Did you know that you could earn a signing bonus simply by shipping out to basic training quickly? When you enlist, you are also eligible for GI Bill education benefits. Learn more about some of the incentives and benefits of military enlistment below. Tip: Always ask about bonuses. Not all jobs have them, but you may not know which ones do unless you ask. Check out this article to find out about current enlistment bonuses by military branch. What Enlistment Bonuses and Benefits are Available? Enlistment bonuses: Most sign-on bonuses are paid for enlisting in a specific job or enlisting…
A U.S. Army veteran has claimed Department for Veterans Affairs (VA) benefits errors left him struggling without benefits he was entitled to, leading to $43,000 in “overpayment” debt. Army veterans discharged under conditions other than dishonorable are entitled to a comprehensive suite of VA benefits, including education assistance, home loan guaranties and health care. VA disability compensation is a monthly, tax-free monetary payment designated for veterans who sustained injuries or contracted illnesses during active duty, active duty for training, or inactive duty training. This coverage spans physical conditions like chronic back pain and hearing loss, alongside mental health struggles such…
We’re now about two weeks away from the first conference of the Supreme Court’s new term, and a number of Second Amendment cases are awaiting the justices’ attention. One of them is Johnson v. Jacobson, which deals with recognition (or the lack thereof) of out-of-state concealed carry permits. The “Johnson” in this case is an over-the-road truck driver named Jeffrey Johnson, who would like to be able to lawfully carry his handgun while driving through Minnesota without having to go through the process of obtaining a non-resident permit. A coalition of Second Amendment groups comprised…
Roughly 90 U.S. Navy sailors from USS Kearsage reportedly saw their cars towed from Naval Station Norfolk, Va., after they spent 10 days at sea. The USS Kearsarge (LHD-3) is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship of the United States Navy. It is designed to transport and deploy elements of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) using landing craft, hovercraft (LCACs), and a variety of V/STOL jets and helicopters. The vessel has been working up to a scheduled deployment and has been in and out of Norfolk, the world’s largest naval station, training with Marine units stationed in North Carolina. A U.S.…
The right to keep and bear arms has always implied the right to obtain a firearm. Thus far, various roadblocks that slow the process have survived legal challenge, but there’s only so much friction that’s tolerable before things get stupid. In Illinois, you have to have a FOID card in order to buy a gun. It’s dumb, but it’s also only $10. It started at $5 back in 1968, so accounting for inflation, that’s something like $45 or so today. Not great, but not insurmountable.It’s unconstitutional friction, in my book, but it only slows down…
For decades, American airpower operated with an assumption that increasingly no longer holds: U.S. aircraft could generally launch from bases protected from direct enemy attack. The Air Force’s top civilian and uniformed leaders say that era is ending. Speaking Monday at the Air & Space Forces Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ken Wilsbach outlined a service confronting vulnerable bases, rapidly advancing autonomous weapons and a need to generate far more combat power without simply buying more expensive aircraft. Their message was sharpened by Operation Epic…
Curtez Riggs had an idea, a pitch deck and a request for $60,000. The answer wasn’t exactly encouraging. “They pretty much laughed me out of the room,” Riggs recalled. Nearly a decade later, the idea behind that unsuccessful pitch has become the Military Influencer Conference, or MIC. Its 10th gathering is expected to draw roughly 4,000 people, including veterans, military spouses, entrepreneurs, creators and companies trying to reach the military community. The road between those two points wasn’t a straight one. Riggs, a retired Army first sergeant, launched the first MIC with two borrowed ballrooms in 2017. The conference grew,…
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Ah, the Firearms Policy Coalition, one of the most persistent pro-gun organizations out there, one that actively celebrates its lawsuit printer as if it were a physical person and part of the team. It’s glorious. They also have excellent taste in gun rights writers, so you know they’re awesome.Anywho, it seems they have an issue in Texas.In particular, they have an issue with a handful of Texas gun control laws. That’s right, there are gun control laws in Texas, because while it’s pro-gun, it’s not as pro-gun as its reputation might suggest. Kind of like Florida.Anyway,…
An Air Force colonel shot down over Iran said he hit the ground at 70 to 100 mph after a parachute malfunction. He spent nearly 50 hours injured, with limited food or water, while escaping Iranian forces in the mountains. The officer, identified publicly only by his mission call sign, Dude 44 Bravo, gave his first account of the April shootdown and rescue in an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes that aired Sunday. Bravo was the weapons systems officer in an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down April 2 during a combat mission south of Isfahan. The pilot, Dude 44 Alpha,…
There’s a tendency among gun control supporters to call anything and everything short of an outright gun ban and confiscation as “reasonable,” which means that anyone who disagrees is unreasonable. I find this duplicitous argument incredibly annoying, particularly when those making it have to play fast and loose with the facts to make their case as strong as possible. This scenario recently played out in the pages of the Capital-Journal newspaper, in a column authored by Wichita State professor Alexandra Middlewood. In the aftermath of the horrific Winfield murder-suicide that claimed the lives of four children, neighbor…
ROVANIEMI, Finland (AP) — European leaders joined forces Monday to highlight growing competition in the Arctic, where global warming is opening new shipping routes, governments are vying for vast natural resources and a Russian military buildup is heightening security concerns. The leaders, mostly from Nordic and Baltic countries, put a spotlight on environmental challenges, economic opportunities and military vulnerabilities at a time of doubts about whether the United States, through NATO, will remain a bulwark against Russia. “This region has become a geopolitical hotspot,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a joint news conference, insisting a new EU focus should complement…
Over the years, I’ve not hidden my disdain for academia. Trying to do so would be like trying to hide Melissa McCarthy under a sock. It’s just not going to happen. And, to be fair to me, it’s not like academia has done particularly well for itself when it comes to guns and gun rights. We’ve covered it aplenty, and we’ll keep on doing so. But a couple of recent stories have come up about research that, well, didn’t suck.Let’s start with one earlier today. This one found that unsafe storage laws — they call…
The Justice Department, for the first time in history, used a secretive federal court created three decades ago to deport an accused terrorist. The DOJ used it to remove an Afghan woman who had come to the United States on residency tied to her husband’s work for the American military at Bagram Air Base, in Afghanistan. Nazira Haji Zada, 47, was removed to her native country on Aug. 25 through the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. This is a tribunal Congress established in 1996, but no administration—Republican or Democratic—had ever used it until this year. Its chief judge signed the removal…
Former New York City firefighter and U.S. Coast Guard reservist Jeffrey Palazzo’s legacy is officially enshrined on a newly commissioned cutter. On Sept. 12, the Coast Guard commissioned its newest Fast Response Cutter, Coast Guard Cutter Jeffrey Palazzo (WPC 1163), during a ceremony in New York City, marking the ship’s entry into active service. The ceremony came one day after the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center in addition to planes that crashed into the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field in Shanksville. Palazzo was a New York City firefighter and Coast Guard reservist…
We didn’t cover it all that much, in part because a fair bit was going on, but a shooting at a Minneapolis apartment building sent people scrambling last week as police descended upon it to deal with the active shooter threat. I wrote the original report and mostly moved on. The killer apparently decided he didn’t like the idea of being evicted, despite a history beyond not living up to his responsibilities under the lease agreement. Because you should never have to pay your rent, apparently.While we didn’t cover it, it was news, and the…
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Ukraine is ready to halt its strikes on Russian territory if allies can secure a genuine Russian commitment not to hit Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. His comments came after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed in a social media post that Russia and Ukraine had agreed “not to hit” each other’s energy infrastructure, though Trump did not offer further details on the purported agreement. Russia did not immediately comment on Trump’s claim. Previous efforts to broker even a partial ceasefire have repeatedly fallen apart within hours, with both sides accusing each other…
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a number of strong decisions in support of the Second Amendment in recent years, including the Hemani decision upheld by the Supreme Court that ruled the federal ban on gun possession for “unlawful drug users was unconstitutional as applied to a Texas man who regularly used marijuana. Now the appellate court may be ready to whittle away at Section 922(g)(1)’s prohibition on gun possession for those convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year in prison. The court has granted a request for en banc review…
