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Watch full video on YouTube

Watch full video on YouTube

Watch full video on YouTube

For generations, military families have been among the military’s strongest advocates. They understood the sacrifice, accepted the moves and deployments, and often encouraged their children to follow the same path. Today, that confidence has weakened. Only 37% of military families now say they would recommend military service to their children or another young person, according to Blue Star Families CEO Kathy Roth-Douquet. The figure had fallen to 32% the previous year before rebounding slightly after recent quality-of-life improvements approved by Congress. For Roth-Douquet, the number is about more than recruiting. It is about whether military families believe military life remains…

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As military urban legends go, the Philadelphia Experiment is one of the creepiest and most grotesque ever. It alleges a secret U.S. Navy experiment on the USS Eldridge during World War II, claiming the ship was made invisible or “cloaked” to radar and even teleported or time-traveled. Originating from claims by Carl M. Allen and Morris K. Jessup in the 1950s, proposed explanations include mistaken identity, misinterpretation of real experiments, and fabrication for entertainment. It has endured as an infamous WWII conspiracy theory. But is there any truth to it? Let’s take a look. According to legend, on Oct. 28,…

In 2017, back-to-back hurricanes ravaged Virgin Islands National Park in the Caribbean, destroying structures, docks, and campgrounds. Since then, the National Park Service (NPS) has been trying to restore the facilities in the Caneel Bay area of the park. It’s spent years outlining plans to find a hospitality company or concessionaire willing to take on the lease and all the construction and costs reopening would require. The NPS recently put out an open call for proposals to lease the land. The document would give the eventual leaseholder carte blanche control over wide swaths of public land, prioritizing the developer’s potential…

If you work full- or part-time, go to school or even just need a breather from the pressures of parenting, you know that finding affordable, quality child care isn’t just important — it’s absolutely necessary. Add deployments, training and unpredictable work schedules with long hours into the mix, and you know you’ve got to nail down great child care, and soon. Perhaps luckily for you, the military operates the largest employer-sponsored child care program in the U.S., according to a February 2023 report by the Government Accountability Office, and all DoD-operated and DoD-certified child care must undergo unannounced inspections four…

Search-and-rescue (SAR) teams prepare for all kinds of emergencies, and they frequently risk their lives to help those in need. But one Colorado SAR team couldn’t hide its frustration this week after responding to an SOS from a solo adventurer. A BASE jumper issued an SOS signal on Monday after taking a big fall, claiming serious injury. But when help arrived at the remote locale in a complicated — and expensive — rescue operation, the BASE jumper changed his mind and refused assistance. In a rare rebuke, local authorities said the man’s behavior showed “a profound lack of respect.” What…

Brig. Gen. Eric Widmar, senior legal counsel to the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is stepping down from his position roughly a year before his term is over. Widmar told ProPublica, the first outlet to report the retirement, that he did not take his decision to retire lightly and that he did so “for personal reasons,” specifically mentioning family challenges. “Earlier this year, my wife and I reflected on the demands of this role, which have required me to live apart from my wife for the past two years and created additional challenges for me and my family,”…

While travelers focus on national parks, big crowds can easily frustrate ready adventurers. Fortunately, there’s a wide-open alternative beyond terra firma. Consider the Marine Protected Area (MPA). While the U.S. boasts 85 million acres of national park land, it has more than 750 million acres within those MPAs. Essentially the aquatic version of a national park, these oft-overlooked conservation zones encompass vast tracts of pristine ocean and coastline. And even though there are nearly 1,000 MPAs in the U.S., many Americans don’t know about them. Fortunately, that’s starting to change — and not just among potential visitors in the general public. Nonprofits and…