Scammers have operated as Exchange Inc. to broker the sales of vehicles and vehicle parts, AAFES said in the announcement. It’s not a new scam, officials said, but it’s recently branched out to include the sale of boat engines.

Some ways to tell whether you’re dealing with an exchange impostor:

• AAFES isn’t allowed to sell vehicles in the continental U.S. If you’re buying a vehicle stateside, you’re not buying from the exchange.
• The scammers frequently request payment via untraceable, generally unrefundable methods, such as third-party gift cards like Google Play cards.
• The transaction comes via a classified ad or a resale website. AAFES only operates on installations and via the exchange web portal.

Shoppers should verify any suspicious payment requests by calling the AAFES customer service line at 800-527-2345, officials said. Those who believe they have been scammed can file a complaint through the Internet Crime Complaint Center at www.ic3.gov.

The “Guardians of America’s Freedom Medal,” created via legislation introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., is the first official Defense Department commendation for military working dogs, the New York Times reported.

Menendez announced the passage of the legislation on Tuesday at the U.S. War Dog memorial in Holmdel, New Jersey. The award, included in the latest defense authorization act, will be official when President Trump signs the NDAA, something he’s expected to do in the coming days.

The legislation will allow each service to establish its own criteria for the award, Menendez said, according to the New York Times. Each service also will design its own version of the award.

“These dogs endure multiple tours of duty. Some come back having lost limbs and others give their lives in service to their teams,” Menendez said, according to the New York Times. “Yet until now the U.S. military did not recognize the incredible service and sacrifice of working dogs and their handlers.”

The U.S. War Dog memorial, where Menendez made the announcement, features a bronze statue of a Vietnam War soldier kneeling next to his loyal canine companion. The memorial was built in 2006 next to the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

According to the New York Times, several hundred dogs are currently deployed to the Middle East.

Menendez, who cited the life-saving exploits of several working dogs and their handlers who attended Tuesday’s announcement, said there’s no reason why military dogs should be treated as just equipment or animals.

“If we as a nation can strap a Kevlar vest on Cairo and send him on a mission with SEAL Team 6, or we can deploy dogs like Kira or Khrusty or Rudy to dangerous regions around the world, then I think they deserve more than treats and a pat on the head,” he said.

The new measure is a significant change of pace from the way military dogs were considered at the time of the Vietnam War. According to the New York Times, dogs were often considered to be “equipment” and that many were euthanized or given away to the Vietnamese at the end of their service.

“Honoring [the dogs’] service — as well as their partner — I think is incredibly important. You know, we have lost a lot of dogs along the way who gave their lives … others have been maimed for life,” the senator said. “At the end of the day, I think it’s the least a grateful nation can do for them and for their handlers.”

The planned updates to the My Career Advancement Account online portal, including the move to a new website, were slated to run July 19-27. The site remains down after encountering what officials characterized as “unforeseen technical issues” in a Monday Facebook post.

The program is open to spouses of active-duty service members in paygrades E-1 to E-5, W-1 and W-2, and O-1 and O-2, including spouses of activated members of the Guard and Reserve (Title 10 orders) in those same paygrades. It allows spouses to pursue job-related licenses, credentials or academic degrees from MyCAA scholarship-approved accredited colleges, universities or technical schools.

Via social media and in a statement to Military.com, officials said they are working on a temporary plan that would allow eligible spouses to apply for and manage their MyCAA accounts over the phone. Updates on that plan, and on the website’s relaunch, will be posted at the Defense Department’s Spouse Education and Career Opportunities Facebook page, officials said.

A Defense Department spokeswoman told Military.com that spouses already registered with SECO via Military OneSource would receive updates via email, or via phone if requested.

The change was announced Thursday in a picture that outlined a three-step process, Stripes reported. The message was sent via a command messaging list to DoD personnel.

According to Stripes, the change was made in order to more closely follow Navy policies, and not in response to any specific alcohol-related incidents. While the Navy rules for drinking in foreign countries allow troops to follow local drinking laws, commanders can set the rules based on their discretion, Stripes reported.

In this case, the policy was changed after a recent review and research of Bahraini law determined that it does not establish a drinking age, Lt. Christina Gibson, a U.S. Naval Forces Central Command spokeswoman, told Stripes. As a result, the drinking age was set to be in accordance with the Navy’s policy.

The change will be made through a three-step process to ease the transition, Stripes reported. The first step, which went into effect Thursday, bans the off-base purchase of alcohol by anyone under 21.

The second step will go into effect on Aug. 1 and will ban the under-21 purchase of alcohol on base as well. However, the consumption of alcohol that was purchased prior to the ban on base will still be allowed.

On Sept. 1, a full ban on the consumption of alcohol by anyone under 21 will go into effect.

All eleven families are suing Hunt Southern Group and Hunt MH Property Management, the companies that own and manage the base housing there, over the outbreak of the mold in their homes and the inadequate treatment the companies allegedly provided, which included a simple attempt at removal using soap and water. Specifically, the companies have been accused of fraud, conspirinig to conceal dangerous conditions, breach of contract and gross negligence.

According to the lawsuit, residents’ complaints about the mold started in 2015, and in 2017 environmental testing of the homes led to the discovery of high levels of aspergillus and some stachybotrys. Aspergillus is a fairly common form of mold that does not harm most healthy people in moderation, but a high concentration of the mold can cause long infections, and can spread to other organs. Stachbotrys is better known for its colloqiual name of “black mold” and can cause serious health issues.

According to the Sun Herald, the lawsuits allege that the mold grew in the houses because of poor insulation in the air conditioning system, which led to duct sweats and water damage, a breeding ground for mold. And after the mold began to really spread, the two companies allegedly failed to properly address the issue despite “repeated requests” for help.

Cindy Gersch, vice president of corporate communications for Hunt companies, told the newspaper that the companies have addressed the issues by modifing heating and air conditioning systems to prevent condensation in high humidity. Gersch also claims the companies have hired additional maintainance staff to address the health hazards.

In their lawsuits, the families are seeking compensation for medical bills, moving expenses, punitive damages and attorneys’ fees.

The families all live or lived in homes in West Falcon, Thrower Park and Bay Ridge subdivisions, which are on Air Force property in Biloxi. They were among more than 1,000 homes built as part of a $287 million housing construction project after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The project culminated in March 2010 under the Hunt Building Construction company.

The lawsuits are pending in the U.S. District Court in Gulfport.

Plasma plays an important role in the human body, and it has clotting properties that can stop bleeding, especially in life or death circumstances on the battlefield.

Freeze-dried plasma is easier to transport than the liquid form of plasma, especially in an environment like the battlefield. Plasma needs to be kept cold, so freeze-drying the solution avoids the need to keep it at an optimal temperature while in a medical kit in combat. The product has a shelf life of about two years.

The freeze-dried version of plasma is a powder that only needs to be mixed with sterile water before it can be injected into the patient. The resulting product prevents soldiers from needing to carry actual plasma in coolers or other temperature-regulating storage containers that can be cumbersome and bulky,

The FDA’s approval of the product for use comes nearly a year after House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) tried to allow DoD to approve the product for emergency use in combat. according to The Hill.

The 2018 National Defense Authorization Act would have given DoD that power, but the necessary language was removed from the NDAA after the FDA and its congressional supporters fought back on the change. A new bill was passed that instead authorizes DoD to request the quickening of the FDA’s review of medical products.

The FDA and DoD began working together at the beginning of the year in an effort to fast-track the use of the potentially life saving product, according to the Washington Examiner.

As of January, the US was using the French product until Teleflex Inc. can produce the product for the armed services. France has had approval from their equivalent of the FDA for 24 years.

While the FDA approval of the military use of freeze-dried blood plasma is new, the use of it is not. In March 2017, Lt. Col. Rebecca Carter, then chief of Air Force Special Operation Command’s medical modernization, said that the U.S. used freeze-dried plasma in WWII, but stopped when the use of the product was linked to hepatitis outbreaks because of the unreliable methods of donor screening at the time.

The crew, from the 20th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, was called to help the Coast Guard find a vessel that was missing at sea with six people on board, according to the Defense Department.

On June 25, Capt. Sean Simpson, the aircraft commander, and his crew were flying over Guam when they received a call from the Coast Guard Sector Rescue Coordination Center. They needed help finding a Pacific Island-style canoe that had been missing since June 19, according to DoD.

The sailors, who had minimal provisions, were supposed to make a one-day journey. Their families contacted the Coast Guard for help after they disappeared for six days.

The B-52 crew knew their mission wouldn’t be easy — they didn’t even know what a Pacific Island-style canoe looked like.

“We’d never heard of this kind of vessel before,” Simpson said, according to DoD. “We knew this was going to be a challenge.”

But the crew got a little help from a Disney princess.

“We asked for more details about the vessel,” Simpson said, “and the dispatcher told us, ‘It’s just like the boat from ‘Moana.’”

The crew spent more than three hours scouring the Pacific Ocean for the tiny canoe. Around 2:45 p.m., they finally spotted the small canoe and its six passengers.

The bomber was nearly 19,000 feet in the sky, 1st Lt. Jordan Allen said, making it a small miracle that the crew was able to spot the missing vessel.

The B-52 crew quickly relayed the canoe’s coordinates to the Coast Guard, which in turn contacted a nearby civilian ship to help, according to DoD.

Lt. Col. Jarred Prier, the squadron’s director of operations, believes the mission’s success was a result of the effective training that the crew received.

“Search and rescue isn’t something people typically think of when they talk about the B-52, but our training and adaptability really paid off,” he said. “Being a part of this successful search and rescue operation speaks to the diversity of our skill set and shows our importance here in the Pacific.”

Finnegan, who was deployed in Kuwait at the time, was stuck well above the ground in an aircraft that had lost all displays, navigation instruments and radio. He had no way of knowing the remaining power reserves of the aircraft, the speed he was going or any other necessary flight information.

“I remember looking out the left side, seeing what I could see for visual references, which was nothing, and then hearing the emergency power unit fire,” Finnegan, who is now the plans officer for the Vermont National Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing, told the Air Force. “I looked around and the entire cockpit was blacked out.”

But Finnegan, incredibly, stayed calm and was able to execute a heavy-weight landing on “feel” alone. Not only did he land safely, Finnegan saved the near-inoperable fighter jet from any further damage.

For his actions, Finnegan was awarded the Koren Kolligian Jr. Trophy by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Goldfein during a ceremony Monday at the Pentagon.

“The Kolligian Trophy is one of the most coveted of all aviation awards,” Goldfein said, according to the Air Force. “Recipients are recognized for their extraordinary skill in averting or minimizing the impact of a flight mishap.”

Unable to see and surrounded by desert, Finnegan eventually was able to find his way by following a road that guided him back to base.

He also was able to regain some radio communication with the control tower and flew a low pass by the control tower to confirm that his landing gear was down, according to the Air Force.

Despite the speed breaks and both rear and leading edge flaps being inoperable, Finnegan was able to land the aircraft safely.

“In the F-16, when you’re slow, there’s a feeling of sinking, and when you’re fast, there’s just a feeling of going fast,” Finnegan said, according to the Air Force. “It was finding that happy medium that allowed me to get the aircraft on the ground and come to a full stop.”

The Koren Kolligian Trophy was established in 1957 to memorialize 1st Lt. Koren Kolligian Jr., an Air Force pilot declared missing in the line of duty when his T-33 Shooting Star disappeared off the California coast Sept. 14, 1955, according to the Air Force.

In the “green-on-blue” attack, Hockenberry was shot five times. Two bullets shattered her tibia, one hit her groin and the two remaining bullets hit her stomach.

The attack killed Army Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, the first American general officer to be killed by combat fire since Sept. 11, 2001. It also wounded 17 other coalition and Afghan forces.

Nearly four years later, now-Master Chief Petty Officer Hockenberry has returned to service and has taken up the post of personnel and administrative officer on board the USS Port Royal.

Although that is her official title, “the great thing about being on a ship is that you are anything and everything,” she said.

Hockenberry also recently won eight gold medals and set four records while competing in the 2018 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colorado. She competed in rowing, powerlifting, cycling and swimming.

In four months, she will represent the U.S. at the Invictus Games in Sydney, Australia.

But Hockenberry’s recovery wasn’t easy.

In the attack, she lost almost seven inches of her tibia when it was shattered by bullets.

As part of her recovery process, she wore a Taylor Spatial Frame, a contraption that includes a metal rod that connected the two pieces of her tibia. The frame stretched the bone one millimeter a day to try and reconnect the broken tibia.

Had the treatment, known as “limb salvage,” not worked, doctors would have been forced to amputate.

Due to the severity of her wounds, a medical retirement looked imminent for Hockenberry.

But she refused to give up and continued to work to remain active duty, even doing work on a laptop while recovering at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland.

“I was severely injured to the point where a medical retirement made sense, but I can’t imagine not serving in the military,” Hockenberry said told reporters at the Pentagon during a recent media event. “It’s part of who we are, and my fellow brothers and sisters in the military, we all believe in what we do. And I could not imagine not standing with them.”

During her recovery, she was awarded a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. She also got the chance to return to Afghanistan in 2016 as part of a program called Operation Proper Exit, which brings veterans wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan back to where they were hurt.

Seeing her old working area in Afghanistan was good her, Hockenberry said.

Now that she’s back on active duty, Hockenberry doesn’t plan on giving up that privilege anytime soon.

“It’s just what we do,” she said. “We serve as much as we can. I plan on serving for as long as I can be effective.”

Most importantly, Hockenberry wants to change how she believes the vast majority of people view veterans who were critically wounded in combat.

“One of the big messages I’m trying to bring across is that even though we’ve been injured and hurt, we can still give to the military,” she said. “Because we are people who are fighting to be there. It’s part of who we are.”

The 12 winners represent the service’s top enlisted members and were selected from a pool of 36 nominees based on their superior leadership, job performance and personal achievements.

The winners are listed below in alphabetic order.

Senior Master Sgt. Melissa Beam, Air Combat Command

Beam is the Distributed Ground System-1 Analysis and Reporting Team flight chief for the 497th Operations Support Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia. She oversees a team of 124 airmen, providing 24-hour intelligence to five combatant commanders and in direct support of Operation Inherent Resolve.

Beam entered the Air Force in 1998 and has deployed twice in support of Operation Southern Watch.

Staff Sgt. Elizabeth Caulfield, Air Force District of Washington

Caulfield is assigned to the Signals Analysis Squadron at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, where she analyzes and reports scientific and technical data from worldwide reconnaissance missions.

She joined the Air Force in 2012 and has deployed to Qatar, Greece and England as part of the analysis team for the Combat Sent aircraft.

Staff Sgt. Wilson Gardner, Air National Guard

Gardner is an airfield systems craftsman, assigned to the 202nd Engineering Installation Squadron at Robins Air Force Base in Georgia. His responsibilities include managing fixed and mobile meteorological, navigational and air traffic control ground-to-air radio systems.

Gardner is currently on a Title 10 tour in support of United States Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. He has voluntarily deployed for more than 450 days and is currently serving his third tour of duty.

Senior Master Sgt. Ruth Griffin, Air Force Global Strike Command

Griffin is the operations and compliance management flight superintendent for the 2nd Logistics Readiness Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. She is charged with overseeing unit programs and ensuring operational compliance and process efficiency.

Among other things, Griffin is responsible for maintaining Air Force Global Strike Command’s largest supply inventory, valued at more than $700 million.

Tech. Sgt. Brett Laswell, Air Force Special Operations Command

Laswell is in charge of the combat readiness of 41 enlisted Special Mission Aviator personnel, among other responsibilities, at the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt Field in Florida.

Laswell enlisted in the Air Force in 2005 and has worked in various capacities in the aerospace propulsion career field. He has deployed on five occasions, including four times to Afghanistan.

Master Sgt. Kit Lui, Air Force Reserve Command

Lui is the noncommissioned officer in charge of the engineering section of the 433rd Civil Engineer Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio in Texas. His responsibilities include directing and performing civil engineering design, drafting, surveying and contract surveillance to support Air Force facility construction and maintenance programs.

Lui joined the Air Force in 2006 and has deployed to numerous countries and undisclosed locations throughout his career, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait and Syria.

Master Sgt. Joshua Matias, Air Education and Training Command

A Chicago-born native of Milwaukee, Matias began his career as an air traffic control apprentice at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, in 2004.

Now, Matias is the air traffic control tower chief controller for the 14th Operations Support Squadron. While overseeing 28 personnel, he is charged with establishing policy to ensure the safe and expeditious flow of air traffic control operations.

Tech Sgt. David Miller, U.S. Air Forces in Europe

Miller, who joined the Air Force in January 2008, is the unit deployment manager and unit training manager for the 48th Contracting Squadron. He conducts all administrative functions for 48 personnel deployed to support the Air Force’s mission.

Miller has deployed in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Inherent Resolve.

Senior Airman Patrick Schilling, Air Force Materiel Command

As an explosive ordnance disposal technician for the 775th Civil Engineer Squadron, Schilling supports the Utah Test and Training Range, the Air Force’s largest single use contiguous air space.

Schilling was born in Florida and managed a small restaurant in Sarasota before deciding to join the Air Force in 2013.

Tech Sgt. April Spilde, Air Force Space Command

Spilde, a Bravo flight chief at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, leads 135 airmen securing $10.2 billion in space launch assets.

A native of Minneapolis, Spilde has been stationed in Alaska and Washington, D.C., and has also been deployed to Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates since joining the Air Force in 2008.

Senior Master Sgt. Lucero Stockett, Air Mobility Command

Stockett, who grew up in El Paso, Texas, has been with the Air Force since May 2002.

As the superintendent of the 6th Air Refueling Squadron at Travis Air Force Base in California, she oversees the management and supervision of 32 boom operators. Stockett has deployed multiple times in support of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom.

Senior Airman Jon Taitano, Pacific Air Force

Taitano, a combat communicator and client systems technician assigned to the 644th Combat Communications Squadron, 36th Contingency Response Group, 36th Wing, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, is responsible for maintaining and troubleshooting classified and unclassified communications systems in direct support of combat communicators, among other roles.

Taitano graduated from the University of Guam with a degree in biology in 2006, and was promoted to senior airman in August 2017.