Though the facilities “generally implemented physical security controls,” weaknesses were found at all eight locations, and the auditors concluded that similar vulnerabilities may also exist at other facilities operated by the Defense Health Agency.

The report cited recent security incidents at medical facilities —including a 2015 shooting near the William Beaumont Army Medical Center on Fort Bliss, Texas — that underlines the need for more stringent protocols. The rate of workplace violence is also four times higher for health care workers, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and the Drug Enforcement Agency often warns of the propensity of criminals to target pharmacies for controlled substances.

None of the eight medical treatment facilities audited appear named in the redacted report. The auditors looked at the facilities’ use of security cameras, duress alarms, intrusion detection systems and badging methods to regulate entry to restricted areas.

Six of the eight treatment facilities allowed personnel access to restricted areas like pharmacies, even when they were not specifically authorized to visit those areas. All six had procedures for adding personnel to access control systems, but did not have procedures to ensure that access was revoked when no longer authorized.

“For example, we determined that three unauthorized personnel at a major medical center used a badge to access the narcotics vault,” the audit reads. “According to Army officials, security personnel removed vault access for the three unauthorized personnel as a result of our testing.”

Those individuals were later determined to have had a legitimate need to enter the vault, but shouldn’t have been able to do so with their current badges. Unauthorized access sometimes occurred because the facilities did not properly update access rosters.

However, commanders of two treatment facilities also granted 24-hour access for all staff — including volunteers — to all exterior doors, including emergency exits.

“Security personnel stated that there was no operational need for this level of access but that it was the commanders’ preference,” the audit reads. “The security manager at one of the clinics stated that stairwell doors should be exits only, but the commander overruled him.”

This meant that unauthorized personnel could use a loss or stolen badge to enter through rear exits undetected during hours of darkness and get to equipment, pharmaceuticals and personal patient information.

Fences guarding generators and fuel storage tanks at some of the facilities were also not properly maintained. Some security personnel told the auditors that they lacked the funding to replace ineffective barriers.

The Army, for instance, requires fences surrounding outdoor emergency utilities to be 7-feet high with three-strand barbed wire, and the bottom of the fence must extend to within 2 inches of the ground.

“However, we observed fuel tanks and backup generators at one Army [medical clinic] that were easily accessible by climbing over or crawling under existing fencing,” the audit reads. “Personnel at this clinic stated that unauthorized personnel have breached the fences in the past. The security manager at this [clinic] stated that fences could not be upgraded due to a lack of funding.”

The central energy plant at a “major Navy medical center” was also found to be easily accessible through a large door that was left open and unattended. An audit team member walked through the facility freely, according to their report.

“Access to backup generators and fuel tanks by unauthorized personnel increases the risk of damage, sabotage, or acts of terrorism, potentially resulting in failure of medical equipment and loss of life,” the report added.

The standards across DoD medical medical facilities can vary. Although all eight facilities had video monitoring and alarm systems, the equipment was used inconsistently. Some facilities hired contractors to actively watch security cameras in real-time, while others simply archived the video to reference in the event of an incident.

The audit recommended DHA issue new guidance requiring personnel to enter and exit medical facilities through specific sets of doors, such as main entrance or emergency room doors. It also recommended that the DHA conduct quarterly reviews to ensure that access to sensitive areas be limited to authorized personnel and reassess generator and fuel storage security at each medical treatment facility under its purview.

DHA director Army Lt. Gen. Ronald J. Place said he would correct the flaws with interim policies for the use of specific entry doors, security guards, video monitoring and alarm systems until the agency updates physical security requirements.

Place also told the Pentagon inspector general that his agency will task each military service with conducting inspections to identify weaknesses and implement better controls.

“We will close the recommendations when the DHA provides documentation to support these actions,” the audit team wrote.

The new system, called the “Alert! Mass Warning Notification System,” or MWNS, will replace the current AtHoc system, per an Army order published Dec. 13.

Current AtHoc accounts will be automatically migrated to the Alert! system. Any Army personnel not already covered by the old system will be afforded the opportunity to register for Alert! after the migration is complete, the service said in a news release.

As it stands, the Army operates two systems across roughly 100 installations, the release said. The migration to a single system is expected to reduce costs and redundant investments.

Migration across the Army will be complete no later than Feb. 29, 2020, according to EXORD 033-19, but Army garrisons in Europe will migrate between July 22 and Aug. 2, 2019, according to an Army timeline published this month.

The Army’s new system notifies service members, Army civilians and their families during crises, including during an active shooter incident, natural disasters or any other event requiring immediate notification.

Between July 22-26, Army Garrison Ansbach, Army Garrison Rheinland Pfalz, Army Garrison Stuttgart and Army Garrison Wiesbaden will make the switch.

Between July 29-Aug. 2, Army Garrison Bavaria, Army Garrison Benelux, Army Garrison Italy and Army Europe proper will begin using the new system.

The new system will provide much of the same services as the older one, sending emergency notifications to worldwide users via desktop pop-up, mobile phone, SMS text, email and public distribution.

The new system is a government off-the-shelf system, meaning it was created and owned by the U.S. federal government. Unlike AtHoc, the new system will have no license fees and is expected to be cheaper.

Accounts that Army personnel use through the new Alert! system will follow personnel through their Army career, whether as a civilian or uniformed service member and in the United States and abroad.

Alert! also allows users to add up to 10 different phone numbers to include more family members and dependents.

Mattis will be researching and writing about domestic and international security policy, as well as participating in military and national security events in California and Washington, the think tank said in a press release Tuesday.

“I have long relied on the work of Hoover to supplement my understanding of the critical challenges facing our country and to help guide tough decisions,” Mattis said in the press release. “I believe we have an obligation to pass on the lessons we’ve learned so that future generations can study, learn and become better. Hoover has made this part of its mission, and I look forward to returning.”

Mattis will serve as the Davies Family Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He previously served as the Davies Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow until being confirmed as the 26th secretary of defense in January 2017.

“The wealth of knowledge and experience of an already extraordinary career has been made even richer by General Mattis’ latest endeavor as secretary of defense, and we are fortunate to once again be beneficiaries of his acumen,” said Tom Gilligan, director of the Hoover Institution.

“One can find no one more universally respected for his honor, character, and relentless commitment to safeguarding American ideals than Jim Mattis.”

Mattis completed a 43-year career as an infantry Marine, in addition to his tenure as a DoD civilian.

He led an assault battalion in Operation Desert Storm, commanded troops against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and served during the invasion of Iraq and subsequent stability operations.

Mattis commanded U.S. Joint Forces Command, NATO’s Supreme Allied Command for Transformation and U.S. Central Command as a general. He was succeeded in his role of leading the Pentagon by Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan.

But the shifting of funds to rebuild Tyndall AFB has lawmakers concerned that Air Force readiness and other projects may be impacted down the line.

“There’s no funds there that would be eligible to be removed from our plan at Tyndall,” John Henderson, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for installations, environment and energy, told U.S. House representatives Wednesday.

The funds now being used to rebuild Tyndall are flowing out of Air Force’s fiscal 2019 operations and maintenance funds, Henderson said, adding that “we’re already pulling those from other accounts because that is a priority for us.”

“Secondly, because of the urgency and because of the mission that we’re trying to recover there, it would be highly unlikely that we would divert funds from Tyndall at this point in support of 2808 [national emergency declaration] authorities,” Henderson said.

Roughly 95 percent of Tyndall AFB was destroyed in the hurricane this fall, lawmakers said Wednesday.

The Air Force has committed not just to rebuilding the air base, but developing it as an “installation of the future,” which would include smart facilities able to withstand the Florida Panhandle’s severe weather and an expanded flight line to support F-35 operations by 2023.

“To date, we’ve spent about $350 million in operations and maintenance funds at Tyndall,” Henderson said. “Those funds primarily are coming out of facilities accounts in the Air Force. … In other words, funding that would have been primarily scheduled to be spent at the end of the year, we’ve pulled those forward in the beginning of the year.”

Henderson also said that there will be a request coming in the 2020 budget for the substantial rebuilding of Tyndall.

The 2019 operations and maintenance funds that the Air Force is tapping into are being shifted away from other spending needs, Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz noted during the hearing.

While the Air Force plans to ask for more Tyndall rebuilding funds in its FY20 budget, an emergency supplemental to address the 2019 funds currently being taken from end of the year projects has not been submitted, she said.

“Tyndall is counting, that region is counting, on an emergency supplemental,” Schultz said, noting the economic significance of the air base to the surrounding Panhandle.

“And it’s not like there aren’t other needs that the Air Force has,” she added. “So, if all of this ends up getting top loaded in FY20 then you are going to either impact how quickly we rebuild Tyndall or dramatically impact the rest of your [military construction] priorities.”

“Doesn’t that mean that this national emergency declaration by the president is going to affect military readiness?” Schultz asked.

Henderson said he did not know whether the president’s declaration would end up impacting Air Force readiness.

“This is an authority that hasn’t been invoked yet,” he said. “We haven’t gone through the readiness impacts.”

“The Air Force cannot afford to recover Tyndall inside of our currently planned and programmed appropriations,” Henderson said. “And I think I have to leave the committee with that. And we’re doing everything we can to keep that recovery on track and to maintain the readiness and lethality and our readiness objectives for the Air Force in FY19.”

“I went down there kind of undecided,” Kinzinger said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday.

“I think if this was just an issue of immigration it wouldn’t constitute a national emergency, but what I saw was really disturbing,” he said, adding that he would not vote to try to block the president’s national emergency declaration.

Some lawmakers have called the president’s move unconstitutional, as it bypasses Congress’ power of the purse. Kinzinger, though, does not agree with that assessment.

“Look, I wish this would have happened a different way,” he said. “I voted for comprehensive immigration reform. I think Republicans, the Democrat, both have good ideas on immigration.”

Kinzinger, who pilots the RC-26 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, said he tackled the mission from an apolitical point of view when he traded his flag pin for his flight cap.

Kinzinger said he flew missions in which he helped interdict 70 pounds of methamphetamines on a border crosser, as well as helped identify a woman who had been abandoned in the desert by human traffickers, also known as “coyotes.”

“Had she actually not been found by us, I don’t know if she’d been able to find her way home,” he said. “So yeah, she got picked up by Border Patrol, she’s going to be deported, but that was a way better option than being one of the 200, at least, bodies they end up finding in the desert every year.”

This was Kinzinger’s first time flying missions out of Arizona, but he said this was his fourth time flying on the southern border.

“Texas by the way, I was there under President Obama,” he added. “So the Guard’s mission on the border is nothing new.”

During the interview, Kinzinger acknowledged that border apprehensions are near a 50-year low, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data sheets. He also recognized that some border state governors have pushed back against the need for active-duty deployments.

However, he added that those numbers may be skewed by the inability of Border Patrol agents to catch illegal crossers.

“From my experience there were many, many groups that we would see on technology with camera radar or something like that that we could not go address because there were not enough Border Patrol agents,” Kinzinger said.

“These agents sometimes left to take a truck and then walk two miles through terrible terrain to get to these groups only to have them run while they’re already exhausted and they get lost in that chaos,” he added. “So is it down? Maybe.”

Glad for the slower withdrawal in Syria

Kinzinger was also asked about his stance on the U.S. troop strength in Syria, amid reports that President Donald Trump now planned to keep roughly 400 Americans in the country’s north and southeast.

“I certainly wish it was more than that,” he said, adding that he was “glad that the president has reversed” his decision to withdraw all U.S. forces from Syria.

“I think 2,000 troops was a great example, frankly, of how we’re doing war in the 21st century … which is legitimizing the local folks and using our Special Forces to give them the combat power necessary,” he said.

Kinzinger, like many who support a U.S. presence in Syria, is worried that leaving the country altogether opens a door for Iranian influence to move through the Iraq-Syria border, threatening Arab and Israeli allies. He also expressed concern that the Islamic State could rise again in the region.

“Iran’s position there is a mess and I actually worry about the future, not just of Syria, but the future of a potential regional conflict,” he said.

It remains unclear exactly what mission such a small contingent of U.S. troops will perform if left behind in Syria. Kinzinger does not envision them going out on “combat patrols,” however.

“There is no country that would be dumb enough to attack our forces there, but of course we’ve seen, even recently with ISIS, their boldness in attacking American military,” Kinzinger said.

“That’s why we have to stay on the offense. There’s going to be an ISIS two someday. There’s going to be an al-Qaida three. It’s a generational fight. It’s not just through war. It’s giving hope to the next generation of folks in the Middle East to reject that ideology within their own religion.”

“I encourage all communities, all sectors of society, and all Americans to acknowledge and honor the service, sacrifices, and contributions of veterans and military families for what they have done and for what they do every day to support our great Nation,” the president said in a press statement posted to the White House’s website.

Trump issued the proclamation while also championing his commitment to the veterans community.

“I was pleased to sign into law the landmark VA MISSION Act of 2018, which revolutionizes the way veterans receive healthcare and other services vital to their lives,” he said in the statement.

For full coverage of Veterans Day and veterans’ affairs events this month, visit Military Times’ Veterans Month Salute page.

The Department of Veterans Affairs fiscal 2019 budget included a $1.75 billion increase in money tied to the VA Mission Act, which was passed at the start of the summer and sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators.

The legislation will rewrite the department’s community care programs, expanding veterans ability to access private health care at taxpayer expense.

“I have also mandated greater collaboration across the Government to support veterans transitioning to civilian life,” Trump added. “Additionally, Second Lady Karen Pence and I have collaborated on ways to elevate the career and educational opportunities for military spouses and children in partnership with State, local, and tribal officials.”

Veterans Day lands on a Sunday this year. However, the observed holiday by federal employees will occur on Nov. 12, a Monday.

The 2018 celebrations also mark the centennial commemoration of the end of World War I on November 11, 1918.

During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., shot questions at Army Secretary Mark Esper about the misuse of funds.

“Please tell me that a senator 20 years from now is not going to be sitting here and going, ‘How in the world are taxpayers paying for Alfa Romeos and Bentleys?’” McCaskill said.

From 2010 to 2013, Army Contracting Command awarded four contracts, worth $536 million, to develop the Afghan National Security and Defense Forces’ intelligence capabilities, according to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

The contracts — Legacy Afghanistan, Legacy Kabul, Legacy South, and Legacy East — became known as the Legacy Afghanistan R&D program.

An audit by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, however, revealed that one of the subcontractors for Legacy East, New Century Consulting Limited, billed over $50 million in questionable costs to the Army.

In an August letter to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, McCaskill demanded answers on the Legacy East contract.

The audit found taxpayers wound up paying for seven luxury cars, including Porsches, Alfa Romeos, a Bentley, an Aston Martin, and a Land Rover. Additionally, the significant others of the CEO and CFO were kept on the payroll as “executive assistants,” according to McCaskill’s office.

In 2012, the average salary of these assistants reached roughly $420,000 each, despite the fact that they worked from home and never traveled to customer locations, with no documentation to prove they performed any work, McCaskill’s office said.

The agency conducted its review in part because McCaskill had previously demanded answers after an earlier audit of the contract by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction revealed the outstanding issues. That audit was non-public, but information was provided to senators.

At the hearing, McCaskill explained that the audit agency is worried that disclosing audits will discourage contract bids in the future from companies that don’t want their financial information to become public.

“I think we can get around that,” she said at the hearing Thursday. “And I think we’ve got to figure out a way to get all this information out.”

“I began oversight on the Legacy program beginning way back in October 2012, and as you all know, the Legacy program is a very expensive American effort to build the intelligence capacity of Afghanistan and Iraq — we are now very engaged in an investigation into parts of this contract,” McCaskill said. “It’s so discouraging to me after all the work we’ve spent on contracting … that we’ve not yet figured out how to get at these abuses close at time and close to the source.”

The audit also found the company spent over $1,500 on alcohol and $42,000 in cash on automatic weapons, despite regulations or contract provisions prohibiting such expenditures, according to McCaskill’s office.

Other questionable expenses included severance payments, rent, unnecessary licensing fees, extensive austerity pay, and expenses for air travel for personal reasons.

McCaskill’s office said they’ve been conducting a investigation into the Legacy East contract for the past year. During the hearing, she asked for a list of current contracts and subcontracts for the contractor under investigation, as well as the contractors’ performance reports.

“We’ll get you the information. … We owe you answers,” Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said.

Philip Mearing, 48, is the former president of Global Services Corporation. In that role, he and his associates, Kenneth Bricker and Ken Deines, made fraudulent payments from Mearing’s company to dummy corporations Deines had set up, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

The Virginian-Pilot reported in March that the 46-year-old Deines, a former Global Services executive, was sentenced in November 2016 to 18 months in prison.

Meanwhile, Bricker, a 59-year-old accountant in Hampton Roads, Virginia, was sentenced in March to four years in prison, according to the Pilot.

Global Services provides “core capabilities to include design and engineering, training, technology, logistics, administrative, and shipboard alteration services to military customers,” according to their website. “Our goal is to provide the best solution possible while maintaining firm budgetary control.”

However, the court determined that between 2004 and 2014, hundreds of invoices for work and services on behalf of Global Services were filed but never actually performed by the dummy corporations it contracted.

Mearing, Deines and Bricker would normally keep 5 percent of the fraudulent payments made by Global Services to the fraudulent companies. The other 95 percent of the payments would be sent to Mearing and his Ohio-based LLC known as DeShas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

According to court documents, Bricker received roughly $13.6 million in these fraudulent payments over the course of the decade. He retained about $558,000 for himself and issued checks totaling $13 million to the LLC and Mearing.

In an entirely separate conspiracy, the former comptroller for Norfolk Ship Support Activity assisted Mearing and Deines in submitting false claims to the government “via false and/or fictitious invoices,” the Attorney’s Office said.

The Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said these fraudulent claims resulted in the loss of another $1.8 million, with the combined total from the two conspiracies amounting to $15.4 million.

“The problem on the southwest border is not new, and the DoD’s participation in securing that border is not new,” Hamilton said. “The thing that I think is the biggest challenge is interoperability.”

Collaboration between the Department of Homeland Security and the military has also helped to increase readiness of National Guard units and secure the border, said Laura Yeager, director of the Joint Staff-California Joint Force Headquarters.

“Nobody joins the service because they want to sit in briefings and watch PowerPoints, they want to know they’re doing a mission,” Yeager said.

That support for state and local law enforcement is beneficial to the National Guard, Hamilton said.

“The counter-drug operations we take part in doesn’t impact our readiness at all. In fact, I think they enhance it,” he said.

But increasing the ability of different agencies and units to coordinate is needed to better tackle border security, Hamilton said. Issues with different encryption codes, for instance, can inhibit National Guard forces from working with Border Patrol on secure lines of communication, he added.

Some of that interoperability has extended to foreign partners as well, said Richard Booth, director of the Domains Awareness Division at the Department of Homeland Security.

Data that Homeland Security collects from air and maritime surveillance are now being shared with Mexican authorities, Booth said. That not only helps them better perform their job but prevents corrupt individuals in their agencies from claiming ignorance, he added.

“All agencies in Mexico responsible for the counter-drug operations see the same thing,” Booth said. “You can’t hide behind things. … It increases transparency from a corruption standpoint.”

Regardless, unity between the Department of Homeland Security and military can’t decrease, Hamilton said. The violence of drug cartels across the border is sometimes understated in America, he said.

“This problem has just evolved, and one of the biggest things we lose sight of sometimes is what the threat is and how extreme the threat is,” Hamilton said. “The ruthlessness of those organizations right across our border … are a threat to our homeland, there’s no question about it.”

Increased drug use in the United States and the emergence of the potent synthetic opioid Fentanyl underscores the need for more interagency border security, Yeager said.

“Last year, over 60,000 Americans died from drug overdose. … This is a really big threat,” Yeager said.

The support the National Guard provides with unmanned aerial reconnaissance and construction of roadways out to remote locations of the border has been a boon to expanding Border Patrol’s reach, said Chief Robert Boatright, director of the Border Patrol Special Coordinator Center.

“They get to use their equipment against a real, thinking and sometimes live-fire enemy,” Boatright said. “So, it’s really the best of both worlds.”

But the need for coordination between civil and defense authorities goes beyond border security, and that fact has been emphasized by the hurricane devastation in Texas and Puerto Rico this year, Boatright said.

“Whether it’s them supporting us, or us supporting them, it works really, really well in those environments,” Boatright said.