VoteVets, a non-profit group and political action organization that largely supports Democrat veteran candidates, launched a 10-day billboard campaign Monday in 10 U.S. cities that features photos of President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on a fiery background.

“Trump & Hegseth’s Iran War means higher prices for you with no end in sight,” the signs declare.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, senior adviser to VoteVets, told Military Times the effort is intended to connect “affordability with accountability,” linking political leaders’ actions with higher costs at the gas pump and grocery stores.

“[Service members] tend to be married young with children, and when you allow the cost of living — not just gasoline, but the whole business, grocery stores — … it’s a visible increase in prices that we are bearing,” Eaton said during an interview Friday.

Iran and Israel launched strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, killing numerous Iranian leaders, including its top official, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Trump said the strikes were meant to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

“[Iran] attempted to rebuild their nuclear program and to continue developing long range missiles that can now threaten our very good friends and allies in Europe, our troops stationed overseas and could soon reach the American homeland,” Trump said in a social media post following the attack.

Since the opening salvos, other regional powers have become involved, and the control of the Strait of Hormuz — a vital shipping lane through which roughly 25% of the world’s oil is transported — has fallen into dispute, interrupting maritime commerce.

The conflict has caused natural gas and oil prices to swing, affecting prices of the commodities. But Eaton said the billboards also seek to call attention to the rising national debt, which surpassed $40 trillion this week.

The national debt limit has doubled in the past decade under President Joe Biden and Trump, growing by $8.4 trillion while Biden was in the White House. When Trump took office in January 2025 that debt was hovering at $36.1 trillion.

“That level of accountability to affordability, that linkage is also what we’re trying to make clear to everybody,” Eaton said.

The locations of VoteVets’ billboard campaign include: Dayton, Ohio; West Point, New York; Fayetteville, North Carolina; San Antonio, Texas; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Tampa, Florida; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Tomah City, Wisconsin; and Savannah, Georgia.

The group’s 1,000-plus digital billboards are slated to stay up until Sept. 2.

“We are going where veterans and military families are around our nation’s military installations, and underscoring the cost of Trump and Hegseth’s neocon war to them directly,” the group said in a press release.

The Defense Department’s Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, released Friday, estimated that 20,492 active-duty service members, including 9,860 women and 10,632 men, were sexually assaulted in the year preceding the fiscal year 2025 survey, down from 29,000 in 2023.

The 2025 figures represent a drop in sexual assaults from roughly 35,900 in 2021.

“The FY 2025 report underscores our ongoing commitment to maintaining high standards, protecting our people, and building a unified, ready, and lethal fighting force,” Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Anthony Tata said in a statement Friday.

The assault estimates were derived from the department’s 2025 Workplace Experiences Survey that polls troops on various topics such as sexual assault and harassment, work climate, leadership and training.

According to the fiscal year 2025 survey, the estimated rate of assaults dropped among active-duty women from 6.8% to 4.3%, and among active-duty men from 1.4% to 1.0%.

At the same time, reports of sexual assaults increased, with 7,998 filed in fiscal year 2025. Given the results of the survey, an estimated one in three individuals filed a formal report of an assault, up from one in four in 2023.

Defense Department officials have long encouraged service members to report assaults as a means to address the issue in the ranks. The Pentagon uses the reports metric to help determine whether department and service sexual assault prevention and reporting initiatives are succeeding.

“Estimated percentage of victimized service members making Restricted and Unrestricted Reports – desired state is increase,” the report stated.

According to the report, the Marine Corps had the highest prevalence of unwanted sexual contact against women, at 6.8% of female Marines. The Navy had the highest prevalence of unwanted contact against men, at 1.5%.

The Air Force had the lowest prevalence of unwanted contact reported by its members at 2.8% by women and 0.7% by men.

The report noted that a majority of service members trusted their leaders to handle the problem, with 72% of women and 80% of men saying that those involved were “treated fairly.”

Trust in the system also has risen since 2023, according to the data, but female members still struggle with confidence in the process.

In 2025, 64% of men and 41% of women said they believed the system would protect their privacy, up from 61% and 41%, respectively.

69% of men and 45% of women said they trusted the military to ensure their safety after a sexual assault, up from 66% and 43% in 2023.

Female service members reportedly expressed more confidence in the resources provided by their sexual assault response coordinators and support team, with more than 60% saying they were satisfied with support from their victim advocates, sexual assault response coordinators and assigned attorneys.

Male troops were less satisfied with the services of their sexual assault teams; however, between 36% and 47% expressed confidence in their victim advocates, response coordinators and counsel.

The military services were required in 2023 to establish independent legal structures to handle serious crimes, including sexual assault, domestic violence, murder and manslaughter. The Office of Special Trial Counsel directly handles investigations and decisions to prosecute such cases, removing the chain of command from a role it historically held in judicial proceedings.

The first survey since the Office of Special Trial Counsel’s creation found that men were “significantly more likely” than women to trust that the office would treat them fairly if they were to experience a sexual assault, with 65% of men reporting favorably. Just 44% of women expressed the same confidence, however.

In the past, service members have hesitated to report incidents of sexual assault out of fear of retaliation from their leadership, peers and/or perpetrator. A 2021 study found that 31% of men and 28% of women said they experienced retaliation after a sexual assault.

The report released Friday found that retaliation continues to be a concern. Among women service members who indicated an experience of Unwanted Sexual Contact (USC), 17% reported saying they experienced retaliation prohibited by law. For both men and women, one of the most common reasons for not coming forward was “worrying about backlash from coworkers and peers.”

Along with the decrease in sexual assault, the prevalence of sexual harassment also declined among men and women. An estimated 4.4%, or 44,656 service members, said they experienced sexual harassment, down from 5.8% in 2023. Among women, 17.5%, or 39,744 service members, said they experienced sexual harassment, down from 24.7% in 2023.

Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group dedicated to promoting equality and ending sexual assault in the ranks, said Friday that its analysis of the 2025 data found that service members experienced 38% more unwanted sexual contacts than a decade ago. The group also noted that the 4.3% rate of sexual assault among military women in 2025 was the same as the rate reported in 2016.

The Defense Department cautions that the survey measure was substantially revised in 2021 and that prevalence estimates from 2021 onward cannot be scientifically compared with estimates from earlier years.

The rate among men, at 1%, was higher than the 2018 rate of 0.7%, the group noted.

The advocates said they have heard from personnel whose prosecutions never occurred or whose evidence and documents were lost, and victims were pushed out of the military without proper medical care, including mental health treatment.

“I wouldn’t take these numbers at face value, and neither should the American public. They are not what we are seeing,“ said Protect Our Defenders Senior Vice President Josh Connolly.

“Survivors are more afraid to come forward than they were two years ago, and this administration has spent the past year giving them reason to be – rolling back whistleblower protections, making it harder to report anonymously, warning people who come forward that they may be punished for it. A number that falls because people stopped talking is not progress,” Connolly said.

In the report, department officials attributed the decline to numerous changes they have made to address sexual assault and harassment in the ranks, which they called harmful behaviors that “act as internal adversaries, eroding the very foundation of our operational readiness and unit lethality.”

According to the department, the DoD assessed Sexual Assault and Prevention and Reporting Offices in Indo-Pacific Command in 2025, engaged at joint bases to improve collaboration across the services, conducted unit evaluations and standardized the workforce to address issues with the program.

“Dignity, respect, and discipline are foundational to the warrior ethos and the overall preparedness of the force. Sexual assault and sexual harassment undermine these values, eroding trust and threatening the mission,” Tata said in the release.

But the services have been unable to complete those requirements because they are hampered by a lack of resources, including a shortage of staff and the technology needed to conduct such assessments, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

In 2024, after extensive reporting by The New York Times on the impact routine weapons training can have on the brain, including traumatic brain injury, the Pentagon issued several policies to protect troops from blast overpressure.

The policies included restrictions on the proximity trainers should have to weapons at firing ranges. They also called for increasing the use of simulators in training, conducting cognitive assessments of all troops and monitoring exposure.

The policies also required new recruits to receive cognitive assessments by the end of 2024. Screening for all active-duty personnel in “high-risk” specialties — such as those who handle howitzers, mortars, M 107 and MK 15 sniper rifles, breaching charges and other weapons — was supposed to be completed by the end of fiscal 2025.

The GAO found that nearly 200,000 recruits were screened in fiscal 2025 and 86% of personnel in occupations at increased risk received assessments, with 87% of Army personnel, 81% of Air Force members and 59% of Navy sailors screened.

But service officials told GAO analysts that they faced challenges fully meeting their obligations and evaluating personnel because of the tight timeline set in memos. They said they did not receive the resources or staff to conduct the assessments and relied on existing resources to meet requirements.

In terms of monitoring service members at regular intervals following their initial assessments, the Defense Health Agency said it did not have enough specialists to meet requirements.

Officials in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness told the GAO that insufficient industrial hygienists were the “primary barrier to DOD achieving its targets for exposure tracking.”

The Pentagon announced in April that it will begin a one-year pilot program to test a new cognitive assessment tool, an app that service members can use to complete assessments. DoD officials said the app will be less “resource intensive” than current assessments and will help improve the services’ ability to track exposures.

GAO officials also said the Pentagon has taken several steps to educate service members and ensure they receive care if they show symptoms.

According to the GAO, the DoD now distributes informational material to service members on blast exposure, instructs leaders to schedule training breaks and encourages troops to seek treatment. The department is working to improve access to specialty care while also educating military doctors on blast exposure.

“DOD has taken critical steps to prevent and mitigate service members’ exposures to blast overpressure, steps intended to help protect their brain health and the readiness of our country’s military forces,” the report stated.

GAO made two recommendations, saying the department should complete an assessment of the resources needed to implement the policies and take steps to ensure the services have adequate industrial hygiene staff support.

In response, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs Keith Bass said the department is on its way to completing the resource assessment and has taken steps to meet the industrial hygiene staff requirements.

“DOD estimates it will complete the actions for both recommendations by December 2026,” Bass wrote.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect Keith Bass’s correct title.

John and Jackie Kennedy, Sen. John Warner and his wife Elizabeth Taylor, Linda Tripp of Clinton-Lewinsky fame, and, as of last month, Vice President JD Vance and his family, all have resided without fanfare in this pastoral area an hour from Washington, D.C.

But the region’s newest neighbors — the U.S. Army and 73 horses of the Old Guard’s Caisson Detachment — have divided a community that values the proper care of the horses and the detachment’s mission at Arlington National Cemetery, but fears the move could cost local jobs and restrict access to the region’s premier thoroughbred training facility.

The Army finalized an $8.6 million deal on Aug. 6 to buy the Middleburg Training Center, a 149-acre horse farm with 11 barns and ample paddocks and pastures, to house and train the horses that support burials at Arlington National Cemetery.

Army officials said they considered more than 100 properties before choosing the Middleburg Training Center, which has newer barns and facilities and room for more than 200 horses.

During a town hall with residents in Middleburg on Aug. 6 — the same day the Army closed on the property — a panel of officials said the center provided the requisite environment for equine care and met needs for easements, as well as environmental, historical, and cultural concerns.

“We needed a horse farm. The Middleburg Training Center is that farm. The caisson herd moving to the Middleburg Training Center and the Military Mounted Battalion being operational here is a final piece of our grand modernization efforts,” said Col. Jeff Kain, commander of the 3^rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, referring to changes at the unit, which is known as The Old Guard, since 2022.

That year, an internal review found that the horses’ facilities at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall in Arlington, Virginia, and Fort Belvoir, in Fairfax, were inadequate, with environmental conditions that contributed to the deaths of two horses.

According to the report, obtained by CNN, the deaths were attributable to poor conditions and care, with one horse dying as the result of a blocked gastrointestinal tract likely caused by ingesting sand and gravel, while the other died from colic as a result of eating poor-quality hay.

Two more horses died later that year, including a geriatric horse who suffered surgical complications following a fracture and another from “acute abdominal distress,” which may also have been caused by ingesting poor-quality hay or gravel.

As a result of the issues and subsequent public outcry, the service revamped its entire program, establishing a Military Working Equid Task Force, suspending support for caisson burials at Arlington, and dismantling most of its horse units elsewhere.

Most of the Arlington horses were moved to an equestrian facility in Aldie, Virginia, as the service instituted a basic horsemanship course, replaced the heavy caisson with lighter-weight versions for burials and created a new 08H Army Equestrian military occupational specialty to focus on caring for the service’s animals.

Residents mourning loss of facility

While most of the residents who packed the Middleburg Community Center on Aug. 6 were horse-lovers, riders, owners and trainers who favor the service’s efforts to protect the herd, they expressed dismay over the selection of the Middleburg Training Center as the Army’s new home.

The facility contains the state’s longest racetrack and hosts more than 1,000 horses each year. Without it, Virginia’s growing thoroughbred racing industry and the region’s economy will suffer, they said.

“Has the Army conducted an economic analysis on the loss of revenue that is now going to come forward … because of the loss of services for veterinarians, blacksmiths, equine dentists, therapy service providers, shipping companies, your tack stores, your feed stores, all the local community that generates revenue, horsemen included, because of you guys taking over the training center?” asked Megan Connolly, a former training center employee.

According to Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., the facility contributes “thousands of jobs and tens of millions of dollars to the local economy that may be lost.”

During the town hall, Subramanyam asked whether the Army and the community could reach an agreement to lease back portions of the facility to those who work in Virginia’s burgeoning racing industry.

“I think it would go a long way if we were able to at least lease back part of the property to the training sector,” Subramanyam said.

The Middleburg Training Center was built in 1956 by philanthropist and horse enthusiast Paul Mellon. In its heyday, it produced the Kentucky Derby winner Spectacular Bid. Over the years, it fell into disrepair, though it never went unused because of its 7/8-mile sand track, the only one in the region.

Charles Kuhn, founder of JK Moving Services, purchased the facility in 2017 for $1.6 million. He made significant improvements to the barns and paddocks and preserved it from development.

Kuhn also purchased Wolver Hill Farm, another Middleburg property, in 2021, and placed it in a conservation easement to preserve its racing legacy and protect it from development. He leases a portion of the 500-acre expanse to the Vances.

According to the Virginia Equine Alliance, the facility supplied 825 full-time jobs and had an economic impact of $86.2 million from 2017 to 2023.

The alliance has expressed a desire for the property to be shared with the public in some capacity, given that the Army will not use the track and will occupy only a few of the barns.

Residents requested that a sharing agreement be considered and asked about jobs, the Army’s vision for the property, future fencing, housing and the track.

“You really have two extremes you can go toward: one would be this is a kind of a secret closed base. Nobody gets on it without a password of some kind, and it’s mysterious, it’s like Area 51 comes to Middleburg,” said Mike Pillsbury, owner of a nearby horse farm and former chairman of the Defense Policy Board. “The other extreme is you’re like Disneyland, and you sell tickets and you give tours … or you could do something in-between.”

Examining sharing options

Maj. Gen. Antoinette Gant, commander of Joint Task Force – National Capital Region/U.S. Army District of Washington, told attendees that a legal team is exploring the idea of community utilization, although she could not provide any definitive answers.

“The primary mission … is to make sure that we can be able to support the requirements … to ensure that the forces in the Military Mounted Battalion are able to do their jobs,” Gant said.

But, Gant added, the Army also is “looking at it from a legal standpoint to see what does that truly mean – a joint-use type of facility.”

According to Gant, the service plans to create an advisory committee in the community and encourage people with requisite experience to apply for jobs the Army may need at the facility.

Those jobs, however, are likely to be a fraction of the current number, given that the Army has its own veterinarians, techs and other staff.

The pending change has already prompted horse trainers and owners to relocate to other states that support thoroughbred racing, attendees said, and they expressed sadness over losing a facility at the heart of the state’s racing aspirations.

“This is a knife coming right into the middle of this tradition and this lifestyle that has been going on here for centuries … Gen. Patton was a fox hunter here,” said Wayne Chatfield-Taylor, a breeder and former center employee.

“This community has so much depth for this kind of horsemanship that has been available to us at this training center that it’s very difficult for me to see that we turn this over to the government,” Chatfield-Taylor said.

Under the purchase, current tenants and horses must leave the center by Oct. 31. The Army will take possession on Nov. 1 and expects the battalion to be operational at the center by June. The horses, many of which are now housed in modular stables at Fort Myer, are expected to move in between 2027 and 2028.

Kain said the Army wants to be part of the Middleburg community and hopes residents will, in turn, welcome the soldiers.

“Teach, coach, and mentor our young equestrians as this is a budding military occupational specialty,” Kain said.

In a notice expected in the Federal Register on Thursday, the Defense Department will launch a three-year pilot in September that will reimburse eligible troops to preserve their gametes before deployment.

The benefit, required under the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, will pay service members up to $500 per year for sperm retrieval and cryopreservation and $10,000 per year for egg preservation services.

Those eligible include active-duty DoD personnel who receive orders qualifying for hazardous duty pay, those who expect to get such orders within 120 days and those geographically separated from a “spouse, domestic partner or dating partner” for 180 days or more.

Military families and family planning advocates have lobbied for more than a decade to increase access to fertility services, to include cryopreservation of sperm and egg cells before combat deployments, in vitro fertilization and other advanced reproduction treatments.

In 2014, the Bob Woodruff Foundation sponsored a one-of-a-kind, two-day conference on intimacy and family issues among the combat injured that highlighted the need among wounded personnel to have broader access to family planning counseling, gamete banking and fertility treatments.

Nearly 2,000 troops received debilitating injuries to their groins or genital regions between 2000 and 2013, and 307,000 service members experienced some type of head injury during the same time frame — injuries that sometimes can affect fertility and sex drive.

In 2016, then Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced that the Pentagon would begin covering sperm and egg freezing for service members, but the planned pilot never came to fruition following the election later that year of President Donald Trump.

Military families have often spent their own money on cryopreservation as a safeguard, and in extreme cases, have paid to extract sperm from dying loved ones to ensure the possibility of advanced reproductive services.

In 2019, the parents of West Point Cadet Peter Zhu extracted their son’s sperm after he was fatally injured in a skiing accident. They argued in court that Zhu had expressed wanting to have a family someday, and they wanted to preserve his sperm to provide future options.

In Israel, since the start of the Gaza conflict, the military has started offering the option to retrieve the sperm of deceased service members when delivering casualty notifications, according to The New York Times.

Since at least 2022, organizations such as the Military Family Building Coalition, Resolve: The National Infertility Association and others have provided free cryopreservation services to some service members, but until now, no government assistance has been available for deploying troops.

How the program works

Under the pilot, service members can elect to obtain preservation services at a military treatment facility that offers reproductive programs or through a civilian clinic of their choice.

Commanders must validate eligibility, as the Defense Health Agency does not have access to orders. To receive reimbursement, eligible troops must have written affirmation from their commands.

Reimbursement must be requested within 120 days after covered services began — usually the date of retrieval, prescription or lab procedure. Troops must submit itemized invoices and DHA Form 459.

Service members could be eligible for the program more than once within the three-year pilot. Any decisions regarding continued storage, disposition or later use following participation “are solely the responsibility of the covered member and outside the scope of the program,” according to the announcement.

Throughout the pilot, the DoD plans to study the program’s popularity, its cost, continued feasibility and impact on readiness, according to the announcement.

More information on the benefit will be available in the Aug. 13 edition of the Federal Register.

Roughly 80% of mental health appointments made in the Veterans Affairs’ Community Care Program are scheduled within the department’s 30-day wait-time standard, but VA schedulers still struggle to meet the seven-day requirement for making these appointments, the VA Office of Inspector General has found.

The VA’s watchdog evaluated mental health referrals for community care at 133 VA medical systems and found that just five met the seven-day metric for scheduling the appointments.

But the inspectors also found that despite those delays, 80% of the referrals received appointments within 30 days.

Of those that didn’t meet the requirement, the average wait time for an appointment was 56 days.

In the report released Monday, OIG inspectors said the scheduling issues contributed to the delays in care, with staff often relying on telephone calls and postal mail to communicate with veterans.

Other roadblocks to timely referrals included providers not being available for the types of appointments veterans wanted and issues reaching providers, according to the report.

Delays in mental health consults are a problem because veterans who need the care may pose a risk to themselves and others without treatment, said Larry Reinkemeyer, assistant inspector general for audits and evaluation.

“Process improvements are needed to enable VA to meet its scheduling and appointment timeliness standards for mental health consults. Veterans who receive community care services for mental health consults represent a vulnerable group,” Reinkemeyer wrote in the report.

For the analysis, the OIG reviewed community care consults for mental health services from Oct. 1, 2024, through Sept. 30, 2025. More than 825,000 veterans received mental health treatment during that period, either directly from the VA — with more than 1 million consults to VA facilities — or 198,000 referrals for community care.

The analysts found that when an appointment did not meet the 30-day metric, scheduling delays consumed much of that window.

Community care is the VA’s program for veterans to receive medical services in the private sector with the cost covered by the VA.

By law, the VA must refer veterans to community care if the wait time for a primary or mental health care appointment at a VA facility is more than 20 days or the drive time is longer than 30 minutes.

Also by law, appointments must occur within 30 days to ensure patients have access to care.

The VA is in the process of reorganizing the management and structure of its medical arm, the Veterans Health Administration, to include reducing the number of regional offices and streamlining the leadership framework.

The reforms also will create a “Community Care Hub” designed to improve services to veterans by improving access to care, tracking payments and standardizing the referral/consult process.

The VA OIG made recommendations to improve the scheduling process, including: adjusting contracts for the companies that manage community care to ensure they can deliver timely care; evaluate its referral system to ensure that it follows best practices; improve its system for identifying available providers to ensure they can provide the care veterans want; and determine whether community care contractors can meet demand for in-person and tele health appointments.

In their response, VA officials said they have addressed several of the recommendations already and expect its new Community Care Network contracts to improve performance.

VA officials also said they were engaging with providers, its contractors and others to identify gaps and address them. They also noted that they are reviewing best practices for reaching patients and working with facilities to ensure that their schedulers are able to communicate with veterans and providers.

“The [Veterans Health Administration] greatly values the OIG’s assistance in ensuring that all stakeholders are unified in supporting VHA’s vision of providing all Veterans with access to the highest quality care,” wrote John Bartrum, the department’s former Under Secretary for Health.

The VA wants to remind veterans that same-day emergency mental health services are available at VA medical facilities as well as private emergency rooms at not cost to veterans — even if they aren’t enrolled in VA healthcare.

The number of veterans who have received care under the Emergent Suicide Crisis Benefit, provided under the Compact Act, has grew from 10,023 in fiscal 2023 to 15,218 in fiscal 2025, VA Press Secretary Quinn Slaven told Military Times on Wednesday.

It also helped 9,434 veterans in the first half of fiscal 2026.

“In FY25, VA covered a record-high $109,934,325 in acute suicide crisis care,” Slaven said. “VA employs several efforts to educate Veterans and non-VA emergency department staff about the availability of [Emergent Suicide Crisis Benefit]. Importantly, once crisis stabilization care has been provided, VA will work with all relevant parties to ensure eligible Veterans don’t get stuck with a bill.”

The trial, known as the Psilocybin Intervention for Veterans Overcoming Treatment-Resistant Depression,” or PIVOT, study aims to include at least 240 veterans, all of whom have difficult-to-treat major depressive disorder and some who also have PTSD.

The study will take place at five VA medical centers through June 2031 and will assess patients’ levels of depression before and after treatment, side effects and overall response among participants.

“Far too many veterans are living with mental health conditions that don’t respond to available treatments,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “Under President [Donald] Trump, VA is pursuing all avenues to evaluate new treatments and offer meaningful relief for those who have worn the uniform. This clinical trial reflects another step toward this goal.”

Last month, researchers with Ohio State University’s Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education published the findings of a small, 12-person study on the safety of using psilocybin to treat severe PTSD in veterans.

After receiving eight hours of psychotherapy and two doses of synthetic psilocybin and integrative therapy, nine participants, or 75%, no longer met the clinical criteria for having PTSD.

According to the research, published July 30 in Communications Medicine, participants showed no serious adverse effects, including suicidal ideation or behavior. Non-serious side effects included headache, anxiety and dizziness.

“For a population with severe treatment-resistant PTSD, these results are striking,” said Stacey Armstrong, associate director and senior researcher at the center.

The PIVOT study will involve veterans with major depressive disorder who have not responded to current treatments, including those with or without a diagnosis of PTSD. In the double-blind, randomized trial, veterans will receive one dose of psilocybin or a placebo, along with therapeutic support. They will receive a second dose one month later, also with support, and will be evaluated two to four weeks following each session.

They also will receive follow-up six months after their participation.

VA officials said for the study, they will use pharmaceutical-grade drugs and treat veterans in a “safe, controlled, clinical setting.”

The five VA facilities that are slated to host the research include: the Birmingham VA Health Care System and Tuscaloosa VA Medical Center, Alabama; the VA Portland Health Care System, Oregon; Cpl. Michael Crescenz VA Medical Center, Philadelphia; and VA Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle.

Trump signed an executive order in April directing the Food and Drug Administration to accelerate the review of some psychedelic therapies to treat mental health conditions. The order also required the FDA, the Department of Health and Human Services and the VA to collaborate on psychedelic research.

As a result of the order, HHS and the VA signed an agreement last month to increase coordination on research, including increasing clinical trial participation, training therapists, nurses and doctors to administer psychedelic medications if they are approved and collecting data and evidence to support patients, physicians and federal regulators.

According to the VA, its staff is involved in 20 current clinical trials focused on psychedelic treatments for mental health conditions, including MDMA and LSD.

Studies sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies have shown that 87% of veteran participants in a study on the use of MDMA — the chemical compound known recreationally as Ecstasy or Molly — had significant improvement in PTSD symptoms four months after receiving treatments, and 71% no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD at the end of the studies.

The advancement of MDMA as a treatment met a setback in 2024, however, when the Food and Drug Administration rejected an application to approve it as a PTSD treatment, requesting more research on its safety and efficacy.

VA officials said in a release on the PIVOT study Wednesday that they strongly discourage self-medication, and veterans should not “replace other mental health treatment options with psychedelics or any other unprescribed substances.”

“Proven, evidence-based treatments are currently available at VA facilities to treat Veterans with mental health conditions,” they wrote.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., has proposed barring the VA from collecting voluntary or involuntary separation pay from veterans who are approved to receive disability compensation.

The bill also would allow veterans who later qualify for military retirement pay to remit the net amount they received instead of the gross amount so they don’t end up paying more than they actually received after taxes.

Gallego, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, and Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla, introduced a similar bill in the House when Gallego served in that chamber, but the legislation never made it out of committee.

The senator said the legislation is needed because the money is paid out for separate reasons: disability payments are akin to workman’s compensation and separation pay reflects “time served” — an incentive tool used by the Defense Department to manage force strength and design.

“It is ridiculous to claw back money from a veteran who has put life and limb on the line, just because later in life they qualify for disability benefits,” Gallego said in a statement to Military Times.

From 2013 to 2023, the VA recouped $2.44 billion in separation pay and bonuses from 112,834 veterans under a law that the department cites as prohibiting it from paying disability compensation to those who received the pay unless the money is paid back.

The VA has been required to recover the money since the 1940s, and the Defense Department is required to inform transitioning service members of the potential for recoupment. Sometimes, however, veterans are surprised when letters announcing the recoupment arrive, sometimes decades after they left military service.

In one case, an Air Force officer received $30,000 in separation pay in 1990 and received a letter in 2024 telling him his entire disability compensation check would be withheld until the money was recouped.

The situation placed the veteran at risk for losing his living quarters and vehicle, he told Military.com at the time.

“I fail to comprehend how or why they intend to cut me off for several months without even negotiating a lesser but [survivable] monthly contribution. I also fail to understand why it took 34 years for VA to come up with this [scheme]. Why now?” retired Air Force Maj. Raymond Thomas, 75, told the publication.

By law, veterans’ monthly disability compensation can be withheld if they received readjustment pay, non-disability severance pay, disability severance pay, special separation benefits or involuntary or voluntary separation pay.

According to the VA, the recoupment effort hit a peak in 2018 with 17,066 veterans paying more than $396 million.

The Restore Veterans Compensation Act would also change the recoupment rate for retired military veterans who are required to make payments to 25% of their paychecks rather than the current 40% — an alteration that would lessen the financial impact of the recoupment.

When Gallego and Bilirakis introduced their bill in 2022, it drew the support of Disabled American Veterans who said the practice of withholding VA disability compensation because a service member received a separation benefit “must end.”

Sen. James Risch, R-Id. introduced a separate bill Wednesday that would limit the amount that veterans paid each month to the VA for recoupment.

Risch’s Veterans Earned Benefits Access Act would allow the VA to collect the separation pay but limit it to no more than 25% of their monthly disability compensation checks. Currently, the VA can withhold the entire amount of checks until the veteran pays back the government.

“My [bill] ensures that veterans can receive the disability benefits they need while repaying their separation pay,” Risch said in a release.

The 80,000-square-foot museum will highlight the maritime service’s mission, history and accomplishment across three exhibit floors, interactive displays and experiences, featuring more than 5,000 photos and 600 artifacts, including an MH-60T Jayhawk helicopter and the Medal of Honor awarded to Signalman First Class Douglas Munro, the service’s sole recipient of the honor who heroically led the extraction of Marines under fire during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942.

Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Kevin Lunday said the museum will be more than a collection of artifacts; it “will illuminate the hard-earned lessons of the sea.”

“This museum is a permanent tribute to the Long Blue Line—the generations of crews who have saved lives, defended our borders and maritime approaches, facilitated vital commerce, and responded to crises with little or no warning,” Lunday said in a news release Tuesday.

A national Coast Guard museum has been a goal for the service and its supporters since at least 2001, when officials said they wanted to build one in the historic Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London, a prime waterfront parcel slated for redevelopment by the city.

But the land the service was eyeing had been seized by eminent domain and was involved in an extended legal battle that wasn’t resolved until 2005, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city.

But the development never transpired. In 2013, the city donated a parcel of waterfront property for the museum, and the state of Connecticut pledged $20 million in funding to revitalize the effort.

In 2022, the museum received nearly $50 million from Congress, and a “keel-laying” ceremony was held to mark the start of construction of the main building.

At the time, then-Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan said the facility would be a place to “share our history and the stories with the American public.”

“Today was a beautiful day in New London and for the Coast Guard,” Fagan said

Last year, the federal government provided another $50 million to complete the facility’s construction.

With the exception of the U.S. Space Force, founded in 2019, the nation’s armed services will now each have their own national museums. However, the Navy’s is currently closed due to its location on an active military installation and aging infrastructure.

The National Museum of the Air Force, located in Dayton, Ohio, traces its roots to 1923 and is the oldest military aviation museum in the world.

The National Museum of the Navy was established in 1963 at the Navy Yard in Washington, D.C. Fundraising efforts are underway to build a new state-of-the-art facility accessible to the public somewhere in the District.

The National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia, opened in 2006, while the National Museum of the U.S. Army, at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, opened in 2020.

Retired Capt. Wes Pulver, president of the museum’s association, said completion of the Coast Guard’s museum will represent “incredible dedication, vision and partnership.”

“We are deeply grateful for the Coast Guard’s steadfast support throughout this journey and look forward to continuing our collaboration as we build a museum worthy of the remarkable men and women who have served our nation. Together, we are ensuring their stories will inspire generations to come,” Pulver said in a statement.

The museum is slated to open to the public Aug. 2, 2027, with the dedication planned for Coast Guard Day, Aug. 4, 2027, the 237th anniversary of the establishment of the Revenue Cutter Service by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

“By bridging our rich history with the challenges of tomorrow, we are creating a dynamic foundation to inspire the next generation of leaders ready to answer our nation’s call,” Lunday said.

In a review of 9.9 million veterans in the VA medical system from 2000 to 2024, researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the Department of Veterans Affairs and elsewhere found that 14,419 patients had received an ALS diagnosis.

In the group with ALS, 46% were Army veterans – nearly the same percentage of soldiers in the entire patient cohort.

Using the rate of ALS diagnoses among Army veterans as the baseline and adjusting for sex, race, and ethnicity, researchers found that Air Force veterans had a 29% higher rate, former Coast Guard members had a 26% higher rate and Navy veterans had a 15% higher rate. Marines had the lowest rate, at 22% below that of Army veterans.

Overall, officers had a 64% higher rate than enlisted personnel, while women officers had a 72% higher rate. Differences among branches were more apparent in men ages 61 and younger and less evident among men older than 75.

“Our study looked at the rates of ALS among people in different branches of the U.S. military and found ALS rates varied considerably by branch and rank, with larger differences among younger veterans,” said study author Marc Weisskopf at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in a release.

ALS is a rare disease diagnosed in roughly 5,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A fatal illness most famously associated with baseball legend Lou Gehrig and British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, it is a progressive disease that affects the motor neurons, causing them to lose connectivity and die off.

There are two types of ALS: sporadic, meaning occurring without a known cause in the general population, and familial, likely the result of an inherited genetic mutation, according to the ALS Association.

While military personnel are diagnosed with ALS at nearly twice the rate of civilians, the cause has not been scientifically proven. The VA presumes the condition to be service-connected given the heightened occurrence in the veteran population.

Researchers have theorized that exposure to hazardous environments and substances, including burn pits, jet fuel, exhaust, heavy metals, dioxins and other toxic materials, may contribute, but no direct connection has been proven.

“Our findings suggest that officers and those serving in the Air Force, Navy or Coast Guard may have been exposed to military environments that increase risk of ALS,” said Weisskopf. “Future research should aim to identify these exposures.”

In the civilian population, some occupations such as airline pilots, truck drivers, metal workers and those who work with pesticides and other toxic substances are associated with increased ALS risk, according to a 2022 Columbia University study.

The authors noted that the likelihood of developing ALS is low, even in the U.S. military. Of the 9.9 million veteran records reviewed, less than 0.2% of patients were diagnosed with ALS, according to the study.

“It is … important to note that ALS is rare and the overall risk remains small, so even statistically significant increases associated with branch and rank represent only modest increases in risk among military personnel,” Weisskopf said.