, seven B-2 stealth bombers flew a 36-hour, 12,000-mile round trip from Missouri to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities — a feat only American airpower can manage.

-The mission hinged on a vast aerial-refueling bridge, and six F-16 pilots who cleared the bombers’ path earned the Distinguished Flying Cross after flying out “on fumes.”

-Experts warn the Air Force’s aging KC-135 tankers — most over 60 years old — must be replaced to sustain that reach.
The U.S.

Summary and Key Points: A U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over Iran in April — the first U.S. fighter downed by ground fire in decades. Many experts suspect the weapon was a Chinese-made shoulder-fired missile cued by a Chinese radar built to detect American jets, though no hard evidence has emerged, and the attribution remains far from definitive.

-Beijing denies supplying Iran, even after Xi Jinping assured President Trump it would send none. The shootdown has complicated fragile U.S.-Iran peace talks.

Footage released on Chinese social media has shown a new type of next generation main battle tank closely related to the new Type 100 tank, which appears to be considerably larger and heavier. The Type 100 was unveiled in September 2025, and is the only next generation main battle tank currently in service. The appearance of the new larger vehicle has raised the possibility that China will field two next generation tank types in a complementary high-low combination before any other country can bring a single one into service.

…money, action, inventory…

In spite of the rough lessons on the importance of mass in the Korean and Vietnam Wars in the second half of the 20th Century—and even the cold bucket of sand thrown in our face about what is required for even heavy imperial policing like we had in Iraq and Afghanistan at the end of the first decade of this century—a large segment of the national security nomenklatura was content with boutique-levels of warstocks in our relatively shallow magazines.

A new weapons configuration for the Su-30SM long range fighter unveiled on May 28 has for the first time included Iranian glide bombs, marking the first time Iranian weaponry is known to have been integrated onto a post-Cold War Russian fighter type. The aircraft were operated by the Armenian Air Force, and flew over Yerevan’s Republic Square as part of a major military parade. The munitions in question appear to be Yasin class precision guided glide bombs, which allow the fighters to engage targets at beyond visual ranges at a small fraction of the cost of guided missiles.

The M551 Sheridan was one of the U.S. Army’s most ambitious tanks: light enough to parachute onto a battlefield, able to swim rivers, and armed with a 152mm gun that fired both shells and the Shillelagh guided missile. Rushed into Vietnam in 1969, it proved fast and mobile, with HEAT rounds that shredded bunkers. But its thin aluminum hull was vulnerable to mines and RPGs, and its gun was unreliable. Retired in 1996, it was America’s last light tank.

Meet the M551 Sheridan

M551 Sheridan Light Tank. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

M551 Sheridan U.S. Army.