Tag: army

Army aviators, ready to leave the military, are told they owe 3 more years instead

Hundreds of Army aviation officers who were set to leave the military are being held to another three years of service after they say the branch quietly reinterpreted part of their contract amid retention and recruitment issues.

The shift has sparked an uproar among the more than 600 affected active-duty commissioned officers, including some who say their plans to start families, launch businesses and begin their civilian lives have been suddenly derailed. 

“We are now completely in limbo,” said a captain who had scheduled his wedding around thinking he would be leaving the military this spring. 

That captain and three other active-duty aviation officers who spoke to NBC News spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

As part of a program known as BRADSO, cadets commissioning from the U.S. Military Academy or Army Cadet Command from 2008 and 2020 were able to request a branch of their choice, including aviation, by agreeing to serve an additional three years on active duty. 

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The Army Increasingly Allows Soldiers Charged With Violent Crimes to Leave the Military Rather Than Face Trial

Stationed at Army posts thousands of miles apart, two soldiers faced a flurry of criminal charges after they allegedly assaulted women within days of each other in early 2017.

One soldier was accused of physically assaulting his wife and firing a gun as she tried to flee their home near Fort Hood in Texas. Police later found a bullet hole in a window screen.

The other told investigators in Alaska that he’d had sex with a fellow soldier who he knew was drunk and incapable of providing consent. They later found DNA evidence of his semen on her shorts.

Military prosecutors deemed the cases strong enough to pursue them in court. But the Army instead kicked the soldiers out, allowing them to return to civilian life with scant public record of the accusations against them.

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FBI and Army members raided the wrong hotel room during a training exercise and detained a guest inside

Members of the FBI and the US Army Special Operations Command who were conducting a training exercise in downtown Boston raided the wrong hotel room and detained the person inside before realizing their mistake, the FBI said in a statement to CNN.

The FBI said its Boston division was helping the military with a training exercise around 10 p.m. Tuesday “to simulate a situation their personnel might encounter in a deployed environment.”

“Based on inaccurate information, they were mistakenly sent to the wrong room and detained an individual, not the intended role player,” the FBI said.

“First and foremost, we’d like to extend our deepest apologies to the individual who was affected by the training exercise,” USASOC Lt. Col. Mike Burns told CNN.

The exercise was meant to “enhance soldiers’ skills to operate in realistic and unfamiliar environments,” Burns said, adding the incident is under review.

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The cost to rename 9 Confederacy-honoring Army bases has doubled

The cost of renaming the nine Army bases that honored the Confederacy has nearly doubled, an Army official told lawmakers Thursday.

The Army expects to pay $39 million, said Lt. Gen. Kevin Vereen, Army deputy chief of staff for installations. In 2022, the congressionally-mandated Naming Commission estimated it would cost $21 million to rename the nine Army installations.

The Defense Department initially gave the Army $1 million to change the names, but “that’s not anywhere close to what we need,” Vereen told members of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies.

The renaming involves replacing names not only at the installation gates, but on facilities, streets, numerous smaller signs, and technology, he said.

Service officials have until the end of the year to remove the names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederacy or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederacy.

Garrisons won’t have to foot the bill, Vereen said, nor will they have to pay the costs upfront and then request reimbursement.

“The Army is trying to solve the funding piece, and we’re trying to solve it internally,” he said. “We’ll take the funds from the department.”

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