Command Sgt. Maj. Matthew Carlson was fired on July 16 “due to a loss of trust and confidence in his leadership,” Army spokesman Neil Ruggiero said in an email to Army Times.

Carlson was relieved after a “thorough” investigation that “pertained to alcohol-related incidents,” Ruggiero said.

He did not provide further details regarding potential charges or other repercussions for Carlson.

Carlson has been temporarily assigned duty at Headquarters, U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa.

Sgt. Maj. Frank Batts, the command sergeant major of the 54th Brigade Engineer Battalion, has been appointed the acting brigade command sergeant major.

Carlson enlisted in 1999 and deployed to Colombia, Latvia, Lithuania, Iraq and Afghanistan during his career, Ruggiero confirmed. He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for his service.

Prior to taking his senior enlisted position in March 2023, the paratrooper served with the brigade’s 1st Battalion (Airborne), 503rd Infantry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, 503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment, according to a brigade Facebook post.

The brigade is a forward-deployed airborne unit based out of Vicenza, Italy, that falls under U.S. Army Europe and Africa. It has recently supported NATO forces. Members trained in Ukraine in late 2021 prior to the Russian invasion of the country.

Military.com first reported Carlson’s firing.

Gen. Daniel Hokanson, 61, previously served as the director of the Army National Guard and 11th vice chief of the National Guard Bureau before taking the post as bureau chief in 2020.

The Happy Camp, California, native commissioned as an Army second lieutenant after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1986.

As an aviation officer, Hokanson served as a scout platoon leader and flight operations officer with 2nd Squadron, 9th Cavalry, 7th Infantry Division, during Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1990. Hokanson left the active Army for the Oregon Army National Guard in 1995.

Through various postings and promotions, Hokanson would later serve in both Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom, where he commanded the 41st Infantry Brigade during their March 2008 to July 2010 deployment.

Hokanson spoke with Army Times about his four-year tenure as chief of the National Guard Bureau, which oversees the Army National Guard and Air National Guard. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

Military Times: What was the position of the Guard when you took command?

Daniel Hokanson: If you go back to August of 2020 when I came into the job, it was the height of COVID-19, we didn’t have a vaccination yet. We had a lot of civil unrest across the country. It was a busy time for the Guard. That summer in one day we had 120,000 Guardsmen mobilized for COVID and civil disturbances. We also had several large deployments at that time as well. Then, of course, we had the vaccination late that year. And in early 2021 we had the events surrounding Jan. 6 when we mobilized 26,000 Guardsmen from every state and territory, and they were there for the president’s inauguration. When you roll that into, once again, some serious natural disaster years with wildfires, hurricanes, flooding and then we had the withdrawal from Afghanistan, it was kind of like one thing after another.

What did you draw from that, looking back?

I think the common theme, all of which still amazes me today, is that regardless of what was happening, the Guard met every single mission set they were given. It’s just a testament to the value of having the National Guard. So, when our local capabilities, either here or military capabilities, are exceeded, the Guard is always there to provide capability and capacity when and where our nation needs it.

How has the Guard modernized along with the active Army over these past four years?

Prior to becoming chief, I was the director of the Army National Guard and one of the things we were able to do then was reestablish the division force structure of the Guard. We had all these disparate units so what we did was reestablish the eight divisions in the Guard, and by doing that, the total Army went from 10 divisions, only on the active side, to 18 total divisions when including the Guard. We want to have enough capability to deter somebody from doing anything, so we don’t reach war. When I look at all our formations, I ensure they look like their active-duty counterparts so that when a combatant commander has them deployed to him or her, they can be used just like an active-duty unit. That’s meant upgrading communications equipment, improving maintenance schedules and training for Guardsmen. On the air side we have more than 1,000 aircraft in the Air National Guard. We fly everything except the B-1 bomber and the B-52. We’ve got F-35s. So, we’ve got a lot of experience and capability in our fighter squadrons.

The active Army has struggled with recruiting in recent years but excelled at retention. How’s the Guard doing on that front?

We’re doing extremely well. We’re meeting all our recruiting goals and we’re scheduled to meet our end-strength by the end of this fiscal year. Part of that is due to the proposition that we’re different and we’re looking for a different kind of person. Like the active component, we’re looking for people who want to serve their country, but also people who want to live where they want to live. I think it’s one of the reasons why our recruiting is going so well.

How have Guardsmen adapted to the ongoing pace of deployments that started after 9/11 and has continued?

Everybody in the Guard right now who has come in after 9/11 or reenlisted after 9/11 came in with the expectation that they are going to deploy overseas. On a day-to-day basis we’re probably at 23,000 deployed Guardsmen around the globe. And when I visit these units a lot of these soldiers say, “Hey, I can’t wait for another opportunity to deploy.” That’s part of our model, which is on a five-year cycle for unit deployments. When you go back to Jan. 28 when we had the drone strike on the Al-Tanf garrison in Syria, we had 41 Guardsmen wounded that day. That shows the kind of presence that we’ve got in the Middle East and all over the world. I visited that unit and they really understood the value of what they were doing.

A “light brigade combat team” made up of soldiers from 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division recently completed a six-month rotation as part of the service’s Operation Pathways program that pairs Army units with partner forces in the region for training in the host nation.

Maj. Gen. Marcus Evans, 25th ID commander, told reporters Friday that the brigade trained, tested and used various new technologies and equipment for the first time during the tour.

Soldiers worked alongside Philippine counterparts with the 7th Infantry Division out of Fort Magsaysay, Philippines.

Evans and division Command Sgt. Maj. Shaun Curry both said some of the immediately noticeable changes came in how quickly they could maneuver large groups of soldiers and detect threats at even the lowest unit level.

Squad leaders had their own small drones to recon their area as far as three to five kilometers ahead. Traditionally, they would have had to rely on drones at higher-level units such as the company or battalion, all competing with demands from other squads or platoons.

That allows units to rely less on the limited number of trained forward observers needed to call in fire or direct aircraft to strike a target.

But at the same time, those drone operators require some extra considerations, according to Evans.

“Before you bring in a helicopter to a landing zone, you now have to make sure that that airspace has been cleared from the small unmanned aerial systems that maybe have been performing a reconnaissance task,” Evans said.

Platoons also had electromagnetic detection equipment to see otherwise hidden enemy communications signatures that might have gone unnoticed, such as those emitted from adversary drones.

“It is very challenging in today’s environment to hide, and so, the sooner you can identify the threat that is intended to come at you and your formations, the better able you are to position yourself to mitigate that threat,” Evans said.

Less hi-tech but just as valuable were new devices such as the Silent Tactical Energy Enhanced Dismount, or STEED.

STEED is a casualty-carrying device that works as a kind of a combination wheelbarrow/stretcher, powered with an electric motor, allowing a single soldier to transport up to three casualties or 500 pounds, rather than using an entire squad of nine or more soldiers out of the fight to move casualties.

But soldiers saw more potential for the STEED than simply carrying wounded.

The same device was used to transport a company’s worth of communication equipment, while others were used to haul cumbersome 60mm and 81mm mortar systems, easing the burden on soldiers and speeding up their movement, Curry said.

Other speed-related initiatives include experimentation back in Hawaii with newly issued Infantry Squad Vehicles, or ISVs which showed brigade and battalion planners how they could attack at comparatively lightning speed when compared with traditional foot movement, helicopters or larger trucks, Evans said.

Evans said that, with the full complement of the squad vehicles, commanders could move a company or battalion over a 300-kilometer distance without support from larger units and disperse that company or battalion across the battlespace, making it harder for an adversary to detect or defeat.

Though the 3rd Brigade did not take ISVs to the Philippines, its fellow 25th Division unit, the 2nd brigade, plans to use them at an upcoming October rotation at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center, or JPMRC, in Hawaii. That rotation will be a validation event, preparing 2nd brigade for its Pacific rotation next year.

The center is one of the Army’s large-scale combat training centers. Similar to its counterparts such as the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California and the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, it is designed to accommodate multiple battalions or brigades for combat-like field training exercises.

A unit rotation at one of the centers is seen as the final test before an overseas deployment.

Third brigade got some early practice, as it was the first to use an exportable JPMRC west of the International Dateline, Evans said.

The exportable version uses observer controllers from the permanent training centers along with mobile equipment to track unit movements, communications and how in-field wargames play out. That setup gives units the ability to have a combat training center-like experience on any site with enough space to accommodate their units.

This mobile ability also means more partner nations, such as the Philippines, can participate on their home turf and receive the same kind of performance analysis, leaders said.

Adding new equipment and adjusting formations to use such gear more effectively is part of the Army’s overall effort, dubbed “Transforming in Contact,” by Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George.

In February, George announced that the service would select several brigades to experiment with networks, cyber and electromagnetic warfare equipment and tactics during their standard rotations.

The ultimate makeup of both personnel, specialties and gear will be determined by the threats of the area and the unit’s mission. George said at the time the experimentation might show that, for example, the electromagnetic warfare needs for an artillery unit might vary from those of a cavalry squadron.

Senior leaders have emphasized a “bottom-up” feedback approach on how to equip and adjust such formations for current threats.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified the 25th Infantry Division brigade that completed the recent Operation Pathways deployment to the Phillippines.

But Ollis’ desire deepened with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City, a surrogate hometown for the Staten Island native. That calling to serve would lead Ollis into some of the most intense combat of the recent wars and an episode that would result in a Distinguished Service Cross and Poland’s highest honor for an allied soldier.

Author Tom Sileo has chronicled the exploits of various heroes of the Global War on Terrorism in five nonfiction books in a little more than a decade.

Those stories include the heroism of Medal of Honor recipient Florent Groberg, three brothers who served as a Navy SEAL, Green Beret and Marine, two U.S. Naval Academy classmates and friends killed in battle and Marine Maj. Megan McClung, the first female academy graduate to die in combat since the school’s founding.

In his recently published sixth book, “I Have Your Back,” Sileo tells Ollis’ life story, what led him to join in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, and what kept him serving as headed out for a third combat deployment — one that ultimately took his life. On that tour in Afghanistan, Ollis saved the life of a Polish soldier he barely knew and became a kind of national hero in that country.

On Aug. 28, 2013, while serving with 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, Ollis was at Forward Operating Base Ghazni, Afghanistan when attackers detonated a 3,000-pound car bomb before an enemy force assaulted the base.

Ollis sent his team to get their gear while he ran toward the blast site with one magazine in his rifle and no body armor. Once there he found Karol Cierpica, a lieutenant with the Polish Army. Cierpica had been wounded by shrapnel to his leg, and Ollis quickly moved him to an area with other soldiers who were returning fire. As Ollis and Cierpica reached the position, an enemy grenade landed and exploded, further wounding Cierpica. As Ollis rendered first aid, the last surviving enemy fighter rushed their position. The attacker was wearing a suicide vest.

Ollis stood up and shielded Cierpica from the blast, saving the lieutenant’s life at the cost of his own.

Sileo spoke with Army Times recently about his work writing military stories, the importance of documenting the narratives of Global War on Terror veterans and his most recent book.

*Editor’s Note: This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: You’ve written a lot about Global War on Terror veterans. Why has this been important to you?

A: I just try to tell as many stories as I can about our troops, veterans and their families to help Americans remember the great men and women who stepped forward to serve and certainly those who made the ultimate sacrifice to make sure we never forget what they did for our country and our families.

Q: How did you learn about Staff Sgt. Ollis’ story and decide to write a book about him?

A: About 10 years ago I got in touch with Staff Sgt. Ollis’ sister, Kimberly. She had read a previous book of mine and reached out to tell me that she thought it was a good book and that her brother had just been killed in Afghanistan. At the time I was writing a syndicated weekly column about the sacrifices of our troops. I said I’d love to interview her and find out more about her brother’s life. She told me how her brother had died to save the life of a Polish soldier, which really struck me. Having been exposed to a lot of stories about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, this was the first time I had heard of an American sacrificing his own life to save a foreign soldier. I wrote a piece about him but over the years I always thought there was more of a story to tell. And his story said a lot, not only about a generation of heroes and about alliances that are so crucial, are even more critical now than they’ve been probably since the Cold War. The fact that Michael could forge a bond in just a few minutes with a soldier from a different country that he’d only just met and then be willing to stand between him and a suicide bomber, it just said a lot to me.

Q: Across the six books you’ve written about individuals in these conflicts, have some themes emerged?

A: If there’s one common thread, I think it’s selflessness, the fact that every subject of every book that I’ve ever written wanted to serve, to save lives. They wanted to serve for the brave man or woman next to them, or for their families. Certainly, in Michael’s case. There’s a line in the book near the funeral and some family and friends have gathered at the Ollis home on Staten Island and an ex-girlfriend of Michael’s was there and she said, “you know, it just hit me that this is what Michael lived for, all of his friends and family being together.” I think that really sums up this generation of volunteer warriors who raised their hands and swore to defend our country and went to these faraway places so that the rest of us didn’t have to.

Q: What value have you found for the individuals you’ve interviewed and shared their stories?

A: Michael’s father was a Vietnam veteran, he never really talked about it with his son until Michael joined the Army. I think one of the touching things about the story is the way they bonded and Michael really helped him with some of his demons from Vietnam by sharing some of the stories from Afghanistan and asking his dad’s advice. I think veterans should keep telling their stories. It’s so critical that we pass on stories like Staff Sgt. Michael Ollis’ and other stories I’ve had the privilege to help tell the next generation because at some point in time, when they’re called upon to preserve our freedom, I think it’s important that they know about those who came before them.

William Sturkey, an associate history professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has focused much of his research and writing on marginalized communities. He found Benavidez’s story, one that bridged major racial shifts in the United States during the tumultuous 20th Century, as emblematic of the Latino community’s struggle for acceptance and success in America.

Sturkey’s book, “The Ballad of Roy Benavidez: The Life and Times of America’s Most Famous Hispanic War Hero,” published in June by Basic Books, dives into the Medal of Honor recipient’s life before, during and after his service and what Sturkey thinks it says about wider issues within marginalized populations.

On May 2, 1968, Benavidez was serving with the 5th Special Forces Group in Vietnam when a 12-man reconnaissance team was inserted by helicopter along the Ho Chi Minh trail. Disaster struck almost immediately.

Shortly after they landed, the team was raked by heavy fire from North Vietnamese Army units. During the ambush, three helicopters attempted to reach the cut-off recon unit but were unable to.

Listening to the battle from a nearby post, Benavidez watched as the helicopters returned, and then immediately ran to jump aboard as they made another attempt to relieve the patrol. As his helicopter hovered, Benavidez leaped to the ground and ran 75 meters under heavy fire to reach the team. As he did so, he was struck by enemy fire and shrapnel in his right leg, face and head.

Once he reached the team, he found that nearly all of them were wounded, and others were dead. Despite his injuries, Benavidez took command of the survivors. Throwing smoke canisters to identify their position to friendly forces, he dragged and carried half of the wounded to an incoming medevac chopper himself. As the wounded were loaded aboard, Benavidez moved to retrieve the body of the team’s leader, who had been killed. As he did, the helicopter’s pilot was struck by incoming fire and killed, and the aircraft crashed.

Once again, Benavidez raced to where he was needed and began pulling the wounded from the wreck. He then called in tactical airstrikes and was wounded again. Throughout it all, he continued to fight for his men until another helicopter finally arrived and extracted the team. For his actions that day, Benavidez was awarded the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for valor, on Feb. 24, 1981.

Sturkey spoke with Army Times about his own background with veterans and other marginalized communities and Benavidez’s story.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Can you tell readers a little bit about your background and interest in the military?

A: I come from a place just outside Erie, Pennsylvania, which has a lot of working class young men and women who join the military. I graduated high school in 2000. Although I didn’t serve, I was part of the War on Terror generation. There were military recruiters in our high school all the time. This book is dedicated to my friend Army Spc. Donald S. Oaks Jr., who died on April 3, 2003, while serving during Operation Iraqi Freedom. I think because of that I always really pay attention to veterans’ issues.

Q: How did you come across Master Sgt. Roy Benavidez’s story and decide to write about it?

A: As a historian, I’ve always been interested in stories of marginalized people, especially working classes of color. They don’t always get the same treatment in American history as politicians and celebrities do. It was about 2005 to 2006. I was really wrestling with some of the experiences my friends in the military were having, some of their deaths both in combat and after they came home. I was thinking about what our society does when it comes to veterans. I heard about Roy’s story and how very soon after he received the Medal of Honor, he lost his social security disability benefits. It made me think: how do we balance the celebration of veterans versus how do we treat veterans in terms of public policy?

Q: Could you tell us about the racial climate for Latino and Hispanic people during Benavidez’s lifetime and especially his service?

A: Historians have been telling each other for years that Vietnam was a “poor people’s war.” The data just doesn’t really bear that out. There were a lot of Hispanic and Black people killed. There was absolutely racism, some data shows their casualties were a little higher than you’d expect, so with Roy I looked more at who were his role models growing up. Born in 1935 in Texas, he grew up in a very, very racist society. He couldn’t go to the front of restaurants. He couldn’t sit in the front rows at movie theaters. But when he was growing up, Hispanic soldiers who’d served honorably in World War II were all around. But there was a famous story in Texas of a Hispanic Americanwho died after the war and his family wasn’t allowed to bury him in a white cemetery, even though he’d served his country. So, Roy’s generation was the first generation who got to build off the legacy of those World War II soldiers. The military was an opportunity to succeed, and he would say there was more racial equality in the military because of the command structure and the urgency of the Vietnam War.

Q: Would you share how his Medal of Honor award finally came and his life after the Army?

A: Roy’s actions took place in 1968 and he didn’t receive the medal until 1981. In the early to mid-1970s there was a lot of Vietnam War fatigue among the U.S. population. People were just sick of talking about it, certainly nobody in the military wanted to talk about it. But by the early 1980s some of that attitude had relaxed. Movies such as “Apocalypse Now” and “Deer Hunter” were now being replaced by “Rambo” and later “Top Gun.” There was more of an attitude of celebrating the military. It was a challenge because there were few witnesses to his actions. After many rejections, Roy and others finally found a survivor from the mission who could provide vital testimony to what happened that day and they were ultimately successful in getting his actions recognized. For many years he was the most recent living recipient of the Medal of Honor. Even with the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, the two soldiers received it posthumously. But in 1983 he told the media that his Social Security disability benefits and benefits for veterans were going to be cut and he testified to Congress to stop the cuts. Because he was the most recent living recipient he was involved in many veterans issues, called upon by political leaders and military groups to give speeches. He died in 1998.

Q: What was something surprising you discovered in your research?

A: Because Roy and his family were Hispanic, they often suffered discrimination and were seen as second-class citizens. But his family traced its continuous lineage back to Mexican settlers in Texas before it was part of the United States. His family fought alongside other Texans for their independence from Mexico. One of his relatives, Plácido Benavides, was known as the “Paul Revere of Texas” during the Texas Revolution. Benavides helped revolutionaries take San Antonio and was later in a unit ambushed by the Mexican Army near San Patricio. During the battle he was dispatched to Goliad to alert troops there of the Mexican Army’s approach. Despite this history, his family had to flee to Louisiana to avoid racist mob violence. When they returned to Texas, they discovered that white settlers had moved onto their land and claimed it for themselves.

Stout’s bunker position came under heavy enemy mortar fire and ground attack, the Army’s acquisition chief told reporters during a recent press briefing.

“As the attack subsided, an enemy grenade was thrown into the bunker. Sgt. Stout ran to the grenade, picked it up, held it close to his body and started to get out of the bunker. Upon reaching the door, the grenade exploded,” Doug Bush said.

Sgt. Stout is the only Army air defense artilleryman in history to be awarded the Medal of Honor.

“The heroism of this soldier demonstrates the Army’s exact need for the Sgt. Stout vehicle,” Bush added.

Record pace

Seven years ago, then-head of U.S. Army Europe, Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, was sounding the alarm over the lack of short-range air defense capability on the continent. In an interview flying over the Polish countryside, Hodges told Defense News he was worried about traditional threats but also new ones like drone swarms.

He said air defense was one of the biggest capability gaps and was desperately needed to counter possible threats from an increasingly aggressive Russia.

Some Avenger air defense systems from the U.S. Army National Guard could be spotted around exercises in Eastern Europe in 2016 and 2017, but assets overall were scant, even among the armed forces of European countries.

The Army heeded the warnings from commanders in the European theater, and the Sgt. Stout SHORAD system’s development took place in record time. The service identified an urgent operational need in theater in 2016, received the requirement to build the system in February 2018, and then took 19 months to select an integration team and deliver prototypes for testing in the first quarter of 2020.

The first platoon to receive the Sgt. Stout, a Stryker combat vehicle-based platform that includes a mission equipment package designed by Leonardo DRS with Moog’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform and RTX’s Stinger vehicle missile launcher, deployed to Europe in 2021.

The Army is now fielding its third Sgt. Stout battalion at Fort Cavazos, Texas. The first battalion remains in Germany, and the second is based at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

The Army plans to begin fielding its fourth Sgt. Stout battalion at Fort Liberty, North Carolina, in the third quarter of fiscal 2025 and is aiming to complete it by the second quarter of FY26, Brig. Gen. Frank Lozano, the Army’s program executive officer for missiles and space, said in the media briefing.

The service’s potential acquisition objective is 361 systems, Lozano said. The Army approved a directive requirement for the first 162 vehicles that outfits the first four battalions and allows for some training battalion assets at Fort Sill, he added.

Another four battalions could eventually be on order for the National Guard, Lozano said. “That will likely occur over the next [program objective memorandum] cycle.”

The Army is “now well into production and fielding in a very short time,” Bush said. “Those early decisions were made before the war in Ukraine, and it’s really good that they were because we now are actually fielding short-range air defense systems that, among other things, provides counter-[unmanned aircraft system] capability to forward forces, which everyone can see are in increasing danger from UAS and other threats. I think we really got this one right, and we did it really fast.”

Evolving capability

Two more variants of Sgt. Stout vehicles are coming. The Army has concurrently been working on a 50-kilowatt laser weapon version and deployed a Stryker-based capability to U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility recently.

Bush would not detail how it is performing, but noted there are “challenges” when it comes to putting a high-kilowatt laser on a moving vehicle as opposed to a fixed site. And he said the Army is still considering the right platform and the right power levels to go with the maneuver force.

A decision on what a directed-energy SHORAD capability might look like is expected sometime across the next five fiscal years, he added.

Another variant would focus on providing a next-generation Stinger missile and a 30mm proximity fuse ammunition, which will help gain capability within the counter-drone space.

The service wants the Stinger missile replacement for SHORAD to be faster, survive jamming and more easily hit tougher targets like drones, Lozano told Defense News last fall.

In September 2023, the Army awarded RTX and Lockheed Martin contracts to competitively develop the Stinger replacement.

The Army is conducting efforts for the improved Stinger and proximity fuse ammunition using a rapid prototyping strategy; the service is roughly one year into the program.

The intent is to carry a couple of vendors forward for the next two years to get to a shoot-off, Lozano said. “Then based on affordability aspects that have yet to be determined, we may continue to carry two vendors, or we may downselect to one and go into a three-year, very intense, aggressive developmental effort to try to get to a material solution that I can transition into potentially a major capability acquisition pathway.”

The Army anticipates it will reach the decision point for production in the second quarter of FY28, Bush noted.

A fourth increment for the system is also under consideration. The Army released a request for information this year asking for ideas on how to evolve the capability for lighter forces.

“We’re really in the infancy of understanding what that program increment might look like,” Lozano said, with the goal of making a lighter force more “effective, but also as agile as they need to be on tomorrow’s battlefield.”

Across the force cake-cuttings, birthday balls and various celebrations marking the occasion have already begun.

“Our motto is ‘this we’ll defend.’ Those words make clear what we owe the American people we will continue to keep that commitment as our Army has done for the past 249 years,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George in a birthday video message.

The senior enlisted soldier shared his remarks in the same video.

“Since 1775 U.S. Army soldiers have answered the call to service standing alongside one another to support and defend our Constitution, country and the American people,” said Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer. “This we’ll defend.”

Historians mark the start of the Revolutionary War on April 19, 1775, when British troops and Massachusetts militiamen traded musket fire at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts. The battle drew in fellow colonial soldiers from New Hampshire, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

As a series of other skirmishes and battles erupted, the Continental Congress met on June 14, 1775, and established the Army.

“Resolved, that six companies of expert riflemen, be immediately raised in Pennsylvania, two in Maryland, and two in Virginia… [and] as soon as completed, shall march and join the army near Boston, to be there employed as light infantry, under the command of the chief Officer in that army,” reads the resolution.

The delegates also wrote an oath of enlistment for soldiers volunteering for the new Army.

“I have, this day, voluntarily enlisted myself, as a soldier, in the American continental army, for one year, unless sooner discharged: And I do bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regulations, as are, or shall be, established for the government of the said. Army.”

The following day Congress appointed George Washington to command all the continental forces.

Those six companies of expert riflemen swelled to more than 8.2 million soldiers in its ranks at the end of World War II.

Over the past two and a half centuries the Army has transformed from the musket and horse to space-based technology and hypersonic weapons.

It even birthed another military branch when the Army Air Corps was disbanded to form the U.S. Air Force in 1947.

Happy birthday to the U.S. Army, and those soldiers, past and present, who have answered the call.

Jeffersson Arango Castellanos, along with two other individuals, targeted the soldiers and robbed them of their valuables on the evening of March 5, 2020, according to the Department of Justice.

Castellanos was extradited from Colombia to the United States on May 5, 2023, and pled guilty to kidnapping and assaulting the soldiers on Jan. 26 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the Criminal Division’s Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section’s Judicial Attaché Office in Bogota, and the U.S. Marshals Service worked with Colombian law enforcement to arrest and extradite Castellanos, according to the Department of Justice.

On the night of the assault, the soldiers went to watch a soccer game at a bar and were approached in the early morning hours by Castellanos, according to a Colombian National Police investigation that analyzed video surveillance and was described in court documents.

Though unclear when it occurred, the investigation determined that Castellanos at some point laced the soldiers’ drinks with benzodiazepines, a class of drugs that produces drowsiness and incapacitation.

As one of the soldiers approached a woman at the bar around 1:46 a.m., Castellanos intervened, placing his hand on the soldier’s shoulder and leading him to the back of the bar.

Roughly 20 minutes later, the soldier stumbled toward the pub’s exit with Castellanos behind him.

Castellanos went back to the bar around 2:24 a.m. to escort the similarly drugged second soldier out of the bar with two other individuals.

One of the individuals, along with the two soldiers, got into a vehicle while Castellanos visited multiple ATM booths to withdraw cash from the soldiers’ debit cards, which he had stolen.

Castellanos and his partners eventually let the soldiers go, one on the street, where he stumbled and fell on his face. Eventually, law enforcement arrived and transported the soldier to a medical clinic. The other soldier made it back to his apartment but had no recollection of how he arrived there.

During the investigation, the Colombian National Police began surveilling Castellanos’ phone messages and calls and learned that this wasn’t the first time he and his co-conspirators had committed these crimes. They had an ongoing operation in which they frequented bars and identified individuals to drug and rob.

In one call, investigators overheard Castellanos expressing his frustration that the COVID-19 pandemic had shut down bars and made it harder for him to conduct his criminal business.

Staff Sgt. Joel Strickland and Spc. Desany Jacques with the New York National Guard dressed the wound with a trauma kit to stop the bleeding and stabilize the victim on May 20, according to the service.

The two soldiers were deployed to the subway as part of a citywide effort to assist the New York Police Department with bag checks. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul deployed 750 National Guard soldiers on March 6 after the city was rocked by a series of shovings, slashings, and shootings, some fatal and some captured on video.

Arrests on the subway are up almost 53% from 2023, according to a New York Police Department news release.

The two soldiers were convening with police officers around 2 p.m. at a subway security checkpoint, where they perform bag inspections. They overheard a loud noise and looked up to see a shirtless man yelling obscenities and fighting with two other people.

The police intervened and detained the instigator while the soldiers tended to the two individuals who had been attacked, one of whom had a large stab wound in his back.

They called an ambulance, but in the interim staunched the excessive bleeding by packing the wound with gauze, effectively saving the man’s life.

Both Strickland and Jacques have military medical training and are volunteer first responders outside of the National Guard.

Strickland lives in Manhattan and is a medic assigned to the 42nd Infantry Division, where he has served in Joint Task Force Empire Shield, New York state’s military affairs organization, since 2020.

Jacques, a Long Island resident, is a supply specialist assigned to the 102nd Military Police Company.

“These two soldiers were able to react without hesitation,” Capt. Caleb Jean, a company commander in Joint Task Force Empire Shield, said in a statement. “I am extremely impressed with how they handled the situation.”

Jacques said responding quickly to an unforeseen circumstance is something soldiers assigned to the task force must be prepared for.

“Every day is something new on post for us,” Jacques said in a statement.

Sgt. Chase Coburn, 28, and Sgt. Mitchell Jensen, 27, intervened on the April 14 flight after noticing a man behaving suspiciously and pacing up and down the aisle.

The two infantrymen were returning to Camp Humphreys, South Korea from the 2024 Army International Sniper Competition at Fort Moore, Georgia. They were on their way home after a layover in San Francisco when the incident occurred.

Coburn is a sniper section leader and Jensen is a sniper team leader. They’re both assigned to Sabre Squadron, 3rd Cavalry Regiment, with the Korea Rotational Force.

The incident began about five hours into their 12:52 p.m. flight when the soldiers noticed a man in a United Air maintenance shirt walking up and down the aisle. They figured at first that he was an air marshal or employee of the plane and was performing a check-up, said Jensen.

But after he continued to wander, Jensen became concerned. He consulted with Coburn who was two seats back to see if he clocked the strange behavior. He did.

Flight attendants began talking to the man and recording him, with one asking a passenger near the soldiers to help. Hearing this, Coburn and Jensen interjected and volunteered their assistance.

She told them to wait five minutes.

During that time, the flight crew was stopping the unruly passenger from entering the first-class section of the plane, when he suddenly charged to the front of the aircraft.

The soldiers saw this, flagged down the flight attendant, and asked her if they needed the soldiers’ help immediately.

She said yes and quickly led them to the back of the plane, where she briefed them on how to employ hand and body restraints.

Coburn and Jensen then rushed to the front to intercept the man.

“He’s at the door, like the loading, unloading door, where you enter and exit the plane, and he’s, like, reaching out,” said Coburn, recalling the moment when the man tried to open the exit door. Despite an initial struggle, they got ahold of him and placed both restraints on him.

“I need to die,” the man then said, adding that the air was bad and that he needed to get off the plane, according to Coburn.

Once restrained, they escorted him to the back of the plane and sat him down, where another American passenger monitored him.

Things seemed to have settled down and the soldiers returned to their seats.

But 3 to 4 hours later, the soldiers noticed a tussle between the unruly passenger and the passenger guarding him.

The man had broken free from his restraints, so the soldiers intervened once again, reapplied the restraints and helped get the situation back in hand.

After the plane landed, the passenger was taken into police custody.

“During the flight, the disruptive passenger who was seated in economy attempted on several occasions to enter the premium class cabins and continued to demand to enter the cockpit,” said Korean Air in an emailed statement. “The passenger insisted he had an anxiety disorder.”

After the incident, Coburn and Jensen received a flight voucher from Korean Air. They also received a thank you letter from Yoo Jong-seok, Executive Vice President and Head of Safety and Security at Korean Air.

“Even though it is tough for passengers to willingly help the flight attendant in the event of an inflight disturbance, their prompt response to the flight attendant’s request for assistance made all of our staff deeply moved and grateful,” reads the letter.

“We saw an opportunity to help and we wanted to help. So that’s just what we did,” said Jensen.

Coburn said it was natural for both of them and stemmed from their sense of service.

“We joined the Army to do things right,” said Coburn.