Six months after taking over the Pentagon’s top job, Defense Secretary Ash Carter has left several of his predecessor’s signature reviews of personnel policy issues unresolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stepped down in February without making a final decision about the so-called “drone medal,” for example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hagel, a former combat infantryman, questioned the 2013 decision to create a high-level Distinguished Warfare Medal to recognize pilots of unmanned aircraft, cyber warriors and others who do not fight on the front lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He canceled the medal and ordered the Pentagon’s personnel office to conduct a yearlong review of the entire military medals system that was scheduled for completion in June. But the outcome of that review remains unclear, as Carter has made no decisions on the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2013, Hagel also ordered a “comprehensive review of the military justice system,” a move that was in part a response to a stream of scandals involving troops’ unethical or criminal conduct. The review also came at time when the number of military courts-martial had fallen dramatically over the previous decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Military Justice Working Group completed that review in April, defense officials said. But it was not released, and Carter has not publicly discussed any Uniform Code of Military Justice reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hagel also vowed to review the military’s forcewide rules on tobacco sales and use. That followed a spate of concerns about troops’ smoking habits, and the health risks and the health care costs tobacco use might pose to the Defense Department. A defense official said recently that the tobacco review is still ongoing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, Carter has launched his own set of reviews. Soon after taking over the job, he launched a “Force of the Future” review to broadly assess personnel issues like recruitment, retention and professional development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He is also awaiting the results of a security review following the fatal shooting of four Marines and a sailor at a reserve center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Carter has ordered a review of military policies related transgender troops and the implications of allowing them to serve openly and undergo transition from one gender to another while in the active-duty force. That review is due next spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pentagon reviews of tobacco use and the medals system are unresolved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":92371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,88],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3125],"class_list":["post-90510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-your-military"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"BCC2DPVCZBFM5HRD4VZUNSAYGM","arc_canonical_url":"\/2015\/08\/29\/old-dod-reviews-expire-new-ones-are-born\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n