In a notice expected in the Federal Register on Thursday, the Defense Department will launch a three-year pilot in September that will reimburse eligible troops to preserve their gametes before deployment.

The benefit, required under the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, will pay service members up to $500 per year for sperm retrieval and cryopreservation and $10,000 per year for egg preservation services.

Those eligible include active-duty DoD personnel who receive orders qualifying for hazardous duty pay, those who expect to get such orders within 120 days and those geographically separated from a “spouse, domestic partner or dating partner” for 180 days or more.

Military families and family planning advocates have lobbied for more than a decade to increase access to fertility services, to include cryopreservation of sperm and egg cells before combat deployments, in vitro fertilization and other advanced reproduction treatments.

In 2014, the Bob Woodruff Foundation sponsored a one-of-a-kind, two-day conference on intimacy and family issues among the combat injured that highlighted the need among wounded personnel to have broader access to family planning counseling, gamete banking and fertility treatments.

Nearly 2,000 troops received debilitating injuries to their groins or genital regions between 2000 and 2013, and 307,000 service members experienced some type of head injury during the same time frame — injuries that sometimes can affect fertility and sex drive.

In 2016, then Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Pentagon would begin covering sperm and egg freezing for service members, but the planned pilot never came to fruition following the election later that year of President Donald Trump.

Military families have often spent their own money on cryopreservation as a safeguard, and in extreme cases, have paid to extract sperm from dying loved ones to ensure the possibility of advanced reproductive services.

In 2019, the parents of West Point Cadet Peter Zhu extracted their son’s sperm after he was fatally injured in a skiing accident. They argued in court that Zhu had expressed wanting to have a family someday, and they wanted to preserve his sperm to provide future options.

In Israel, since the start of the Gaza conflict, the military has started offering the option to retrieve the sperm of deceased service members when delivering casualty notifications, according to The New York Times.

Since at least 2022, organizations such as the Military Family Building Coalition, Resolve: The National Infertility Association and others have provided free cryopreservation services to some service members, but until now, no government assistance has been available for deploying troops.

How the program works

Under the pilot, service members can elect to obtain preservation services at a military treatment facility that offers reproductive programs or through a civilian clinic of their choice.

Commanders must validate eligibility, as the Defense Health Agency does not have access to orders. To receive reimbursement, eligible troops must have written affirmation from their commands.

Reimbursement must be requested within 120 days after covered services began — usually the date of retrieval, prescription or lab procedure. Troops must submit itemized invoices and DHA Form 459.

Service members could be eligible for the program more than once within the three-year pilot. Any decisions regarding continued storage, disposition or later use following participation “are solely the responsibility of the covered member and outside the scope of the program,” according to the announcement.

Throughout the pilot, the DoD plans to study the program’s popularity, its cost, continued feasibility and impact on readiness, according to the announcement.

More information on the benefit will be available in the Aug. 13 edition of the Federal Register.

“It’s an order that’s long overdue,” Trump said during a signing ceremony at the White House, flanked by more than a dozen military spouses who will be part of the new commission. The President’s Military Spouse Commission will make suggestions for improving quality of life in the areas of spouse employment, housing, education, childcare, healthcare, deployment-related support “and just about everything else you can think of,” Trump said.

He noted the strains of separation from loved ones deployed overseas and the frequency of permanent change of station moves.

These are “generational issues that are long overdue to address,” said Jennifer Hegseth, wife of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and chairman of the commission, which will include more than 20 members.

For more than a decade, military spouses have struggled with unemployment rates above 20%, in addition to various problems with housing, lack of affordable childcare and persistent issues with access to health care.

The commission’s duties will include connecting with military spouses to determine common areas of concern, according to the executive order.

Commission members will include Christie Mullin, the wife of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, as well as the spouses of the service secretaries, spouses of the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and spouses of the services’ senior enlisted advisers.

“It means the world to me that you highlight the enlisted corps,” said one senior enlisted member’s wife who spoke at the ceremony.

Trump said that collectively, these spouses have more than 400 years of experience as active-duty spouses.

“America couldn’t have the strongest military in the world without the love and devotion of our remarkable military spouses, who make extraordinary sacrifices for our country,” Trump said.

The spouses will serve without compensation, but they may receive reimbursement for travel expenses. The group will meet each month at the White House and will provide a report on the issues at the end of each fiscal year for as long as the commission exists. The commission will end two years from now, unless the president extends it, according to the executive order.

It’s unclear how or if the commission will work with the congressionally mandated Department of Defense Family Readiness Council, which is now in the process of being reconstituted. That council hasn’t met since DOD ordered a review of all advisory committees in early 2025. For over ten years, the council examined issues affecting military families. At most, they met twice each year.

A congressional push to improve quality of life resulted in pay raises in 2025 that targeted younger enlisted troops, as well as other initiatives. But service officials and families have said there are lingering, persistent concerns in areas such as childcare, spouse employment, housing and healthcare, among others.

Previous initiatives during the Biden and Obama administrations also aimed to raise awareness of issues for military families.

On July 2, two men approached the young sailor, claiming they had lost their wallets and needed help paying for a hotel room.

“The men gained possession of his phone under the pretense of entering reimbursement information electronically,” the father wrote in an email to Military Times. “Shortly afterward, he discovered an unauthorized transfer from his Navy Federal Credit Union account.”

Young service members are increasingly targeted by financial scammers who, in recent years, have employed everything from romance and investment schemes to fraudulent debt-relief offers and rental and housing scams during PCS season. Military spouses have also been targeted.

The Federal Trade Commission reported that military consumers, including active duty, veterans and families, lost $584 million to fraud in 2024.

The incident with the sailor, who is stationed in Suffolk, Virginia, occurred around 5:30 p.m. in the parking lot of a Wawa in Norfolk.

The scammers were able to use his banking app to transfer a large sum of money, according to Norfolk Police Department spokeswoman Noel Lipieko.

“These scams only take seconds to complete,” Lipieko said. “Detectives say entry-level military personnel do appear to be disproportionately impacted by scammers and remind everyone to always be cautious about letting someone you don’t know use your cell phone, by politely declining or offering to call for help on their behalf.”

The investigation into the incident is ongoing.

Carrie Foran Sepulveda, vice president for fraud and physical security strategy at Navy Federal Credit Union, called the scam “digital mugging.” Navy Federal has seen an increase in these parking lot scams over the last few years, she said.

Military-connected consumers are also particularly vulnerable to scams because of frequent moves and changing addresses, said Jason Stverak, chief advocacy officer for the Defense Credit Union Council.

Defense credit unions, meanwhile, use a multi-layered approach to fight fraud and scams, he said. These efforts include consumer education and employee training, but also extensive oversight of the financial institution’s own systems through real-time transaction monitoring, alerts that allow members to confirm or deny suspicious activity, and other checks.

Financial institutions, tech companies, government agencies and law enforcement, among others, are working together to find ways to prevent these scams and help victims recover money when possible.

“I know the military community is a very giving community,” Foran Sepulveda said. However, handing someone an unlocked phone “is the difference between handing them a $20 bill and handing them your whole wallet,” she said. “Even the kindest, most generous person is not going to say, ‘Take my ID, take my credit cards, take everything.’”

Parking lot scammers have also used other tactics, such as feigning an emergency, to gain access to a person’s phone and money. Beyond the in-person encounter, fraudulent phone calls, emails and texts have also proven to be a frequent medium for scammers.

A scammer may pretend to be someone else or send a text message that appears like an innocent wrong number before steering the conversation into precarious territory. The unpaid toll violation notice is another common scam, and some have reported getting calls about being imminently arrested due to not showing up for jury duty.

Foran Sepulveda says Navy Federal and other financial institutions are taking steps to educate their members about the ever-evolving scams.

Financial institutions like Foran Sepulveda’s are liable when fraud occurs with unauthorized transactions, but not for authorized scams. While financial institutions work to detect fraud internally, the problem takes on new complexity when criminals work directly with the target to set them up for a payday.

“If the scammers can convince you, get that trust built with you before you even open your [financial institution’s] app, there’s just no way for us to know what happened before,” Foran Sepulveda said. “At some point, it is your money, and we have to let our members make their own choices.”

There are some red flags institutions look for, however, such as wire transactions — especially high-dollar moves. Once such a scam is detected, financial institutions attempt to prevent money from leaving the account.

Foran Sepulveda said Navy Federal also works with a company that uses artificial intelligence to “scam the scammer,” getting the account information for the money transfer.

So, if a member wants to send money to what they might perceive as an appealing account, “whatever story [they] might come in with, I feel confident in saying no. … I know this account is being used to get scam dollars,” Foran Sepulveda said.

Experts suggest the following when spotting and avoiding scams:

• Watch out for tell-tale signs, including intense pressure to quickly move money.
• Decide on a family code word in case a scammer calls asking for emergency money for a family member “in trouble.”
• Be aware that scammers are now often using AI-generated voice impersonation.
• If you are the victim of fraud or a scam, contact your financial institution immediately and report it to law enforcement.
• Ignore scam texts, but know that they are getting more clever.
• If receiving a call from someone claiming to be from your financial institution, hang up and call that institution directly.

New programs have launched at Naval Station Norfolk and the Hampton Roads area in Virginia, as well as at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Programs launch within the next few weeks at installations in the San Diego, California, area and around Seattle and Tacoma, Washington.

The additions will bring the total number of installations served by MFAN’s PCS Pantry Restock program to 17 across six states. Part of that program is the Fresh Funds initiative that provides the grocery stipend.

The other areas where the program operates are Fort Hood and Fort Bliss, Texas, and Camp Lejeune, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and MCAS New River in North Carolina.

Families in the areas can request the assistance from MFAN directly through its website.

The program was established in response to MFAN’s research over the years that has found military families often face significant out-of-pocket costs when making permanent change of station moves, which can exacerbate financial problems. In the nonprofit’s most recent survey, MFAN found that more than 40% of military family respondents reported low or very low food security.

MFAN’s recent research found that more than 60% of active-duty families who made moves in the past two years paid more than $1,000 out of pocket for expenses related to their move, over and above what the Defense Department pays to move them.

For example, during these relocations, families must replace food, cleaning supplies and other items they couldn’t bring from their previous locations.

MFAN is partnering with Instacart, an online grocery delivery and pickup service, and the program includes delivery of the items to the families. CVS Health is a lead supporter of the PCS Pantry Restock Program.

“Meeting military families where they are — especially during the disruption of a relocation — requires partners like Instacart who share our commitment to making food easier to access,” said Shannon Razsadin, chief executive officer of MFAN, in a statement to Military Times. “Our research shows food insecurity remains a serious challenge for too many military families, and partnerships like this are an important part of the solution.”

How it works

The program starts with MFAN’s PCS Pantry Restock Box to newly arriving families who have signed up. Service members with at least one dependent are eligible, regardless of rank.

The box is stocked with pantry staples, cleaning, and paper goods and delivered to families’ homes, and is valued at $150. After receiving the box, families are invited to fill out a survey, and those who qualify may receive a one-time Fresh Funds code for a $125 grocery stipend, for up to three months, to order groceries and essentials through Instacart. The program doesn’t include military commissaries.

More than 6,000 military families have benefited from the PCS Box program to date.

Across the board, childcare providers struggle with financial issues, with about one in five reporting food insecurity, and about one-third struggling with debt.

Childcare providers across the board are experiencing high levels of stress and depression, researchers with the Buffett Early Childhood Institute at the University of Nebraska found.

In looking at potential solutions to bolster the military childcare provider work force, researchers also noted that poor access to behavioral support is a major reason for turnover, and there’s a high level of acting-out behaviors among children in military childcare.

The research, conducted by the Buffett Early Childhood Institute, provides more insight into military and civilian childcare providers, their needs and their differences.

Among other findings, the researchers determined that a one-time retention bonus of $500 would retain six out of 10 of those who were at risk of leaving for another year.

“You’d be shocked at how little it would take to keep them,” said Walter Gilliam, executive director of the Buffett Early Childhood Institute. “It’s because they want to stay.”

A societal issue

If there aren’t enough childcare providers, fewer children can get care. Access to affordable, high-quality childcare is key to their quality of life, to service members’ readiness and to military readiness, said those who spoke at congressional briefings this week held by the institute, in partnership with the National Military Family Association.

While childcare is a readiness issue for the current force, it’s also a readiness issue for the future force, since many military children follow in the footsteps of their military parents.

Sabrina Dalton, the wife of a Space Force guardian, said she was a preschool teacher until her first child was born more than 11 years ago. She left the work force after failing to find infant care. For her family, like many others in the military, they had many discussions about how to make the numbers work, weighing childcare costs and employment, she said.

But for eight years, until they moved to a state with free pre-Kindergarten for her youngest, she was out of the work force. They were never able to secure on-base childcare.

Dalton, who is the chief operating officer for Operation Child Care Project, said many of the spouses who seek them out to discuss childcare are also struggling with food insecurity and other issues, such as credit card debt, that are related to the effect the lack of childcare has on spouse employment.

As defense officials, lawmakers, private organizations and others have worked for decades to find ways to fill in the gaps of childcare, there has been more of a focus on recruiting and retaining childcare providers.

Stephen Simmons, deputy assistant secretary of defense for military community and family policy, said defense officials have worked on overhauling the compensation models for military child care providers and have been hiring specialists who can help with special needs, such as behavioral problems, in military child care centers.

Since June 2025, different efforts have reduced the amount of unmet need from 12,000 child care spaces to about 9,000 on wait lists across the Defense Department, Simmons said.

Half of the unmet need is located at about 20 installations, he said. And the problem can’t be solved solely by building more child development centers, which can take six years in the military construction process.

This need for child care is a societal issue, being felt across the country, Simmons said, with local, regional and national shortages of child care providers.

Those employees are critical to providing child care of high quality for military children.

“We’re going to change the idea that daycare is where you park a kid so a parent can go to work,” said Raleigh Duttweiler, chief impact officer of the National Military Family Association.

These are the most formative years of a child’s life, and they deserve to be in high quality childcare, she said.

‘It’s a calling’

According to results of the 2023 research — made public at briefings this week — of the 91 on-base military childcare providers who were surveyed, 63% of those said low pay is the leading reason for leaving the field, compared to 54.8% of the 231 military providers off base and 63.8% of the 24,285 non-military child care providers.

The on-base providers were indeed twice as likely to have actually left the field in the previous year as those off base, with 33% reporting leaving in the previous year.

Yet, military childcare providers are more committed to the field, with 51% of on-base providers planning to make it their careers.

For many of these employees, Simmons said, “It’s a calling.”

Many of the on-base providers are also older and more experienced, Gilliam said. On-base providers had a median of 20 years of experience in the field, compared to 18 years for military providers off base, and 16 years for non-military providers.

The down side, Gilliam noted, is that they also may be getting closer to retirement.

It’s unclear how many of the providers who left the field did so because of permanent change of station moves, since some are military spouses.

In addition to retention bonuses, another solution is to provide better access to support in dealing with children who have challenging behaviors.

Researchers found that a major reason for provider turnover is poor access to behavioral support. That access is “very weak” in off-base military child care programs, they found. More than half of those programs permanently expelled at least one child in the previous year, compared to one-third of on-base programs and 39% of non-military programs.

The rates of children’s mental health concerns are also greatest in off-base care, although about half of classrooms across the board reported that at least half or more of the children in their classrooms were “externalizing” their problems, or acting out.

More off-base military providers and non-military providers reported that children were internalizing problems, or exhibiting physical signs, such as unexplained headaches or stomach aches.

According to the most recent Blue Star Families Military Lifestyle Survey, 20% of active duty families with children have at least one child receiving mental health care, and another 13% would like for their child to receive care.

Other findings of the research into child care providers include:

• Stress is high across the board among providers, with the highest rate, 24%, reported in on-base providers, followed by 23% in non-military and 18% in off-base military providers.
• Depression rates are also high across the board, with about one-third of providers screening positive for depression.
• On-base providers and those providing care for military children off base are also more likely to have childcare credentials. Nearly half hold a Child Development Associate credential, the most widely recognized credential in early childhood education.
• On-base providers have better benefits, with nearly 60% having access to health insurance, 65% with retirement benefits, 54% with paid family leave and 42% with access to employee assistance programs.

She left behind a teaching career she loved in San Antonio, Texas. Since arriving in California, Pasco has spent months navigating state credentialing requirements including additional coursework, English learner authorization and California-specific licensing before she can return to the classroom.

“The fastest way to get ghosted after a job interview is by telling them you’re a military spouse,” Pasco said. “They’ll say, ‘You’ve lived in a lot of places,’ and then comes the awkward, ‘Yeah … I’m a military spouse.’ That’s why I’ve had jobs in different states. After that, I usually don’t hear from them again.”

Repeated rejection has taken a toll.

“I had a full breakdown today because it’s never been this hard,” she said. “I have three degrees and more than 10 years of experience, and people look at me like I have nothing to offer.”

Pasco isn’t alone. Military spouse employment has become a recurring concern for military leaders, lawmakers and military family organizations, which have increasingly linked spouse employment to family financial stability, quality of life and retention.

In efforts to address the issue, Congress has advanced bipartisan legislation, the Defense Department has expanded employment programs and nonprofit organizations and private employers have invested heavily in helping military spouses enter the workforce.

Even so, the Military Family Advisory Network’s 2025 Military Family 360 Report, released in June, found unemployment among active-duty spouses actively seeking work climbed to 29.9% in 2025, up from 21.8% in 2023.

A decade of attention

Congress has spent more than a decade trying to reduce the employment barriers military spouses face.

Lawmakers expanded federal hiring preferences, supported interstate occupational licensing reforms and backed Defense Department programs intended to ease employment transitions after permanent change-of-station moves.

More recently, bipartisan lawmakers introduced the Military Spouse Hiring Act, which would add military spouses to the federal Work Opportunity Tax Credit and offer employers a tax incentive to hire them.

The legislation has not become law, but Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said his office is now pursuing the proposal through broader legislation to reauthorize and expand the Work Opportunity Tax Credit.

“The problem of military spouse unemployment and underemployment is a difficult one to easily solve,” Beyer told Military Times.

Frequent relocations, assignments to rural or economically depressed communities, deployments and unpredictable military schedules continue to disrupt careers in ways most civilian families never experience, he said.

Beyer said Congress has made progress, pointing to expanded hiring preferences and growing employer engagement, while acknowledging that legislation alone has not consistently translated into better outcomes.

“A consistent challenge has been in the implementation of various well-meaning federal initiatives,” he said.

Federal hiring preferences have created opportunities, Beyer said, but lengthy hiring timelines, limited awareness of available programs and complicated eligibility requirements often reduce their impact for military spouses who may relocate again within a few years.

“We can and should do better in holding ourselves accountable in measuring progress and changing course if a specific program is falling short,” he said.

Barriers remain

MFAN’s 2025 Military Family 360 Report found unemployment among active-duty spouses actively seeking work increased sharply over the past two years, while 55.9% reported being underemployed, meaning they earned less than they needed, worked fewer hours than they wanted or held positions below their education or level of experience.

Shannon Razsadin, chief executive officer of the Military Family Advisory Network said, “What’s remained consistent is the structural nature of the challenge itself.”

Blue Star Families reached a similar conclusion through a three-year longitudinal study conducted with Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families. Despite being a highly educated population, only 22% of participating military spouses maintained full-time employment throughout the study, even though 43% held advanced degrees.

Researchers found that repeated PCS moves, child care challenges, occupational licensing requirements and the demands of military life continued to interrupt careers long after spouses entered the workforce.

“One of the biggest misunderstandings is that military spouse employment is primarily a job-search problem,” said Lindsay Knight, chief impact officer at Blue Star Families. “It is more accurately a career-continuity problem.”

The organization’s research also found that military spouses often accepted positions below their qualifications because those jobs offered greater flexibility or were easier to leave when military orders arrived. Child care repeatedly emerged as a deciding factor in whether spouses accepted promotions, reduced their hours or left the workforce altogether.

Beyond getting hired

As senior vice president of programs and events at Hiring Our Heroes, Elizabeth O’Brien has spent more than a decade helping military spouses connect with employers. During that time, she has watched opportunities expand in ways that were difficult to imagine when she entered the field.

“If there has been a time to be a military spouse that wants to enter the workforce, there’s better opportunity now than there has ever been,” she said.

Remote work has expanded. Employer partnerships have grown. Programs such as the Department of Defense’s SpouseWorks program (formerly SECO), have broadened access to fellowships and career services.

Still, O’Brien cautioned against expecting legislation alone to solve the problem.

“I don’t know that Congress can legislate everything that needs to happen,” she said.

Military spouses often navigate challenges that extend well beyond the hiring process. Frequent moves interrupt professional networks. Occupational licensing requirements differ from state to state. Child care availability can determine whether a spouse is able to accept or keep a job. Even resume screening systems can struggle to interpret employment histories shaped by repeated relocations.

O’Brien agreed with researchers who argue that maintaining a career has become as important as finding the next job.

“I agree with the goal of career continuity,” she said. “But we have to start at the very beginning before we can get there”

O’Brien believes employers also have an opportunity to think differently about retention. Rather than measuring success solely by whether a military spouse remains with one company, O’Brien said industries should work together to retain talent across employers when military families relocate.

A financial professional who moves from one institution to another after a PCS, for example, has continued building a career even if the employer changes.

“If the industry is working together,” she said, “the military spouse has a better opportunity for career continuity.”

The stakes extend beyond professional fulfillment. Blue Star Families found 77% of military families now rely on two incomes to meet their financial needs, up from 63% in 2019.

Interrupted careers can delay promotions, reduce earning potential and make it more difficult for families to regain financial footing after each move.

For Pasco, those realities are measured one application at a time.

Every PCS has meant rebuilding professional relationships, learning another state’s requirements and explaining why her resume spans multiple duty stations instead of a single community.

“I’m not asking for special treatment,” she said. “I just want someone to look at my experience and see what I can actually do.”

“New Mexicans who have been affected by these exposures deserve compensation and they deserve to get that compensation free from bad actors attempting to take advantage of them,” Lopez said in a release shortly after a major expansion and extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was signed into law on July 4, 2025.

The measure finally included the New Mexico “Downwinders” from the Trinity blast and their surviving families who were excluded from coverage when RECA initially passed in 1990. Previously, it covered only specific counties in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, which had been exposed to fallout from the more than 900 atomic tests, including 100 above ground, at the Nevada test range between January 1951 and September 1992.

The government at the time claimed there was insufficient data on the impacts of the fallout from the Trinity test to include New Mexico in the coverage.

When the new RECA bill passed last year as part of President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful” tax-cutting bill, it was the first time in 80 years since the Trinity blast that the government acknowledged New Mexicans were entitled to federal assistance.

At a virtual news conference Tuesday, two days before the 81^st anniversary of the Trinity blast, advocates for expanding and extending the current RECA Act, which is set to sunset in 2028, also warned again of the continuing attempts by scam artists to steal compensation from the victims.

Rep. Gabe Vasquez, D-N.M., said the long-awaited compensation for the Downwinders had also “opened the door to rampant fraud,” and he urged those eligible for the $100,000 to guard against “bad actors in our community.”

Vasquez also called for the current RECA act to be extended for another 15 years past the 2028 deadline to ensure all victims are compensated.

He urged that the compensation be increased from $100,000 to $150,000.

Even before claims under the new RECA Act could be filed, scammers allegedly were at work last July at a booth at the Eastern Navajo Fair in Crown Point, New Mexico. The booth boasted of assistance in filing claims, according to Maggie Billman, a member of the Sawmill Warriors group advocating for radiation survivors of the Navajo nation.

Billman told Native News Online that she was alarmed by the supposedly official claims forms attendants at the booth were handing out. The forms asked for Social Security Numbers, phone numbers and the hospital where treatment was given.

“I looked at the woman and I said, ‘This is not RECA. Why don’t you give me your business card, and I’ll be in touch? I know a lot about this bill.’ That’s when they stopped talking to me, and I walked away,” Billman said.

Tina Cordova, a co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium advocacy group and a cancer survivor herself, was not surprised at Billman’s experience with the scammers. She added that she would continue to advocate for New Mexicans with illnesses that do not qualify for compensation under RECA.

“I think that it’s high time our government realizes that we are not going to stand for justice for some,” Cordova said. “We are in favor of justice for not just a few, but justice for the many, and we will continue to fight until we receive justice for all.”

Since RECA was enacted in 1990, the program has approved over 41,000 claims, totaling more than $2.6 billion to Downwinders, according to the Justice Department, which administers the program.

The virtual news conference came two days before the 81^st anniversary of the Trinity blast. In 1945, an eclectic group of scientists enrolled by physicist Robert Oppenheilmer to develop and detonate an atomic bomb gathered in the New Mexico desert to watch whether the thing they called “the gadget” would actually work and usher the world into the atomic age.

The plutonium bomb of about 19-21 kilotons went off at what was then called 5:59 a.m. Mountain War Time with a blinding light visible over a 160-mile radius. It sent up a fiery mushroom cloud hotter than the core of the sun, according to numerous accounts of that morning by the participants and others.

New Mexicans were told nothing. They were not warned before nor after the blast. The public was not told of the Trinity blast until the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war with Japan.

In the interim, the U.S. Army put out a not-to-worry release attributing the colossal blast and fallout to an ammo dump explosion: “Explosion of an ammunition magazine on the Alamogordo Air Base reservation this morning, heard and seen for many miles, was reported today by William O. Eareckson, commanding officer of the air base. There was no loss of life or injuries of persons, Earekson said.”

The Trinity site is now part of the Army’s White Sands Missile Range, which planned no ceremonies nor open house events to mark the anniversary.

The site is opened to the public only once a year in October, and visitors are warned against picking up any of the strange so-called “Trinitite” green and red rocks that were formed when desert sand was sucked up into the mushroom cloud and heated to a glass-like substance before falling back to earth.

The Trinitite still contains tiny traces of radiation. It’s against the law for visitors to try to take the rocks home as souvenirs.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., raised concerns about anti-competitive tactics, questioning the practice of allowing Express Scripts — the largest pharmacy benefit manager in the United States — to have the contract as exclusive administrator of the Tricare pharmacy program, while owning and operating two mail-order pharmacies, Express Scripts Pharmacy and Accredo Specialty Pharmacy.

She questioned whether Express Scripts drives more business to itself, pushing local pharmacies out of the Tricare network and limiting beneficiaries’ access to more personalized local care.

“That is a clear conflict of interest,” Warren said during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services’ personnel subcommittee. It’s “an open invitation for Express Scripts to milk the federal government, kick out competitors, and steer big bucks to itself.”

Warren, ranking member of that subcommittee, said DoD requires the Tricare pharmacy contractor to own both a pharmacy benefit manager and a pharmacy.

The contractor, Express Scripts, receives a fixed administrative fee per prescription filled at retail pharmacies or the mail order pharmacy, said Dr. David J. Smith, a retired Navy rear admiral who is deputy director of the Defense Health Agency. The contractor can’t generate revenue from the prices of drugs, he said, and the DoD model eliminates common commercial industry profit mechanisms.

Under the mail-order program, the government buys the drugs, and Express Scripts dispenses the drugs and are paid that administrative fee. The amount of that fee, or other information about the contract, is not public knowledge, as DoD and Express Scripts consider it proprietary information.

Beneficiaries pay $14 per prescription filled through the mail order pharmacy and $16 at network retail pharmacies. That money isn’t kept by Express Scripts; it goes to the Defense Health Agency, said Adam Kautzner, president of Express Scripts and Evernorth Care Management. Beneficiaries can get their prescriptions filled at military treatment facilities at no charge.

In general, DoD has been trying to move to mail order because it’s cheaper, Smith said, and because of the convenience for beneficiaries.

DoD continues to find ways to deliver the benefit to make sure beneficiaries have access to their medication, in a “fiscally responsible way,” he said, adding that they’re also working on ways to shore up the supply chain for medications.

But as the government contractor, Express Scripts decides which pharmacies are in the Tricare retail pharmacy network and how much they are reimbursed.

Since 2022, more than 13,000 local pharmacies have left the network, leaving nearly 400,000 military families scrambling to find a new pharmacy in network, Warren said.

Currently, there are 46,000 retail pharmacies across the country that voluntarily participate in the Tricare retail pharmacy network, Kautzner said. As a result, 98% of beneficiaries have a retail option within 15 minutes of their home, he said, which exceeds the contract requirements.

Of the 46,000 pharmacies in the network, 16,000 are independent pharmacies.

Among those pharmacies that left the network was Roden-Smith Pharmacy in Clovis, N.M. Its owner, Micah Lansford, testified that the terms of the contract Express Scripts offered his pharmacy forced them out of the program in 2023.

Under the previous contract, the pharmacy had been reimbursed an average of about $0.37 below their actual cost for the 6,750 prescriptions they filled, causing the pharmacy to lose nearly $2,500 in 2022.

Under the terms of the contract Express Scripts proposed for 2023, Roden-Smith would have lost nearly $9 on average for each prescription and $60,000 for the same volume in 2023.

Lansford described the real-life consequences for the military community of. having fewer local pharmacies.

“Community pharmacies like mine provide a higher level of personal care, easier access,” he said.

He gave the example of a disabled U.S. Air Force retiree, whose caregiver relied on Lansford to review each monthly fill of medications, reconciling any changes and making sure his medications still made sense.

He also spoke of young active duty spouses who could no longer use his pharmacy drive-thru to pick up an antibiotic for their child, but are instead waiting in long lines to get onto base, hoping the antibiotic is in stock at the military pharmacy.

Greg Reybold, vice president of the American Pharmacy Cooperative, which includes about 1,500 independent pharmacies, said while Express Scripts touts the savings of the mail order pharmacy, it’s cheaper to fill prescriptions at the retail pharmacies than through Express Scripts mail order.

Filling generic drugs at Tricare retail pharmacies is cheaper for beneficiaries, and for the Defense Health Agency, he said. If for example, the drug costs the pharmacy $3, the beneficiary pays that instead of the usual $16 Tricare copay.

When 13,000 retail pharmacies left the network, he said, “the only winner was the Express Scripts mail order pharmacy,” because beneficiaries were forced to use that pharmacy.

Reybold and Lansford both called for an independent audit of the pharmacy program.

“We have a strong desire to serve these people, and want to be there for them,” Lansford said. “And we want a fair deal to provide service.”

Under the new memorandum of understanding, VA and HHS plan to increase clinical trial participation, train therapists, nurses and doctors to administer psychedelic medications if they receive federal approval and collect data and evidence to support patients, physicians and federal regulators in considering such treatments.

The agreement follows an executive order signed in April by President Donald Trump that directed the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate its review of several psychedelic treatments for mental illnesses.

The order largely addressed research for ibogaine, a hallucinogen derived from an African shrub, that some veterans have found helpful in ameliorating anxiety, PTSD and depression symptoms. It commits at least $50 million to increase research on ibogaine therapy.

Studies on PTSD in the general population have shown that a third may be resistant to traditional treatments, with up to 50% not responsive to psychological therapy and 40% untreatable with common medications.

An estimated 4.8 million American veterans have used psychedelic drugs, according to a study released last month by the think tank RAND.

Included in Monday’s message was the announcement that the VA signed an agreement with the Food and Drug Administration to increase collaboration to support the development of therapies for treating serious mental health conditions.

“President Trump opened up a world of possibility for treating veterans and others with mental health conditions, and VA is proud to be part of this important work,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “Today’s MOU ensures effective cooperation with HHS as we try to turn research into life-changing treatment.”

VA researchers are involved in more than 20 research trials on the use of psychedelics like MDMA and psilocybin for treating severe post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, substance abuse and other mental health conditions.

Studies also are underway in the Defense Department: a $4.9 million research study is ongoing at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on the effectiveness of MDMA — known commonly as Molly or Ecstasy — for the treatment of mild to moderate PTSD.

According to RAND, the most common hallucinogens used by veterans across their lifetimes were LSD, with 19.6% reporting its use, followed by psilocybin, or magic mushrooms at 18.6%, MDMA and mescaline, both at 7.7%.

Fewer than 2.9% reported using another type of hallucinogenic drug such as ibogaine, ketamine or ayahuasca.

The study also found that veterans were more likely to support the legal use of psilocybin mushrooms and LSD — 23% for mushrooms and 11% for LSD — but support for MDMA, at 9%, was about the same as the rest of the country.

Ron Adkins, an Army Reserve intelligence analyst and veterans advocate who deployed twice to Afghanistan, was on hand Monday for the MOU signing. He said the significance of the agreement lies in exploring new approaches to “the complexity of mental illness.”

“The cognitive space is a very complex environment. We are all very different people, so the treatments that might work very well for one person could be wholly ineffective for another,” Adkins said in an interview with Military Times. “I’m hoping we get better answers on what is effective for [veterans] trying to figure this out.”

U.S. veterans have traveled to Israel, Mexico and elsewhere in the past decade to receive psychedelic treatment for mental health disorders, often paying thousands of dollars out of pocket for the promise of relief.

Adkins said that should not happen.

“We need to continue to innovate as we as a nation does,” Adkins said.

In 2024, the FDA rejected a request that MDMA be approved for treating PTSD in adults, saying more research was needed to determine its safety and efficacy. The VA is conducting such a study in Providence, Rhode Island, with 80 veterans, comparing MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD and substance use with a placebo.

VA officials say while the department is studying treatments that use Schedule I drugs prohibited in the U.S. under federal law, veterans are discouraged from self-medicating with these substances or replacing their medical treatment with unprescribed substances.

“Proven, evidence-based treatments, are currently available at VA facilities to treat veterans with mental health conditions. Veterans should always consult their health care providers before making any treatment decisions,” officials said in a press release.

In a letter to one beneficiary dated July 2 and provided to Military Times, TriWest officials said they had discovered a security incident April 16, in which an unauthorized person gained limited, unauthorized access to TriWest information and downloaded it.

“We are unaware of any misuse of your information,” officials stated in the letter, but they went on to say TriWest is offering a free credit-monitoring service for those who feel it’s needed.

The unauthorized person obtained health-related and other personal information, specifically names, Department of Defense Benefits Numbers and beneficiaries’ ZIP codes. Officials said that in fewer than five instances, the information also included Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth.

About four million beneficiaries are covered by TriWest, the managed care contractor for the Tricare West Region. Active duty, retired, National Guard and Reserve, and their family members, survivors and certain former spouses receive their health care under DoD’s Tricare program, with eligibility determined by the Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System, or DEERS.

TriWest is notifying each beneficiary about what information was involved in their specific case.

The timing of the notifications was unclear, since at least one letter was dated July 2, about two and a half months after the incident occurred.

“With regard to timing, as soon as the incident was discovered, TriWest took immediate action to prevent any further unauthorized activity and worked diligently with the government to notify affected individuals, consistent with applicable law and notification timelines,” TriWest officials said in an email response to Military Times.

The company hired a third-party forensic expert to review what information was accessed during the incident.

Beneficiaries who want to use the free credit-monitoring service, offered through Experian for 24 months, should enroll by the deadline provided in their notification letter, using the activation code and instructions included in the letter.

Those who find suspicious activity should notify the TriWest Healthcare Alliance Breach Response Line, at 1-833-918-1296. Beneficiaries who believe they are victims of identity theft should file a report with the Federal Trade Commission at identitytheft.gov.

The company has taken steps to prevent any other such incidents, officials said, including increasing security controls related to password resets, strengthening system access monitoring tools and providing additional employee education on identifying and mitigating the different types of cyber attacks.