Instead, it goes on your teeth. Yes, your teeth.

California-based Sonitus Technologies is working with the Defense Department to implement the Molar Mic, a miniaturized traditional headset that clips to a user’s back teeth, according to the news release.

The device ditches the need for ear pieces, microphones and wires on the head.

The custom mouthpiece clips onto the user’s back teeth and contains a tiny microphone and speaker-transducer for hearing, the company said. The device uses the teeth and jawbone as a new path for hearing.

Molar Mic is supposed to help communication continue even in extreme conditions that might normally break down radio communication between troops. By placing the device on the teeth, it uses the person’s body to block external noise while reducing gear weight on the user’s head.

The Defense Department contracted Sonitus Technologies for a multiyear, $10 million deal to finish development of the Molar Mic, according to the company and Defense One.

Pararescuemen with the California Air National Guard’s 131st Rescue Squadron in California tested prototypes of the device during rescue operations when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston last year.

“Sonitus Technologies is honored to bring this game-changing technology to our country’s elite military, making them safer and more effective by enabling them to communicate clearly — even in the most extreme situations,” Peter Hadrovic, CEO of Sonitus Technologies, said in the release. “The voice interface sustains communications in dangerous and challenging environments. The Molar Mic is the first in our family of solutions that conventional approaches are unable to address.”

Fortunately for you, Urban Outfitters has your peacocking needs covered! And for only $30, you can purchase your very own “Rothco Reflective Physical Training Belt.”

Match it with your favorite skinny jeans, a scarf and a snow beanie for that perfect summer look that screams, “I don’t care if it’s 104 degrees out and I’m burning alive — I’m fantastic!”

Traditionally used during on-base runs to avoid being hit by cars before or after dark, the trendy new PT belt from Urban Outfitters will make sure you also avoid being hit by compliments.

The store even decided to advertise the monstrosity on a model wearing all black, because nothing says dark and mysterious like having your entire orbital sockets pummeled into submission by a walking highlighter.

Clearly, normal belts are just not hacking it anymore in the civilian sector.

Perhaps people are forgetting where waistlines exist, devolving mentally to the point of utter anatomical ignorance, and the belt allows for a quick glance downward and an excited exclamation, “Oh yeah!”

If only Christopher Walken could resurrect beloved Saturday Night Live character “The Bruce Dickenson” to give us a “I gotta have more glow belt” phenomenon.

Is no military item sacred enough to avoid being flipped into a fashion statement? Do sports not already shove enough digital camouflage into the face of every consumer?

“Buy this $900 digi camo NFL hoodie to support our troops with .001 percent of the proceeds!”

What’s next? Casually wearing a Marine dress blue jacket with a Navy cover for the purpose of style?

Oh wait.

An Air Force sergeant during his service in Vietnam as a disc jockey with the Armed Forces Radio Service, Cronauer began his early morning show, “Dawnbuster.” with the iconic words “Goooood morning, Vietnam!”

The 1987 movie, starring Robin Williams, turned that line into a national catch-phrase years after the war ended.

Although Cronauer co-wrote the film that was loosely based on his time as a DJ, it was rewritten several times, each time with more creative license, to take full advantage of Williams’ outsize comedic talents.

“Williams’ madcap banter … was an exaggeration of the real Cronauer,” wrote Rick Fredericksen, a Marine newsman at American Forces Vietnam Network, for a story that appeared in Vietnam magazine, a sister publication, in December. “In a 2014 interview with me after Williams’ death, Cronauer shared one of his favorite observations about the star’s portrayal of him: ‘If I did even half the things that Robin did in the movie, I’d still be in Leavenworth [federal penitentiary]. … He was a comedic genius. ‘ ”

Cronauer did, however, push back against the staid military conventions of the time that pushed out “entertainment” that was deadly dull. With humor, imagination and enthusiasm, he produced radio broadcasts that were truly aimed at the troops fighting the war and, for that reason, became a beloved figure e and It seemed as though its mission had very little to do with improving the morale of the American community in Vietnam.

In the movie, Cronauer, as portrayed by Williams, befriends a Vietnamese boy who turns out to be a Viet Cong terrorist, and he is forced to leave Vietnam before his tour is over. None of that actually happened.

Even so, Cronauer told Military Times in 2014 that he enjoyed Williams’ performance.

“It was never intended to be a point-by-point accurate biography,” Cronauer told Military Times. “It was intended to be a piece of entertainment, and it certainly was that. It was nominated for an Academy Award, and you don’t get much better than that.”

Cronauer left the Air Force as a sergeant in 1966 and eventually served as an adviser to the deputy assistant secretary of defense from 2001 to 2009, according to Cronauer’s obituary.

In between, he owned an ad agency, managed a radio station, was a TV anchorman and a voice actor. He also worked with the Pentagon to raise awareness of prisoners of war and those missing in action.

Cronauer, who lived in Virginia, was preceded in death by his wife, Jeane, according to his obituary.

President Trump has confirmed reports that he wants to make big changes to the iconic fleet of Boeing jets.

“Boeing gave us a good deal. And we were able to take that,” Trump told CBS Evening News. “But I said, ‘I wonder if we should use the same baby blue colors?’ And we’re not.”

The 45th president wants to do away with the blue color scheme that’s donned Air Force One jets since 1962 with President John F. Kennedy.

“Red, white and blue,” Trump told CBS. “Air Force One is going to be incredible. It’s gonna be the top of the line, the top in the world. And it’s gonna be red, white and blue, which I think is appropriate.”

The custom presidential jets were originally designed with a red and gold color scheme, but JFK worked with a French industrial designer to create the blue color scheme we see today, according to the New England Historical Society.

The Air Force on Tuesday formally awarded Boeing a $3.9 billion fixed-price contract to design, test and deliver two presidential aircraft by 2024, a deal that had been informally reached with the president in February. A statement from the White House Office of the Press Secretary said the deal would save taxpayers more than “$1.4 billion from the initially proposed $5.3 billion cost-plus contract,” although numerous media reports had pegged the cost at closer to $4 billion, meaning a savings closer to a few hundred million dollars at most.

Although the new Air Force One jets won’t be ready until 2024, the last year of Trump’s presidency if he is re-elected, Trump wants future presidents to enjoy this new paint job for years to come.

“I hate to say this, it’s gonna be a long time,” Trump said. “It’s a very complex project. But by the time it gets built, you’re gonna have many presidents, hopefully, use it and enjoy it.”

What do you think about the idea?

When Puerto Rico was pummeled by the 2017 hurricane season, it left the island without power, access to essential supplies or drivable roads.

Coast Guard Aviation Survival Technician 2nd Class Omar Alba, who was stationed at Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen, realized he had the equipment to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

The rescue swimmer had a limit on how much he could fly each day with the Coast Guard on humanitarian missions, but he knew he could help in other ways.

“I could only fly six hours a day, but they didn’t tell me how long I could drive,” Alba told Military Times.

Alba, who enjoys off-roading when he’s not working, has a modified Jeep that could handle the island’s tree-strewn terrain. He loaded the Jeep up with water, food and supplies and took off across Puerto Rico to help those who were isolated.

For his actions last year, Alba has been named the 2018 Military Times Coast Guardsman of the Year.

The 34-year-old had grown up going to church, and he continued going to services in Puerto Rico, so he knew where they were located.

Alba spent about 40 days delivering supplies to churches around the island, cutting through the trees to create a path until the roads were cleared.

He also helped search for civilians and family members of other Coast Guardsmen who were stranded in Puerto Rico.

“There were no cellphones or communications, so [the Coast Guard] launched two helicopters to fly over people’s homes,” he said. “There was so much debris you couldn’t really tell.”

Alba wasn’t chosen to be part of that flying group, so he decided to be a ground asset and drive to the homes.

“I would literally make a road,” he said. “I was plowing through everything finding these people.”

By the end of it, Alba had found more than a dozen people reported missing.

’The water has always made me happy’

Alba grew up in El Paso, Texas, and studied engineering in college.

“It honestly did not make me happy,” he said. “I was good at it, but it didn’t make me happy.”

After having an internal fight with himself, Alba sat down and realized what had always made him happy was the water.

“At 14 I joined a swim team, then I became a lifeguard at a local pool,” he said, adding that the medical world also interested him.

“My dad was a diabetic, so I knew how to do dialysis,” Alba said. “Something about the medical world and water brought a lot of happiness to me.”

He thought there had to be a job where he could be in the water and provide medical care.

Originally, Alba was going to join the Navy’s rescue swimmer program, but an ad popped up online one day with guys jumping out of a helicopter.

He remembers thinking: “What the hell is that guy?”

After finding out that guy was a rescue swimmer in the Coast Guard, Alba knew that’s what he wanted to do. He officially joined in 2006.

After performing odds-and-ends jobs for the Coat Guard, he completed the service’s airman program.

He graduated from the program and was sent on his first big mission.

Alba was stationed in Alabama when his team got a phone call about an oil rig explosion.

“They asked if I wanted it,” he said. “I was almost brand new as a rescue swimmer.”

As Alba and his crew flew closer to the area, he thought his night-vision goggles were broken because it was so bright ahead of him, even though the sun had already set.

He asked the pilot what was in front of him.

“That’s the burning oil rig,” he was told.

The oil rig was Deepwater Horizon, where an explosion killed 11 of the 126 crew members and caused a three-month oil spill.

Alba helped hoist the survivors off the rig.

The Coastie recently changed duty stations to Coast Guard Air Station Savannah in Georgia.

“It’s going to take me three to six months to figure out how I can help people here,” he said, but he’s sure he’ll find a way.

More than 20 years after the effort began, a World War II hero has finally received the Medal of Honor.

Army 1st Lt. Garlin Conner was originally awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award for valor, for his actions during 28 months in combat during World War II as an intelligence officer.

But Conner’s family and friends took up the fight to upgrade the award to the nation’s highest valor award, continuing the effort after Conner died in 1998 at age 79.

And on Tuesday, Conner was honored during a ceremony at the White House.

“Today we pay tribute to this Kentucky farm boy who stared down evil with the strength of a warrior and the heart of a true hero,” President Donald Trump said during his remarks.

Conner was assigned to K Company, 7th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division when in January 1945 he volunteered to run 400 yards through “an intense concentration of enemy artillery” in Houssen, France, according to Conner’s Distinguished Service Cross citation.

This was after Conner sneaked out of a field hospital, where he was being treated for a painful hip wound, to rejoin the fight, Trump said.

Along the way, Conner unrolled a spool of telephone wire so he could use a field telephone to direct attacks on the enemy.

“He ran 400 yards, dodging shrapnel, bullets, shells everywhere, artillery trying to hit him,” Trump said. “They saw him; they couldn’t get him. He was going every different way. He looked like an NFL star, all the while laying telephone wire wherever he went.”

Conner raced to the front of the American line and laid down in a shallow ditch, Trump said.

“In front of the lone American soldier were six German tanks and hundreds of German soldiers,” the president said.

As bullets flew all around him, Conner directed friendly artillery fire to hold off six German tanks and about 600 German infantrymen.

As shells exploded 25 yards from him, he set up an observation post, where he stayed for more than three hours, the citation said.

“He had shells dropped right on him,” Trump said.

“At one point, a German soldier came within five yards of Lieutenant Conner before being shot and killed,” Trump added. “For three hours, the bloody battle raged on.”

Conner was individually credited with stopping more than 150 German troops, destroying the tanks and “disintegrating the powerful enemy assault force and preventing heavy loss of life in his own outfit,” the citation said.

Trump praised Conner for his “extraordinary courage and devotion that burned like a righteous fire in his soul.”

During the White House ceremony Tuesday, Conner’s widow, Pauline, accepted the Medal of Honor on her husband’s behalf.

“He was a very humble person,” Pauline told reporters in April. “He loved his country, he loved his family, he loved veterans, and I’m very proud of him.”

Trump called Pauline in April to tell her he had approved the Medal of Honor for her late husband.

“He said, ‘I have been studying his records, and he has a magnificent record. One of the best military records I’ve seen in a long time,’” Pauline said.

According to language in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2018, President Trump was given the authority to award the Medal of Honor to Conner.

Conner’s widow said she learned more about what her husband did in the Army now than in the 57 years they lived together.

“He was very private with his military record,” she said. “He didn’t discuss it very much. He felt like people would think he was bragging.”

Pauline said it was a relief when she found out President Trump had approved the medal for Conner.

“I had got to the place that I was about to give up,” she said. “I didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime, because I am 88 years old.”

Conner is said to be the second-most decorated soldier from World War II, after Maj. Audie Murphy, who is commonly referred to as the most decorated WWII soldier.

Conner, who joined the Army in 1941 and was discharged in 1945, also received four Silver Stars, one Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.

The effort to upgrade Conner’s award began when Richard Chilton, a former Green Beret, wrote to the Army Board for Correction of Military Records saying Conner should be honored. Chilton was researching details of his uncle’s military career, and he came across Conner, who had served with Chilton’s uncle.

The board rejected the application for upgrading Conner’s Distinguished Service Cross to a Medal of Honor in 1997 and turned away an appeal in 2000.

Pauline Conner collected three eyewitness accounts of Conner’s actions and resubmitted the case to the board in 2008.

Nothing happened, and after support grew from lawmakers, veterans, historians and authors in 2014, a Kentucky district court ruled that Conner’s widow had resubmitted the case two years after the statute of limitations expired.

The decision then went back to the Army board, which went against the advice of its staff and the judge and voted unanimously in 2015 that sworn statements from those who served with Conner were “sufficient to warrant a recommendation.”

“Lieutenant Garlin Murl Conner was indeed a giant,” Trump said. “In his daring, his devotion, and his duty, he was larger than life. And that, he was. He will never, ever be forgotten.”

Luke Villotti, who lives about an hour outside of Chicago with his wife and kids, told the Chicago Tribune that his 20 chickens help with his depression and pain from injuries he suffered during training.

And while the Veterans Administration approved his need for these support animals, his neighbors aren’t too happy about it, and have raised concerns about odor, noise and disease, the newspaper reported.

The Villottis said they keep their flock extra clean because the chickens are important to their family and are around their children.

Residents from the neighborhood met to discuss the issue, with most neighbors taking a stance against the chickens.

On Monday, another board meeting was held where Villotti spoke to his neighbors directly.

“The fact is I was in the U.S. Marine Corps and my future has been taken away from me, my job, my health and now my support chickens are being taken away?” Villotti said at the meeting, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The family invited anyone to visit their home and see if they smell or hear the animals.

“I grew up here but I have never seen this,” resident Tom Jones said. “If you can’t be open-minded for this man who served his country maybe you shouldn’t be on the board. You really can’t decide by rolling your eyes. We stood there for 30 minutes and there was no noise, we couldn’t smell anything.”

The neighborhood’s administrator said the subdivision is working with Villotti on a resolution.

What do you think about this?

(As fun as this sounds, I’ve never been able to participate in this. Thanks, Mom and Dad.)

This summer, the soda company is adding a new twist to their Share-A-Coke campaign.

People can now “share” a Coke with a sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman, hero or veteran.

(What happened to “soldier” or “Marine”?)

The cans are $1 and sold exclusively at Dollar General stores through late September. Coca-Cola and Dollar General will then donate $100,000 to the USO.

Enjoy! Unless you’re in the Army or Marine Corps.

Four veterans were honored with Medal of Courage awards on Capitol Hill on May 22.

They didn’t give any speeches, but not just because they were humble — the four vets are retired military working dogs.

The American Humane Lois Pope K-9 Medal of Courage is the highest honor for military dogs that displayed extraordinary valor and service to their country.

“These remarkable dogs have given us their best,” veterans advocate Lois Pope said at the ceremony. “They have put their own lives on the line to protect us, to defend us, and to save us.”

The four recipients were:

• Jag, a 12-year-old Labrador retriever who served with the Army for seven years.
• Taba, a 9-year-old Dutch shepherd who served as an Army Special Forces multipurpose canine.
  
• Summer, a 7-year-old Labrador retriever who served in Afghanistan and is now a member of a TSA K-9 team for the Amtrak Police Department in Washington, D.C.
  
• Taker, a 12-year-old Labrador retriever who served with the Marine Corps in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  

Marine veteran Kevin Zuniga deployed with Taker to Afghanistan with 1st Tank Battalion out of Twentynine Palms, California.

“We met a few months before we deployed because they were asking for volunteers to be dog handlers,” Zuniga told Military Times.

Unfortunately, the Marine wasn’t selected at first, but when someone had to drop out, Zuniga took the spot.

“It was meant to be, I guess,” he said.

Zuniga and Taker conducted route clearing in Afghanistan for seven months.

The dogs and their handlers remained in the trucks until the dogs were needed to clear a checkpoint.

“If someone happens to walk by, it’s an easy target for the enemy,” he said. “But dogs are lower to the ground, faster to run around and a lot lighter so they wouldn’t trigger any explosives.”

Taker was also a morale booster for the deployed troops.

“They could pet him and play with him and kind of forget about what we’re doing over there a little bit,” he said.

Once the pair returned from deployment, Zuniga had to give Taker back to the government.

“I still had two years left with the Marines, so I didn’t see him for two years,” Zuniga said. “In 2012, I was discharged, and it just so happened that he was getting discharged as well.”

After doing some research and connecting with someone who knew where Taker was, Zuniga was able to adopt the dog he served with.

“He’s been with us since the end of 2012,” Zuniga said. “We picked him up at the airport, and he still recognized me.”

Zuniga said he was surprised and happy when he found out his four-legged companion was picked for the Medal of Courage award.

“I’ve seen the competition from previous years,” he said. “I’m happy because he’s been through a lot. He deployed with a different handler to Iraq.”

The Marine said military dogs aren’t always recognized as much as their human counterparts.

“They’re just seen as tools sometimes,” he said. “It shines some light toward the topic of military dogs and makes people think about the dogs that didn’t make it or back, or the people that didn’t make it back.”

Air Force veteran Micah Jones echoed Zuniga’s sentiment.

“In the military, a lot of the handlers are the ones getting the ribbons and the medals,” he said. “Dogs don’t really get that much.”

Although Jones and Summer both served, they didn’t find each other until their civilian jobs brought them together working with Amtrak police.

The former security forces airman met Summer in 2014 after Jones’ previous canine partner retired.

“She’s a burst of energy,” he said. “I checked her vet records, and that’s when I learned she was over in Kandahar, [Afghanistan].”

Jones made contact with Summer’s previous handler and found out she served with Marines conducting routine patrols, clearing routes, finding weapon caches and even coming under fire.

“Me being a veteran, and learning about her being a war dog and military veteran as well, it was an honor,” he said of being paired with Summer.

She wears her Afghanistan campaign ribbon and Global War on Terrorism service medal on her work harness every day.

“I want the public to know she’s a war dog,” Jones said. “She served her time.”