The “Summer Surge Incentive,” announced this week with other recruiting reforms, is open to current members who reenlist and airmen transferring from active duty or the Air Force Reserve.

The incentive, first reported by Task & Purpose, comes as other services are offering large bonuses to retain talent. The Army is offering bonuses exceeding $200,000 to keep aviation warrant officers in the ranks, and the Navy is offering up to $150,000 for select aviation roles.

In addition to the bonus, the Guard said that it is now sending its highest-performing recruiters to wings struggling to meet recruiting goals, rather than limiting them to their home states. Other initiatives include a 179% increase in local market funding and a social media collaborator program.

U.S. Air Force Col. Mark Williams, director of Recruiting and Retention for the Air National Guard, said the changes are meant to modernize the force.

“It is all part of an effort to continue reaching individuals seeking purpose, growth and the opportunity to make a lasting impact,” he said.

The Guard also instituted a policy allowing wings that maintain at least 90% manning strength to temporarily fill positions above their authorized numbers.

The change, according to Chief Master Sgt. James Chubb, chief of the Air National Guard Recruiting and Retention Accessions Branch, said was designed to prevent recruiting momentum from stalling once units reach their prescribed limits.

“One of our greatest challenges is balancing recruiting success with limited authorized vacancies,” Chubb said in the announcement. “As recruiters successfully fill formations, available positions naturally become scarce, creating an artificial ceiling on continued growth.”

For fiscal year 2026, the Air National Guard is looking to recruit 8,842 enlisted airmen, 1,123 line officers, 68 chaplains and 53 warrant officers.

With the acceptance of the 359th — and final — tiltrotor aircraft, the Marine Corps marked the end of the MV-22B Osprey program of record, a milestone that will now shift efforts towards “sustaining and modernizing the fleet for decades to come,” the V-22 Joint Program Office, which manages the Osprey program, said in a statement.

“The MV-22B … fundamentally changed the way the Marine Air-Ground Task Force generates combat power,” Lt. Gen. William Swan, the Marine Corps’ deputy commandant for aviation, said in the statement. “It provides commanders with decision space that only speed and reach can provide, connecting ships, bases and distributed forces in ways previous generations could only imagine. Today, Marine commanders build operations around the assumption that the MV-22B will be there.”

Though the Navy and Air Force also use variants of the Osprey, the Marine Corps maintains the majority of the fleet.

The Corps intends to keep the Osprey operational through 2055 with efforts that include improving wiring, working towards pro-rotor gear boxes, standardizing the fleet and redesigning parts of the aircraft for better safety.

The aircraft has a history of safety issues and accidents that have led to the deaths of over 60 service members since 2000, according to prior Military Times reporting, and in 2023, the Defense Department grounded the aircraft after eight service members were killed when an Air Force Osprey crashed.

A 2025 government watchdog report found that the services had not appropriately shared information about Osprey issues amongst each other.

The Osprey was developed to reduce the gap between rotary-wing and fixed-wing aircraft. Since going operational in 2007, the platform has been involved in 114 deployments and flown more than 683,300 hours, according to the program’s office, which also said the Osprey represents three quarters of all Marine Corps rotary wing support.

The Osprey is produced jointly by Bell and Boeing and according to a Wednesday release from the companies, has been involved in various high-profile missions, including the ongoing Venezuela earthquake response, the 2022 earthquake response in Haiti, operations to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the rescue of Capt. Richard Phillips in 2009 after his ship was hijacked by Somali pirates.

And it may accompany fighter jets, but no pilot will ever buckle themselves into a seat in the cockpit of a Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat.

Australia’s flight-ready uncrewed aircraft made its Farnborough International Airshow debut this week, the static display representing what the company this month said was the first collaborative combat aircraft, or CCA, to participate in a multinational, joint operational exercise.

The Ghost Bat in June soared alongside crewed aircraft around the Marinas Island Range Complex in the Western Pacific as part of Exercise Valiant Shield 2026. According to Boeing, the CCA participated as F-35A, F-35B and other crewed coalition jets honed tactics.

The aircraft were included with U.S. Pacific Command forces to support the U.S. Air Force’s Experimental Operation Unit.

“Having MQ-28 participate in such a significant military training exercise is a first, and this is just the start of demonstrating how advanced human-machine teaming extends the reach and awareness of crewed platforms and enhances joint force operations,” Steve Parker, the president and chief executive officer of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, said in a release. “We’ve proven that it’s combat capable.”

The integrated exercise came after the Ghost Bat successfully completed a live fire demonstrating, shooting an AIM-120 AMRAAM missile to destroy a drone.

With a range of more than 2,000 nautical miles, the Ghost Bat was designed to support crewed jets by performing missions like surveillance and electronic warfare.

The aircraft has “length of a trainer and the full wingspan of a modern stealth fighter,” according to Boeing, and it can reach a ceiling of over 40,000 feet.

For years, industry leaders have seen autonomous aircraft as a market primed for potential growth, as experts push for crewed-uncrewed teaming as a key difference maker in beating a near-peer rival like China.

This year, some companies took that a step further, as they prepare for an era of air combat characterized by unmanned aerial systems — like the Ghost Bat.

Betting on the need for future crew to manage drone wingmen — fleets of drones under human command — BAE Systems unveiled a helmet to help pilots manage more data than ever before.

The U.S. Air Force has also introduced incorporating uncrewed aircraft into missions, and in June it awarded CCA contracts to Anduril, for its FQ-44A “Fury,” and General Atomics, for its FQ-42A.

Models of both were on display at the airshow.

At Farnborough Airshow this week in London, BAE Systems unveiled a helmet-mounted prototype it says is intended to explore how future pilots may be able to operate under battlefield conditions they anticipate to be saturated with unprecedented amounts of data.

Called Project Intuity, the demonstrator is intended to help pilots manage input from multiple sources by projecting information onto the helmet’s visor.

“As allies move towards aircraft that act as combat command centers, future operations will demand that pilots process more information from more sources than ever before,” Andrew Macklin-Smith, the company’s product line director for helmet-mounted displays, said in a release.

“Through Project Intuity, we’re addressing that challenge by integrating the technologies to allow pilots to command fleets of drones in the skies,” he added. “This system will achieve that by filtering and presenting the most important information clearly and within the pilot’s natural field of view.”

BAE did not yet say whether the demonstrator is tied to a specific program or provide a timeline for when this technology could enter service but the project comes as the U.S. is experimenting with having pilots command drone wingmen.

During an exercise last summer, Air Force pilots controlled Valkyrie drones during flight and in January, the Navy announced that F-35 pilots had used touchscreen tablets to control uncrewed autonomous drones during training.

“Modern warfare is demanding more from our aviators,” Rear Adm. Todd Evans, commander of the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, said in a release about the Navy’s human-machine teaming milestone. The exercise, he added, gave pilots “the advanced tactics they need to win future battles.”

The U.S. Air Force has for years broached the possibility of integrating drone wingmen — used for reconnaissance, electronic warfare and attacks — alongside fighter jets. The teaming, experts have said, would make the difference in between winning or losing wars against advanced adversaries like China.

In a first this year, the Air Force asked Congress for nearly $1 billion to start procuring Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or CCA, a fleet of jet-powered, semi-autonomous drones fly alongside crewed aircraft like the F-35 and F-22.

The service’s national plan pairs two CCA with each fighter jet, but testing suggests pilots may be able to command higher numbers.

The Air Force logged another CCA milestone recently when it conducted its first-ever live-fire test using the Anduril-made YFQ-44A.

BAE says its prototype is designed with flexible architecture so that novel and emerging components — such as eye tracking capabilities and new optics — can be added or replaced over time. Currently, it combines head tracking and 3D audio cueing.

According to the company, the demonstrator’s visor has twice the display area of current helmet-mounted systems and what it describes as “quad high-definition resolution.” The bigger display is aimed at keeping pilots’ eyes directed at the skies, with information within their field of view, and thus reducing their need to look down at cockpit instruments during flight.

The company said it already has more than 1,000 helmet-mounted displays in use in 10 different countries, but that this is lighter than other models. BAE did not give design specifications, but attributed the drop in heaviness to new materials and better microelectronics, among other things.

Technology tested through prototypes could eventually be integrated into new helmet-mounted systems or added to existing ones.

Joseph Lavar Davis, 47, was convicted of stealing over $1.1 million worth of the military’s pre-packaged Meals-Ready-to-Eat, or MREs, in El Paso, Texas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, said Tuesday, in a scheme involving three other co-defendants and more than 200 pallets of the shelf-stable rations.

MREs, typically sealed in distinctive brown branding, are used to feed troops basic nutrients in austere situations and training exercises.

Known for their energy content as opposed to their taste, the emergency rations can be eaten hot or cold and are notorious for producing foul flatulence and blocked bowels — oftentimes contributing to the MRE’s other moniker of Meal, Refusing to Exit.

According to a statement from the office, the group used false paperwork to acquire MREs from Fort Bliss and Davis created false requests, rented vehicles to move the calorically dense provisions, fixed prices and collected compensation in the operation.

The FBI and Army Criminal Investigation Division agents executed a search warrant on a civilian warehouse in August 2020 and found scores of pallets of MREs that an investigation showed was a holding facility for a company that purchased the rations from people who had pillaged them from Fort Bliss, the statement said.

Davis was named in the February 2025 indictment — along with the three others — for conspiracy to commit theft of government property and a substantive count of theft of government property between Feb. 4, 2020, and Aug. 12, 2020.

The office said that Davis learned the Army’s food procurement process while working in food service supply in the service. When he retired, the statements said, he got a job as a civilian contractor in a similar position.

“Joseph Davis betrayed the very country he once swore to protect in an effort to satisfy his own selfish ambition and a jury of his peers held him accountable for it,” said U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons.

Davis served as a culinary specialist in the Army from May 1998 to May 2018, according to an Army spokesperson. He left the service at the rank of sergeant first class.

The U.S. struck Iranian missile, drone and radar sites on Friday, U.S. Central Command said, in what the military described as a response to Iran’s attack on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship sailing the Strait of Hormuz.

The attacks came after Iran struck the M/V Ever Lovely with a one-way attack drone on Thursday, the command announced in a statement, adding that the vessel was leaving the Strait of Hormuz along the coast of Oman when hit.

The military said Iran’s strike violated the already-precarious ceasefire signed between the two countries last week.

The 60-day ceasefire included a 14-point memorandum of understanding that called for the reopening of the strait for commercial ships.

Ali Husayn al-Ulaywi was killed in a precision airstrike on June 19 as part of the U.S.’s ongoing campaign to eradicate the militant group, the command said.

“CENTCOM and our partners remain committed to rooting out remaining remnants of ISIS to ensure its enduring defeat,” Adm. Brad Cooper, the CENTCOM commander, said in the Wednesday statement. “We will continue to defend the U.S. homeland, our service members, and allies and partners across the region.”

After the December 2024 fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, different armed groups scrambled to control various corners of the country. Early this year, Syria’s rapidly shifting front lines allowed around 150 ISIS detainees to escape custody, according to a recent Inspector General report.

As security deteriorated, U.S. forces secured the Panorama detention facility in northeastern Syria and in the weeks that followed, CENTCOM transferred over 5,000 ISIS detainees from Syria to government-run facilities in Iraq.

The report also found that up to 20,000 residents left the al-Hol displacement camp — which housed ISIS family members and affiliates — without monitoring.

In April, the American forces shuttered their remaining bases in Syria after a decade in the country in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. campaign combating the spread of ISIS. The report, which covered the first quarter of 2026, said U.S. forces also withdrew from the Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center, which was a logistics hub, but remained in the Iraqi Kurdistan region and at the Embassy Baghdad Compound.

The recent discovery of previously-hidden chemical weapons material has further complicated the fragile landscape, creating concerns of proliferation on the black market.

Two U.S. Army soldiers were brought to safety by a drone on Monday after their AH-64 Apache helicopter went down near the coast of Oman, in what may mark the services’ first unmanned vessel rescue.

“The surface drone that assisted in last night’s rescue of the Apache crew off the coast of Oman was a U.S. Navy Corsair unmanned surface vessel operated by U.S. 5th Fleet’s Task Force 59,” Capt. Tim Hawkins, a U.S. Central Command spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday.

”The Task Force began fielding these drones in theater in late March,” he said.

The crew was rescued by American forces within two hours, at 7:33 p.m. Eastern Time, according to a separate release. Both service members are in stable condition.

The helicopter was “patrolling regional waters,” according to the command, and the cause of the incident is under investigation.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed that Iran downed the helicopter while it flew over the Strait of Hormuz.

“The United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” Trump said in an afternoon post on Truth Social.

U.S. Navy assets from Naval Forces Central Command, including Task Force 59, and the 82nd Airborne Division led the rescue, with assistance from the Air Force.

Task Force 59 is the Navy’s Bahrain-based unit, responsible for integrating artificial intelligence and unmanned systems into maritime operations in the U.S.’s Fifth Fleet Area of Operations, which includes the Strait of Hormuz.

The Corsair is a 24-foot vessel that is capable of carrying more than 1,000 pounds over 1,000 nautical miles, according to Saronic, its manufacturer.

The solicitation, issued in late May on behalf of Joint Special Operations Task Force-Somalia, or JSOTF-SOM, calls for three cultural and political advisors to communicate with the country’s government and tribes and also to provide translation.

“This effort will allow JSOTF-SOM to successfully conduct its mission with an understanding of local customs, history, cultural routines, tribal dynamics, local government, and the socio-cultural context in which operations are being planned and conducted,” the notices states.

The notice comes as U.S. Africa Command has seen a 75% force draw down over the past 10 years. When paired with other nations’ reductions, the cuts have created what Gen. Dagvin Anderson, the command’s head, described in testimony before Congress as, “an intelligence black hole.”

Anderson said the force cuts hindered intelligence gathering across the region, and he warned that terrorist groups like ISIS still wanted to strike the U.S.

President Donald Trump, in mid-May, said he ordered a strike that killed the second-highest-ranking ISIS member, Abu-Bilal al-Minuki, in Lake Chad Basin, an area that sits in the Sahel region in the upper half of the continent — far from Somalia, but rife with extremism.

Somalia is a hotspot for Islamic militant groups, including ISIS and al Shabab, an insurgent group related to al-Qaeda, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

Despite the reductions in the region, the U.S. has continued to pummel Somalia with airstrikes at a pace rivaling the year before. In 2025, the command carried out 124 strikes against the militant organizations, up from just 10 in 2024.

The new contractors would be located primarily in Mogadishu, the country’s capital, and must have a Top Secret clearance, according to the notice. They would also be required to travel to different locations inside Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya, and work in “austere locations,” sometimes at personal risk. The new role would begin in September.