Welcome back! The Pentagon is wasting no time responding to President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southern border. On Wednesday, the Defense Department announced that 1,000 soldiers and 500 Marines would deploy to the border area by the end of the week.
In addition to those forces, about 100 airmen will be involved in flying roughly 5,400 currently detained migrants out of the country, a senior defense and military official told reporters on Wednesday. A total of four C-17 and C-130 aircraft will be involved in the deportation flights with other aircraft on call.
The head of U.S. Northern Command will serve as the operational lead for the effort, and he will be supported by U.S. Transportation Command, the military services, and the National Guard Bureau, all of which will work with the Department of Homeland Security.
“This is just the beginning,” Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said in a statement on Wednesday. “In short order, the Department will develop and execute additional missions in cooperation with DHS [Department of Homeland Security], federal agencies, and state partners to address the full range of threats outlined by the President at our nation’s borders.”
Trump has signed a number of executive orders during his first days in office that affect both the military and veterans community. There’s a lot of news to pore over. Here’s your weekly rundown.
- The Pentagon makes clear that Trump is in charge. During his first term, Trump often clashed with his defense secretaries, such as James Mattis and Mark Esper. But the Pentagon issued a statement shortly after Trump was sworn in on Monday that emphasized the president will not face any pushback this time to his directives to the military. “The Department of Defense is fully committed to carrying out the orders from our Commander-In-Chief, and is doing so immediately under his leadership.”
- Families of U.S. troops trapped in Afghanistan. A soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division said his sister and brother-in-law now cannot get out of Afghanistan after a Trump executive order suspended refugee programs this week. “If anything happens to her, right now I cannot even leave the base,” the soldier said. Trump’s Day 1 order has stranded families of U.S. service members who were due to be relocated from Afghanistan, said Shawn VanDiver, founder of #AfghanEvac, an organization that helps evacuate Afghans and their families who worked alongside American troops.
- Air Force scraps its Barrier Analysis Working Groups. On his first day in office, Trump directed the federal government to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, efforts, prompting the acting Air Force secretary to end the Department of the Air Force Barrier Analysis Working Groups, according to Military.com. These groups were tasked with eliminating daily and professional barriers faced by Black, LGBTQ+, women, and other demographics within the Air and Space Forces that may not have been recognized by their leadership. Their accomplishments include updating uniform rules so that pregnant women can wear some commercially-produced cold weather gear, replace skirts with slacks with the “mess dress” uniform, and pushing for a policy that designated on-base childcare facilities as “no hat” and “no-salute” areas — a small change that, an Air Force official told Task & Purpose, made life easier for many mothers during morning drop-off: “It’s hard to worry about rendering a salute when you have two kids in your hands.”
- VA hiring freeze exemptions. The Department of Veterans Affairs announced on Thursday that nearly 40 healthcare positions deemed essential are exempt from the federal hiring freeze ordered by Trump. Those positions include nurses, physical therapists, medical officers, and mental health counselors. However, Acting VA Secretary Todd B. Hunter wrote in a recent memo that any new hires with a start date after Feb. 8 must have their job offers rescinded. Some people posted on social media that they had been hired by the VA for healthcare positions, but their offers are now revoked. Air Force Reserve Col. Doug Collins, Trump’s nominee to lead the VA, told lawmakers on Tuesday that, “No one on the veteran healthcare side is going to miss their healthcare provider because of this new hiring freeze.”
- Celebrity chef’s advice to the Army. And now for something completely different. Robert Irvine, host of several Food Network programs, has suggested to Army officials that they make the service’s dining facilities more like college cafeterias. Irvine explained to Task & Purpose why the Army’s chow halls need an overall. “Why would you want to go to a dining facility and eat in one that looks like a prison?” Irvine said. “Meaning in the way in which we scoop food out of hot tables.”
Thank you for reading this week’s rundown! See you again soon!
Jeff Schogol