The scam involves direct calls to beneficiaries with an offer to ship or sell COVID-19 testing kits. The calls include requests for personal information such as Social Security numbers, bank or credit card information. Any unsolicited attempt to sell or send a COVID-19 testing kit should be immediately reported to this link.

If you are a Tricare beneficiary and feel you may have symptoms of COVID-19, have been in close contact with a person sick with COVID-19, or traveled to an area with widespread or ongoing community spread of COVID-19, do not make an appointment or walk into their local military hospital or clinic.

Instead, remain home and contact your medical provider. You will be assessed and screened for potential or suspected exposure, and if necessary, an appointment with a physician will be arranged. Legitimate COVID-19 tests will be ordered by a physician after the assessment and screening.

Click here for everything you need to know about your Tricare benefits.

Recently, the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission issued a joint statement warning seven companies against attempting to sell fraudulent products that claim to prevent or treat COVID-19. While there may be no connection to scam testing kit calls, beneficiaries should be on alert for any unsolicited outreach involving claimed COVID-19 treatments.

Beneficiaries are reminded if they are called by anyone other than their attending physician, they should not provide any personal health or financial related information. Guidance for TRICARE beneficiaries related to COVID-19 can be found by visiting this link.

As of Wednesday, the most recently available figures show that DoD-affiliated COVID-19 cases total 435, including 227 service members, 81 civilians, 67 dependents and 40 contractors, 22 of whom are hospitalized. The numbers include one death, of a Crystal City, Virginia-based contractor on Saturday.

During a force-wide town hall meeting Tuesday morning, Defense Secretary Mark Esper urged personnel to use proper cybersecurity hygiene, and be wary of emails from unknown origin that might include phishing or malware attempts.

On Monday, officials at the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command in Maryland issued guidelines for how personnel should protect information.

“We would like to take this opportunity to remind teleworking employees of your continuing responsibility to safeguard information while in use and at rest,” officials said on ATEC’s Facebook page. “Employees should always consider information being processed at home to be at increased risk of adversary targeting and collection.”

It is an issue of increasing importance as the number of military personnel testing positive continues to spike. As of Monday morning, 133 service members have tested positive for COVID-19, per data released daily by Esper’s office. There are 44 civilians, 35 dependents and 31 contractors also battling the virus, with 15 hospitalizations across the Defense Department and five recoveries so far.

A Crystal City-based contractor, who worked at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, passed away on March 21, Pentagon officials said. It was the first known case of a Defense Department employee dying after testing positive for COVID-19.

ATEC, which provides direct support to Army Futures Command and other Army leaders through developmental testing and evaluations, deals with a lot of sensitive information. So ATEC issued guidelines for how personnel should handle it.

Many are basic OPSEC rules, including properly signing on and off and locking computers when not in use.

The command is also recommending keeping sensitive documents covered using a folder or envelope when not in use and during transportation, only using government-furnished devices for communicating government-owned information, not printing from a government-issued laptop onto a home printer and not discarding work-related papers in the trash.

ATEC also issued a more ominous guideline.

“Be aware of your surroundings, family and friends within ‘earshot’ do not have a need to know,” said the Facebook posting. “Immediately report suspicious activity or suspected data loss to your security manager.”

“We want to win this war with as few deaths as possible,” Trump said Sunday afternoon. “Today, I am announcing action to help New York, California, and Washington, to ensure that the National Guard can effectively respond. The National Guard, these are tremendous people. Fully on alert. It has been activated.”

The move will make it easier for states, already facing increasing costs as a result of the pandemic, to call in the National Guard if needed to help deal with the problems caused by COVID-19.

There have been more than 30,000 coronavirus cases in the U.S., with at least 400 deaths, CNN reports.

Trump’s initial order called for National Guard troops in the three-hardest hit states — New York, California, and Washington — to operate under what is called Title 32. Under this federalized status, Guard troops still report to the governor, but the government picks up the cost. Normally, it is a 75-25 split, with states picking up the smaller portion, but Trump waived that split and the federal government will absorb the entire cost.

More states are expected to seek Title 32 status as the need arises, Air Force Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel, Chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters Sunday night.

As of this morning, governors across all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Washington D.C. have each mobilized components of their Army and Air National Guard to assist in their state’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking to reporters via a telephone conference, Lengyel again tamped down rumors that the Guard troops will be used to enforce martial law.

“There is no truth to this rumor that people are conspiring, that governors are planning, that anyone is conspiring to use the National Guard, mobilized or not, Title 32 or state, to do military action to enforce shelter in place or quarantines.”

The move is important, said Lengyel, because “governors and adjutant generals know the best use of what’s needed in their states,. This will help with unity of effort and speed of responses.”

Though Guard troops won’t be used to enforce shelter in place or quarantine, they can be used to assist in law enforcement efforts, Lengyel said, something routine during other national disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and large fires.

Lengyel said governors had been vocal in seeking the federal status.

“One reason is that it speeds response,” he said. “States are not used to disaster that last this long. This will last for a while.”

States that may have been reluctant to mobilize additional troops, because they were on the hook for the bill, may be less reticent now, said Lengyel. He estimated it costs about $8 million to $9 million a month to mobilize 1,000 troops, depending on what they are doing.

There is also a great benefit to troops as well, said Lengyel. Under Title 32 authority, they receive essentially the same benefits as active duty troops, including Tricare health insurance, points toward retirement and full GI Bill benefits.

Lengyel said that no troops will be asked to go into dangerous areas without full protective gear, and that he does not believe the response will be slowed by access to such gear.

“Nobody will be asked to do anything without proper equipment,” he said. “Like the rest of the country, we are concerned about the total quantities of masks.”

He added that federal or state agencies tasking Guard troops with coronavirus duties will “help provide us some of the equipment.”

Some of the special units, like Civil Support Teams and other specialty teams, have such equipment, said Lengyel. But the concern is how long supplies will last.

“We are concerned with the duration of the oncoming onslaught,” he said. “This is an history event. It requires an history response.”

Lengyel said that, at the moment, there are no guidelines about troops coming in contact with coronavirus patients. Currently, some Guard troops are helping out with testing at drive-through sites.

There is no expectation of providing direct medical support, Lengyel said.

A lot of the work will be helping maintain transportation and logistics, for instance helping ensure grocery stores are able to get what they need.

The more than 7,300 Guard troops already deployed are working on several missions, including, but are not limited to:

*Delivering food in hard-hit communities;

*Manning call centers to be a knowledgeable and calming voice;

*Providing critical Personal Protective Equipment training and sample collection to first responders and hospital personnel;

*Supporting local emergency management agencies with response planning and execution;

*Providing support to testing facilities;

*Serving as response liaisons and support to state Emergency Operations Centers;

*Proving transportation and assessment support to healthcare providers;

*Assisting with disinfecting/cleaning of common public spaces;

*Collecting and delivering samples.

If you are trying to send a letter or package to troops in Iraq, you’re out of luck.

At least for the time being.

Starting today, the Pentagon has temporarily suspended deliveries to clear a backlog of mail flowing into that country.

“Mail transitioning through Baghdad Airport is temporarily suspended,” Jessica Maxwell, a Pentagon spokeswoman, told Military Times via email. “The temporary suspension of new mail (for entry or movement into the country) will prevent a further backlog.”

The Defense Department’s Military Postal Service Agency “is exploring options to reduce the mail backlog until normal mail operations are restored,’ said Maxwell. “We are awaiting more information on when mail operations to and from the affected ZIP codes will be restored.”

The mail is backlogged because of a stoppage in clearing it to the country, a defense official told Military Times.

The mail suspension comes at a time when tensions in Iraq are running high. Last week, Iran launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at Al Asad Air Base and one in Irbil in retaliation for a U.S. drone strike on Quds Force leader Qassem Soleimani.

There are about 5,200 U.S. troops now in Iraq. And while the Iraqi parliament took a non-binding vote asking American troops to pack up and leave, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has said that the U.S. will remain there.

Maxwell said while there was no timeline for when the temporary suspension will be lifted, “we hope the suspension will be short.”

According to the U.S. Postal Service, the affected ZIP codes are:

• 09305, Baghdad Diplomatic Support Center
• 09308, Besmaya Combat Training Center
• 09333, Al Asad Air Base
• 09348, FOB Union III
• 09378, Camp Taji
• 09381, Al Taqqadum Air Base
• 96610-0800, SPMGTAF 2/7 DET9
• 96610-1500, Task Force Spartan 20.1

“This temporary suspension means that if a person attempts to send a letter to one of the affected ZIP codes, it will not be accepted by the USPS,” said Maxwell.

The suspension is bad news for troop morale, said Mark Van Trees, whose Florida-based organization ships tons of donated goods to forward operating bases and combat outposts around the world.

“They look forward to getting our packages,” said Van Trees, director of Support the Troops, which has been shipping items to troops for the past 17 years. “For them, it is like getting a little piece of home.”

Van Trees said his local post master stopped by his Wesley Chapel office Monday morning with the temporary suspension news.

“This affects us a bunch,” said Van Trees. “We have been sending care packages to these bases since they opened.”

The packages, he said, include everything from toiletries to snacks to white tube socks.

“We send them to the FOBs and COPs because the troops can’t get this stuff,” he said.

On Wednesday, Washington was consumed with a July 25 call between Trump and Ukraine’s new president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. According to a memorandum of the call released by the White House, Zelenskiy asked to buy American-made Javelin anti-tank weapons, and Trump asked Zelenskiy to help him work with U.S. officials to investigate political rivals.

That call fueled a whistleblower’s complaint that has become central to the formal impeachment inquiry launched Tuesday by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but the call also highlights the vital role of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, which has lost 13,000 of its people since its conflict with Russia began in 2014.

Here’s what you need to know about the U.S. military aid to Ukraine.

$1.5 billion in security assistance

In June, the Pentagon announced plans to provide $250 million to Ukraine in security cooperation funds for additional training, equipment and advisory efforts to build the capacity of Ukraine’s armed forces. The U.S. State Department separately planned to provide $141 million in aid.

Broadly speaking, Democratic lawmakers see the president’s decision to temporarily hold both pots of money as divorced from policy and politically motivated, and a few Republican lawmakers have publicly expressed cautious concern. Trump’s allies say the president was troubled about corruption in Ukraine and leery of spending more to help Ukraine when compared to America’s European allies.

On Wednesday, Trump and Zelenskiy appeared together for a news conference, at which Trump said he wanted Germany, France and other European countries to contribute to Ukraine’s defense. Trump also diminished the substantial aid provided under the administration of President Barack Obama.

“We put up a lot of money. I gave you anti-tank busters that, frankly, President Obama was sending you pillows and sheets,” Trump said.

For his part, Zelenskiy thanked all of the countries working to help it end its war in eastern Ukraine.

The U.S. has committed more than $1.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists began driving tanks through eastern Ukraine. The latest equipment was largely more of the same aid the U.S. previously supplied, aimed at helping Ukraine monitor and secure its borders, deploy its forces more safely and effectively, and make progress toward NATO interoperability.

The Defense Department’s tranche was set to include sniper rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, counter-artillery radars, electronic warfare detection and secure communications, night vision equipment, and military medical supplies and treatment. The department previously included counter-sniper equipment, Humvees and tactical drones as well.

The State Department funding included $115 million for a broad array of purposes, to buy American-produced weapons through the Foreign Military Financing program, but also to provide advisers and training to boost Ukraine’s NATO interoperability: English language labs, medical equipment and improvised bomb simulators. The funds could also pay for spare parts, sustainment and training for previously purchased U.S. gear.

Battlefield benefits aside, the military assistance sends a powerful signal of American support, particularly when the U.S. is not obligated to defend it, as it would a NATO ally, said Mark Simakovsky, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. Simakovsky served as chief of staff in the Defense Department’s office focused on Europe and NATO during the Obama administration.

“As a political signal, there is no more important ally to Ukraine than the United States, and the United States’ aid dwarfs aid from other countries,” Simakovsky said.

Not only does withholding that assistance potentially send a signal to Russia that the U.S. is not as concerned about Russian occupation of Ukraine, but the suddenness, just months before the funds were set to expire, jarred lawmakers and administration officials.

“The sharpness and abruptness with which this was frozen surprised many in government, and I think now we are seeing why,” said Simakovsky, who’s convinced Trump was trying to exercise leverage over Zelenskiy for personal political gain.

Lethal aid and Donald Trump

One irony is that the Trump administration was going further with its aid than the Obama administration by deciding to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. In 2017, Trump announced his intent to provide the Javelin, and Congress approved an assistance package of 210 missiles and 37 launchers, together worth $47 million.

“When Trump was elected, the first thing they did was send in the Javelin. It wasn’t exactly high-end, but we were very happy, and they built on a very firm foundation,” said Jim Townsend, who spent eight years as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense for European and NATO policy and is now with the Center for a New American Security think tank.

“Playing games with them now is nuts because we want to keep this trajectory upward.”

Co-manufactured by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin, the FGM-148 Javelin is a “fire-and-forget” anti-tank missile that uses infrared guidance to hit armored targets. It was not seen as a game changer in the fighting, but its delivery to Ukraine showcased both U.S. support and that Russian activity would not go unpunished.

“The Javelin is the best anti-armor system anywhere in the world. It goes out to 2 kilometers and it will destroy any armored vehicle, any tank,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, a former U.S. Army Europe commander. “It’s powerful and easy to use, so it was a powerful increase in Ukrainian capabilities.”

By the time the Javelins were provided, Russian armor had pulled back from the conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has stalemated into trench and bunker warfare. Just by keeping the fighting at a simmer, Russia is likely achieving its aim of preventing Ukraine’s integration with the West ― and it does not appear Russia is going to try an armored thrust to gain new ground.

Col. Andrii Ordynovych, Ukraine’s military attache in Washington, said that when Ukraine’s military began using U.S.-provided Javelin anti-tank weapons, Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers that once operated with devastating impunity had backed off.

“That was a strategic deterrence,” he said.

Military aid evolves

American lawmakers from the Democratic and Republican parties, at least as far back as 2015, have been urging the United States to help Ukraine with arms and other heavy military equipment to defend itself against Russian-backed separatists.

Though aid from the U.S., Poland and NATO allies spiked after the invasion, the Obama administration worried in part that providing Ukraine with lethal aid would provoke Moscow into escalating an already volatile situation. The training and institutional reform efforts aimed to continue stamping out corruption and helping Ukraine become interoperable with NATO. (Ukraine is not a member of NATO.)

“Javelins were considered a step up, and the concern was what the Russians were going to step up on their end,” Townsend said. “It wasn’t that there was a lot of tree hugging [in the Obama administration], it was to go up a notch if they go up a notch.”

Some of the early nonlethal aid was useful. After Ukraine received 20 Lockheed Martin AN/TPQ-53 radar systems that track incoming mortar and short-range artillery fire in 2015, the casualty rate for units equipped with those system went from 47 percent to about 18 percent, Ordynovych said.

“That was some of the most useful equipment that we ever provided them because it provided them early warning,” Hodges said. “The Ukrainians used [the radar] so much, they were under so much rocket and mortar fire, that they became extremely proficient. So we learned from them.”

Congress has since expanded the categories of available military aid. Its authorization for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for 2016 included anti-armor weapon systems, mortars, crew-served weapons and ammunition, grenade launchers and ammunition, and small arms and ammunition ― but also unspecified “cyber” and “electronic warfare” capabilities.

In response to tension in the Azov Sea in 2017, Congress added the categories of air defense and coastal defense radars; naval mine and counter-mine capabilities; and littoral-zone and coastal defense vessels. (That tension peaked in November 2018 when the Russian Coast Guard fired on and captured three Ukrainian Navy vessels, along with 24 crew members, sailing through the contested Kerch Strait.)

Of the recent State Department tranche, $16.5 million was for equipment training to counter waterborne threats, as well as training Russian surface, subsurface and long-range aircraft, according to a recent notice to Congress. The money could also pay for advisers, parts and training to build electronic signals intelligence, naval special warfare capabilities, and anti-submarine warfare capabilities to include towed-array sonars, lightweight torpedoes and sonobuoys.

Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service would be eligible for support to maritime rapid response units through the provision of small boats, communication, safety equipment and training simulators.

To be clear, Ukraine has a robust military and defense-industrial base on its own, and according to Simakovsky, Kyiv is likely looking less for small arms than for larger and more sophisticated training, as well as maritime capabilities, intelligence and cyber support.

The “full spectrum” of Russian military doctrine has been on display. That doctrine includes the use of conventional forces like mechanized infantry backed by armor and artillery, special operations forces, assassination and bombings, electronic warfare, cyberattacks, and the weaponization of information. It is a combination of efforts often referred to as “hybrid warfare.”

The U.S. military is paying close attention to how Ukraine fights the Russians, the deputy assistant secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the U.S. Department of State, George Kent, told Military Times in July.

“I think there is a great opportunity, even as we are helping the Ukrainian military build its own resilience against Russian aggression, for us to learn from the modern way of Russia doing war in Ukraine,” he said.

Things have changed since Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, said Kent, and what American forces are learning in Ukraine has been applied to places like Syria.

“The U.S. military is paying very close attention to how the Russians fight in Ukraine and the equipment and tactics and techniques they are employing,” Kent said.

The awards come a year after requests for bids were first put out in response to Trump’s January 2017 executive order to secure the southern border, said Bobby Petty, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers, which is overseeing the project on behalf of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Though not specifically awarded to fund Trump’s February National Emergency Declaration that includes using up to $3.6 billion in military construction funds for a border wall, the corps could issue task orders under this program for that purpose, Petty told Military Times.

The projects will include a mix of border barrier, patrol and access roads, lights, access gates, drainage improvements, levee walls and other improvements, repairs and alterations along the border from California to Texas, Petty said.

Petty added that while the companies have been selected to bid on individual task orders for this project, the money to pay for them could come from either the Defense Department or CBP.

No individual tasks have yet been identified, Petty said, adding that they will be issued as needed until the $5 billion is spent or the 2024 deadline has expired.

A total of 38 companies originally put in requests for the project, a list that was winnowed down to a dozen and publicly announced Wednesday.

The barrier and the use of troops along the border have long been a political battle.

Democratic lawmakers want the head of the Pentagon to drop plans for military personnel to directly interact with migrants on the U.S. southern border, arguing it could violate America’s long-standing separation of the military and law enforcement.

In the latest flashpoint in the military’s growing role at the border, 19 Democratic senators, including several presidential hopefuls, sent a letter to acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan on Wednesday urging him to revoke waivers he granted to nearly 280 of the more than 4,000 troops on the border. They also want a legal justification for “military protective activities” that Trump has authorized troops to perform.

“We urge you to revoke these waivers to prevent the continued escalation of military involvement in immigration enforcement activities and the further politicization of the use of servicemembers to inappropriately respond to a divisive domestic policy issue,” reads the letter, led by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and a senior member of the Armed Services and Judiciary committees. The letter was obtained by Defense News.

Last week, Shanahan approved a plan to send 320 more active-duty troops to the U.S. border with Mexico in response to another support request from Customs and Border Protection.

About 3,200 active-duty service members are currently deployed for those missions, which began last October. In addition, several thousand more National Guard troops have been working in similar support roles since April 2018.

Also last week, White House officials announced plans to send a $4.5 billion emergency supplemental budget request to Congress for “humanitarian needs,” that includes building more processing facilities and buying more food for immigrants arriving at the southern border.

Of that total, about $377 million will cover the costs of military deployments. None of the money will be used for wall construction, a senior White House official said.

Congressional Democrats have accused Trump of militarizing the immigration debate by unnecessarily deploying active-duty troops to southern states. Troops there have been conducting various support roles like barrier placements, but have had limited contact with migrants seeking entry into America.

The current authorities for the military missions runs through September. But Shanahan told lawmakers that Homeland Security’s personnel shortfalls could total “thousands” of people, casting doubt when the military could be replaced by civilian staff.

“We’re now in the position to ask how long will we be there,” he said. “We’ve gone through, looked at the conditions at the border … We need to get that into a sustained environment.”