Every year, millions of people visit military memorials and cemeteries across the United States. And every year, visitors leave tokens of remembrance behind. From letters and flowers to small trinkets such as coins, rocks, origami birds, and, yes, even hair ties.
Also Read: An honest look at how relationships evolve during and after military service
On the surface, these may seem like simple gestures, but many carry specific and deeply personal meaning. These possessions show care. They carry connection, grief, and memory.

The Cuban Defence Ministry has procured more than 300 new unmanned aircraft from Russia and Iran, according to U.S. intelligence, as the small island country faces the threat of a U.S. military assault on its territory. Intelligence sources have reported that the Cuban Armed Forces have begun considering plans for attacks on the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, American warships, and the city of Key West in southern Florida which is located approximately 160 kilometres from Cuban territory, placing it within range of multiple types of assets.

This video describes the military situation in

Royal Navy Wildcat helicopters dodge P2000s in

Dear MilSpouses: It is our intent here at Mighty MilSpouse, to keep it real with you. To provide you with solid, grounded, and best practices based on expertise, experience, and evidence-based research so that we can help alleviate some of the guess work on real-life scenarios or circumstances we may find ourselves in at any given moment.

WASHINGTON — The FBI is offering a $200,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Monica Witt, a former U.S. Air Force counterintelligence specialist who defected to Iran in 2013 and faces espionage charges for allegedly sharing classified national defense information with the Iranian regime.
The bureau announced the reward on May 14, more than a decade after Witt’s defection and six years after her 2019 federal indictment in Washington, D.C.
Witt served in the U.S. Air Force from 1997 to 2008 and later worked as a government contractor until 2010.

Thousands of sailors from the Ford Carrier Strike Group were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation today for their active role in the war with Iran, where they dealt with constant threat of enemy attack while carrying out or coordinating hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth presented the Presidential Unit Citation to the crews in Norfolk, Virginia.

American and Nigerian forces killed the Islamic State’s director of global operations in a Friday evening operation, U.S. African Command said.
The joint operation killed Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, according to President Donald Trump, who announced the mission and al-Minuki’s death in a social media post Friday night. Trump described al-Minuki as ISIS’s “second in command” globally. The strike was the largest U.S. operation in Nigeria since Christmas, when U.S. forces fired multiple missiles at militants in Nigeria’s northwestern Sokoto state.

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It’s been Navy Federal Credit Union’s missi

MC Times
At one point during Exercise Balikatan 2026 in the Philippines, one regiment of the U.S.

P. Kime, Army T.

Army Technology
These agreements aim to quickly deploy cost-effective kinetic munitions for the Joint Force on a large scale.

John Hill, Naval Technology
The Navy Shipbuilding Plan suggests more autonomous vessels will help to unburden higher-value assets

Joseph Trevithick, TWZ
The AIM-260 has been in development for years as a much-needed longer-range successor to the venerable AIM-120 AMRAAM.

This video describes the military situation in

This video describes the military situation in

“You never forget it”🗣️
Former Royal Marin

With May here and summer approaching, the seasonal break from school marks the start of PCS (Permanent Change of Station) moves for military families. These relocations present numerous challenges for military spouses and families, including unanticipated financial burdens and professional setbacks to the emotional stress of re-establishing local support networks and navigating school or career changes.
However, when well-prepared, organized and informed, PCS moves can go a great deal smoother. 
Also Read: Your standard rifle can now be an anti-drone weapon. Seriously.

Re-generating an aircraft out of storage at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona, back into operational service, is always a good news story

Image by Clemens Vasters 

In some ways it is sad to see the thousands of aircraft in storage at the Boneyard at D-M AFB.
Such history and great service for many of them.
What is exciting, uplifting, and exhilarating is seeing these stored aircraft put back into service.

L Todd Wood and Pete Blaber discuss the propaganda behind the Ukraine and Iran conflicts. We also discuss the lies behind the hantavirus outbreak.

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The U.S. Department of War has signed a $991 million contract for the F-35 fifth generation fighter’s primary contractor, Lockheed Martin, to produce electronic warfare upgrade kits for 432 of the aircraft. The contract covers fighters across the three U.S. services operating the aircraft, the U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps, as well as multiple undisclosed foreign clients. The U.S. Air Force will receive the largest allocation at 97 kits, while 54 are allocated to the Marine Corps, 42 to the Navy, 133 for non-U.S.

Chinese state media has provided details on the testing of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s new certification trials for a new terminal air-defence and anti-missile system in the Bohai Sea. The trails tested the system’s interception capability under complex electromagnetic conditions, including against ultra-low-altitude penetration targets.

Honolulu, HI – MG Cai Dexian, Chief Of Army, Singapore Armed Forces gave a speech on the transformation of his nation’s military during LANPAC 2026.
AFP was there to report.
Dexian focused on three areas he expects his soldiers to keep in mind — Be resilient, dynamic, and rooted in your family, culture and country.
I’m paraphrasing some highlights…
“It’s important to be resilient in many areas…individual soldiers, but also as a nation, and that means partnering with local industry to expand domestic defense manufacturing, 3D printing.

Following confirmation in late April that the Canadian Defence Ministry has continued to extend its review of plans to procure 88 F-35A fighters from the United States, there have been multiple indications that a fighter developed under the joint British, Japanese and Italian Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) is a leading candidate to modernise the Canadian combat fleet. Partners in the GCAP were confirmed in April to be coordinating plans for Canada’s inclusion, with the program intended to deliver a fighter ready for active service by 2035.

Should the Royal Navy get the biggest slice of

A long-planned deployment of an Army long-range fire battalion to Germany has been canceled, a defense official confirmed to Task & Purpose. 
The 3rd Battalion, 12th Field Artillery Regiment had been scheduled to deploy to Germany later this year as part of episodic deployments of long-range fire capabilities that both countries announced in July 2024, Task & Purpose has confirmed. Now, several hundred soldiers from the Fort Drum, New York, unit are in limbo.

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Are the Army Men’s rugby team all they ar

The Defense Department announced a batch of agreements with companies Wednesday that aim for the procurement of at least 10,000 inexpensive cruise missiles within three years.
Under the new Low-Cost Containerized Missiles (LCCM) program, Anduril, CoAspire, Leidos and Zone 5 Technologies will provide test missiles to the Pentagon to begin an experimentation and assessment campaign this June, according to a DOD news release. If all goes to plan, the department will begin purchasing weapons from the vendors in 2027 under firm fixed material-unit costs included in the agreements.

HMS Prince of Wales has arrived in Norway ahead

Astute-class attack submarine HMS Anson has doc

Norway’s fjords become a battlefield as Royal

EDGE Group, the defence conglomerate based in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), has put forward a proposal to acquire a controlling share in Italy’s Costruzioni Motori Diesel (CMD).

On May 10, 1996, during Exercise Purple Star – a large-scale joint UK–US military exercise – two helicopters collided over Camp Lejeune, resulting in the deaths of 14 American soldiers. Despite the scale and tactical value of the exercise, which involved 380,000 US and 15,000 UK personnel – marking the largest deployment since the First Gulf War at the time – it was ultimately overshadowed by the tragedy that unfolded. BFBS Forces News archive researcher Richard White, who spent 25 years in the Royal Marines, was deployed on Exercise Purple Star. More💻: https://www.forcesnews.com/usa/former-royal-marine-recounts-his-time-ex-purple-star-and-tragedy-unfolded #bfbsforcesnews #forcesnews #news #uk #usa #military #army #marines #helicopter #parachute

Throughout history, there have been moments when sports represented something far greater than athletic competition.
As the world drifted toward World War II, the two heavyweight boxing matches between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling became symbolic clashes between democracy and fascism, with the African American Louis avenging his earlier defeat to the German Schmeling.
Also Read: This No. 1 overall draft pick became the NFL’s MVP while in the Army
Their legendary rivalry is the focus of “The Clash of Nations: Joe Louis vs.

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The closure of the Strait of Hormuz is not a crisis in isolation. It is a data point in a larger story American defense planners can no longer afford to read slowly.
I spent over three decades in the United States Navy, much of it operating in and around the Arabian Gulf and the approaches to Hormuz. The Fifth Fleet lives in that water. Our carriers, destroyers, and aviation assets have been the guarantor of freedom of navigation for the global economy that moves through those 21 miles.
What is unfolding now is an inconvenient truth.

THIS IS BROTHERHOOD FORGED IN FIRE | Military M

The Army is buying rifle-mounted smart scopes that soldiers can use to shoot down small drones, similar to the advanced fire control systems being used by Marines.
Smart Shooter recently announced that it had received a $10.7 million contract from the Army for its SMASH 2000LE fire control systems and related support services, a company news release says. The smart scopes are scheduled to be delivered between July and September.
Neither the company nor the Army specified how many systems the service is buying under the contract.

Russia has reportedly made four major modifications to the conventional Kh-101 cruise missile so often used in its hybrid salvos.

Hanwha Aerospace and Milrem Robotics have formalised a partnership to collaborate on Romania’s uncrewed ground vehicle (UGV) programme.

Flip them down slowly, and your worldview will instantly change. Not in a dramatic way, or in a Hollywood CGI slopfest sort of way. In a weird, almost fever-dream-like way, as if someone stretched a green filter over everything you ever knew and forgot to tell you, depth perception was always a luxury.
Read Next: The US military’s drinking water was the worst water you’ve ever loved
Stars don’t twinkle through night-vision goggles; they bloom into existence, fat and so numerous that it looks like someone poked a million holes across the dark sky.

Flip them down slowly, and your worldview will instantly change. Not in a dramatic way, or in a Hollywood CGI slopfest sort of way. In a weird, almost fever-dream-like way, as if someone stretched a green filter over everything you ever knew and forgot to tell you, depth perception was always a luxury.
Read Next: The US military’s drinking water was the worst water you’ve ever loved
Stars don’t twinkle through night-vision goggles; they bloom into existence, fat and so numerous that it looks like someone poked a million holes across the dark sky.

Flip them down slowly, and your worldview will instantly change. Not in a dramatic way, or in a Hollywood CGI slopfest sort of way. In a weird, almost fever-dream-like way, as if someone stretched a green filter over everything you ever knew and forgot to tell you, depth perception was always a luxury.
Read Next: The US military’s drinking water was the worst water you’ve ever loved
Stars don’t twinkle through night-vision goggles; they bloom into existence, fat and so numerous that it looks like someone poked a million holes across the dark sky.

Jon Harper, DefenseScoop
A major counter-drone exercise taking place in Europe this month has demonstrated U.S.

Joseph Trevithick, The WarZone
The Chief of Naval Operations says giving up on nuclear-powered surface combatants was one of the worst decisions his service has ever made.

Swagath, Naval Tech.
The plan sets out how the U.S.

Global Defense News
The U.S.

Losey, A&SF
There’s a growing consensus among experts, lawmakers, and Pentagon leaders that the Air Force should buy more than the planned minimum of 100 B-21 stealth bombers