The $1.1 billion program is the Pentagon’s effort to rapidly expand the domestic drone industry by having companies submit small unmanned aircraft systems, or sUASs, for competition and then building stockpiles of the systems that perform best for military use.

Erin Cherry, the program’s test lead, told Military Times in an email that DIU is looking to recruit about 100 pilots for the program’s next phase, known as Gauntlet III. But the larger goal is to create a standing registry of drone operators across the military services.

“There’s no cap on the registry,” Cherry said. “We want to hear from any warfighter with FPV experience.”

She explained that service members selected to participate will get “stick time” with some of the newest drones, including systems that are not yet in military service, and some will receive specialized training on one-way attack drones.

“Most importantly, Gauntlet results strongly inform which systems move forward, and these pilots are the ones flying,” Cherry said.

The DIU announcement specifically calls for troops with experience flying FPV drones, which are typically flown manually in “acro” mode and are used for missions ranging from reconnaissance and surveillance to kamikaze attacks and close-quarters combat.

But Cherry said DIU is looking for more than just experienced FPV pilots.

“‘Pilot skill’ isn’t just one thing,” she said. “Flying ability, tactical knowledge, payload experience, and specialized skills like long-distance navigation and urban flight are all distinct, so we look at each one.”

That variety is important because the drones will ultimately be used by more than just the military’s most experienced operators.

“A drone that only performs well in an expert’s hands isn’t ready for the force,” Cherry said, adding that “whether someone has been flying FPV for five years or five months, we want to hear from them.”

For service members interested in participating, DIU is asking them to complete a Pilot Interest Form. Officials will only respond to applicants using a valid .mil email address, and all pilot participation will be coordinated through the individual military services.

According to the statement of work, the app will provide dietitian services to SOCOM troops by coordinating with dining halls to develop meal plans that “optimize human performance and lethality.”

The platform will connect a team of up to 55 performance dietitians to provide “personalized, mission-specific nutrition plans” for more than 18,000 tactical troops across geographically disparate locations, according to the document.

Teamworks Tactical Solutions’ “core business,” according to James Coffos, Teamworks’ chief strategy officer, includes working with Division 1 athletes to professional and Olympic-level athletes.

“With stakes literally being life and death in the tactical context,” Coffos said, “when looking at a software platform to run your HP program, it makes sense to look to a system like Teamworks, which has been proven at the very highest levels of human performance.”

The contract comes as the Pentagon works to improve fitness standards and rally against “fat” troops, but Coffos said the app has already been in use by the U.S. military.

“SOCOM has actually used this particular product for years, so this isn’t an entirely new capability for them,” he said in an email to Military Times.

The original contract was through the Air Force Research Laboratory’s STRONG Lab, but the new contract moves the agreement directly to SOCOM.

Coffos said his company worked with SOCOM’s senior performance dietitian to tune the software to better suit the organization’s needs.

“It’s really a great situation where we have this virtuous circle from sport to military and back again,” he said.

The app allows SOCOM troops to engage with dietitians in two ways. They can see nutritional ratings for options at the chow hall, or, when military dining facilities are not available, they can ask for guidance regarding the food available to them.

“It just removes a lot of friction from the process of making good decisions around what you’re eating, and that in turn frees an operator up to focus on the mission at hand,” Coffos said.

Troops can also adjust their plans based on food preferences and personal goals. But the technology does not eliminate the need for individual decision-making, Coffos said.

“You still have to have a basic understanding of nutrition and the willpower to choose what your body needs versus what just looks like it tastes best,” he said.

As for how the app improves “lethality” through diet, Coffos explained it depends on how the term is defined.

“I’d start by pointing out that ‘lethality’ is SOCOM’s word, not ours,” he said. “But I’d also gently point out that the word isn’t at all foreign to sports.”

He explained that it’s often used to describe performance by professional athletes, like “Mariano Rivera was described as lethal for 19 seasons and no one thought twice about it” or “Steph Curry is lethal from 30 feet.”

But he has come to understand the term, at least in the case of SOCOM, as a reference to maintaining physical performance deep into an arduous mission.

“When SOCOM writes ‘lethality,’ I really think what they’re describing is the mile-22 problem,” he said. “It’s about the quality of the human being at the end of the effort, not the beginning.”

He compared the nutritional demands of a special operator on a long mission to those of a marathon runner nearing the end of a race.

“Watch a marathon at mile 22. You’re absolutely going to see somebody who was running beautifully at mile 18 reduced to a shuffle, and it isn’t because they got less fit in the last four miles. They ran out of fuel,” he said.

In the case of SOCOM, Coffos said, imagine an operator about 20 hours into a mission, carrying about 65 pounds of gear and running on about four hours of sleep.

“That’s the same physiology and the stakes are the only thing that changed,” he said. “When SOCOM writes ‘lethality,’ I really think what they’re describing is the mile-22 problem.”

The pardon came after years of advocacy by gun groups, which argued that Patrick Tate Adamiak was “wrongfully” convicted by a federal jury in 2022.

Lee Williams, who heads a journalism project funded by the Second Amendment Foundation, or SAF, has written more than 60 articles about Adamiak’s case and argued that he was wrongfully prosecuted.

According to the SAF’s reporting, Adamiak enlisted in the Navy in 2012. When he was arrested, he was an E-6 Master-at-Arms and one of the top 500 sellers on Gun Broker.

Williams said Adamiak “never committed a single crime” because he “never sold a single real firearm” and accused federal agents of targeting Adamiak personally and lying under oath about the case.

However, the jury convicted Adamiak, and an appellate court rejected most of his challenges to the conviction. A presidential pardon does not erase the underlying conviction or expunge a criminal record.

According to court documents, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, began investigating Adamiak in 2021 after receiving a tip from a confidential informant.

Between October 2021 and April 2022, prosecutors contend that Adamiak illegally sold to the CI seven machine gun receivers and a PPSh machine gun. Afterward, ATF agents executed a search warrant at his house, where they recovered 25 additional unregistered machine guns as well as two grenade launchers and two anti-tank missile launchers.

Prosecutors also said agents recovered invoices and schematics that detailed Adamiak’s illegal manufacturing of machine gun receivers as well as Adamiak’s phone, which contained messages with sources of machine gun parts.

One source, according to court documents, was a fellow sailor who allegedly straw-purchased gun parts for Adamiak and sold him items stolen from the Navy as well.

Trump pardoned Adamiak on Sept. 3 along with 22 others. According to the SAF, Adamiak plans to continue his legal fight to overturn his conviction.

Markoff explained that calling in air support was an effective way to clear an area, but with thousands of potential targets and few available weapon systems, he constantly had to calculate whether a particular target was worth it.

“Even if that target wasn’t active, knowing that it might be and maintaining availability of that type of a weapon system on station in case it showed up, that was all math I was doing in my head,” he said, adding, “We had to be really careful about saving those munitions.”

In an interview with Military Times, Markoff, now the co-founder and chief executive of Smack Technologies, said his experience in Mosul illustrates the kind of problem his company’s artificial intelligence software, Omega, is designed to help solve.

Earlier this month, Markoff spoke with Military Times about Smack’s Alpha, the wrist-worn device for which the company recently raised $61 million. He followed up to discuss its flagship product, Omega. The company shared a 14-minute video demonstration typically reserved for general officers.

“What the demo shows is a Joint Fires workflow from long-range planning, through what we would call basically the deliberate planning cycle, through the phased execution horizon, to literally right now: What do we do in the context of that larger plan?” he said.

According to the video, a commander begins the process by uploading intelligence and planning documents to give Omega operational context. The commander can then customize that information by selecting factors, such as units and boundaries. Lastly, the system generates high-level plans and detailed workflows.

“The outputs of this workflow look like what a human would create. We’re just generating it automatically for them and then letting them adjust it … We’re just doing it faster and helping them run calculations that are complicated enough that you don’t want to have someone do it on a whiteboard,” Markoff said.

He explained that Omega’s goal is to determine not just which targets to strike, but how to sequence strikes over the course of a month or two to systematically degrade an adversarial force. He added that Omega gives commanders options, along with the pros and cons of each.

“Sometimes it takes people like a month to build that plan. Building the next one to four days takes one to four days,” he said. “And figuring out, ‘What do we do right now?’ Well, the good news is you only have a few seconds, and it only takes a few seconds.”

During the execution phase shown in the video, a commander can monitor operations in real time and adjust plans using information like new intelligence reports, inventory lists or weather forecasts.

For comparison, Smack’s demo likens Omega to Amazon’s approach to the “last-mile delivery problem,” which refers to the logistical challenge of finding the most efficient and resourceful way to get a package to its destination.

Markoff explained the reasoning behind the comparison, saying that while risk tolerances and resources can change during an operation, the overall objective may not.

“It’s not just a scheduling problem, but it’s a pairing of assets and scheduling of assets,” he said, adding that it’s “optimizing that usage in the context of what we’re trying to do long term.”

The demo depicts Omega generating a large number of actions, targets and destinations. The software is designed for campaign-level threats and for developing plans at both the operational and tactical levels. But his company is actively expanding the scope of what it offers to include coordinating humanitarian efforts.

“That has not been the use case that our contracts have focused on, but there is absolutely a demand signal and a requirement for it that we are getting from the users, and it is something that we are building into that longer term,” he said.

While Smack has already shared parts of the demo in marketing materials, the company is in the process of transitioning from prototyping to production, Markoff said. Smack currently has contracts with three U.S. military branches and expects to expand to all six by the end of the year.

In the agreement filed last month, Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay agreed to no longer block or remove comments based on their expressed viewpoints, which aligns its policy with the Navy’s social media handbook.

While there was no monetary award, the base agreed to admit that it violated the Navy’s policy and the plaintiff’s constitutional rights. Officials also had to update the base’s social media pages to state that comments by the general public “will not be banned or blocked” because of their opinions.

In a statement, Michelle Scott, an attorney with the Center for Individual Rights, or CIR, which filed the case, said plaintiff Sergio Rodriguez asked the kinds of questions anyone would ask during a long power outage.

“The Navy doesn’t get to open a comment section, invite the public, and then delete anyone who asks an inconvenient question,” Scott said. “This settlement makes clear that the government can’t silence its critics with the click of a button.”

In July, a CIR plaintiff settled another case in which a North Carolina National Guard unit banned a former guardsman from its Facebook page after he criticized the unit’s leadership. That case also resulted in the unit adopting moderation policies that prohibit removing, hiding or filtering comments because they are deemed “inappropriate.”

According to the complaint, Rodriguez responded to the base’s post announcing a power outage in base housing on Aug. 12, 2024. He asked whether the base had plans to temporarily relocate residents during the outage because of excessive heat and humidity, and how residents could be reimbursed for spoiled food.

The lawsuit described Rodriguez as a disabled Army veteran whose wife served as a supply officer on the naval base. After retiring from the Army, he became an accomplished advocate for military families. He was named “spouse of the year” by Armed Forces Insurance and received a commendation from President Joe Biden.

In his lawsuit, Rodriguez argued he “suffered irreparable injury” because being banned from the page limited his ability to communicate with and receive information from other base residents.

“Base Facebook pages are where military families turn when they’re searching for answers,” Rodriguez said. “When I was banned, I lost the ability to advocate for those families. Those families lost access to a person who was willing to ask hard questions on their behalf. It wasn’t enough for the base to quietly restore my access without ever admitting they were wrong.”

The goal, as military officials and industry executives often describe it, is to give commanders the information they need to make consequential decisions as quickly as possible.

But no matter how fast or accurate the analysis is, there’s still a gap between identifying what needs to happen and acting on it. Much of that AI processing happens on computers and servers miles from the battlefield, leaving troops to receive the information through radios, tablets or other devices.

That means the next step in military AI may be putting the technology directly on the bodies of those in the field. While some companies are exploring wearable technology like helmets equipped with heads-up displays, Smack Technologies thinks the answer may be much simpler: Instead of putting AI in a helmet, put it on an operator’s wrist.

The California-based defense tech startup recently raised $61 million in Series B funding to develop Alpha, a wrist-worn device designed to connect operators in the field to real-time data collected and processed through Smack’s Omega AI software.

Andy Markoff, Smack’s co-founder and chief executive, told Military Times that his company started with the software because it could train its AI around day-to-day operations.

“Alpha tackles a much harder problem because you have to make the model work in the field with hardware and little to no connectivity, but we’ve always known this is what has to happen to enable decision dominance,” he said.

During an interview, Markoff walked Military Times through the concept of Alpha, from how operators would wear the device to how it’s used.

As a former Marine Raider, Markoff said he and his team of former military personnel believe the wrist is a more convenient place to access intelligence in the field.

“The form factor we’re building replaces what I literally used to wear on my forearm, only here I’m exchanging a whiteboard and grease pencil for a flexible computer screen that has our models’ capabilities on it,” he said.

He likened the concept to a QB sleeve, which allows a quarterback to see plays at a glance.

“Our sensors that are out collecting information about enemy forces and their location are sending that information to a screen on my forearm along with actionable decision options informed by campaign equities and adjacent units,” he said.

Markoff said he recognizes that a heads-up display could be useful for some missions, but he also sees drawbacks, particularly in hot or humid environments.

“If you’ve ever walked in the jungle at night, you know you’d actually rather risk having an eyeball poked out by a tree than wear shooting glasses that fog up and prevent you from seeing anything,” he said.

However, Markoff said that the hardware is the easy part of building an AI-enabled wearable. The more difficult problem is figuring out what information an operator needs in the field.

He explained the fundamental idea behind Alpha is to decentralize command and control in environments where operators cannot communicate directly with commanders.

“To do this, we’re essentially encoding commander’s intent: here’s our goal, here’s what makes the most sense for the theater and the theater’s goals, and here’s context around how everyone at the front lines should be going after that goal, including constraints and contracts with adjacent units,” he said.

He added that the goal isn’t to have AI make decisions, but to give the operator enough information to make better ones, potentially increasing effectiveness while reducing wasted time and resources.

Alpha has been in development for only about four months, but Markoff projects that Smack will have a working prototype within the next year and could secure contracts for the device within two years.

“One of the most important functions of (the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation) is to provide transparency about the safety and effectiveness of major weapon systems,” wrote Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ) in a letter this month.

Warren is a ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Personnel, and Norcross is a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee’s Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee.

“A key element of this function is the release of publicly available annual reports that detail findings by DOT&E to make sure critical deficiencies are fixed so service members are not harmed or killed,” they added.

Despite legal obligations to publish the annual reports it sends to Congress online, the office now requires a Defense Department-issued common access card to access the collection, which includes material that has been available to the public for years.

A Defense Department official told Federal News Network that the decision to remove the materials was based on concerns that foreign adversaries could use artificial intelligence tools to develop detailed profiles of the U.S. military’s vulnerabilities.

But critics of the decision say the reasoning is part of an ongoing effort to reduce oversight and accountability as Defense Department officials set records for spending and budget requests.

Last May, Hegseth issued a memo directing the DOT&E to significantly reduce its workforce and budget in the name of cost-savings. In turn, the office’s staff was cut by some 74% and its budget by nearly 80%. The Defense Department subsequently proposed a $1.5 trillion budget for 2027.

In an interview with Military Times, Gabe Murphy, a policy analyst with Taxpayers for Common Sense, or TCS, called it “suspicious” that officials gutted the DOT&E office prior to proposing a massive spending increase.

Murphy pointed to the ambitious Golden Dome Missile Defense System as an example of a project that warrants more oversight.

“They know that missile defense in general — and I think in particular, the space-based interceptors they want for this program — are not going to perform well in real tests,” he added.

To those pitching and building the project, the trillion-dollar Golden Dome is described as a missile defense system capable of detecting, tracking and intercepting aerial threats before reaching American soil.

But to critics like Murphy, it’s “questionable strategically and questionable in terms of their affordability.”

In a TCS report, the organization argued against the project because of concerns of scale and price. The group argued that while Golden Dome is modeled after Israel’s “Iron Dome,” which is designed for short- and medium-range missiles, the U.S. model would have to adjust for scale and threat, which would significantly increase costs.

While Defense Department officials say the estimated cost for the Golden Dome will be about $175 billion within the next three years, others say it could be anywhere from $1.2 trillion to $4.4 trillion over the next two decades.

As for the project’s effectiveness, the TSC report said the technology is unproven and that the available evidence suggests it will not work as proposed. But without live-fire testing and analysis by independent offices like the DOT&E, it would be difficult to know for sure.

“Without these reports, Congress has a lot less information to work with in terms of figuring out, you know, the sort of appropriate acquisition approach to some of these programs,” he said, adding that eliminating funding for the DOT&E would end up costing more money than it saves.

Historically, Congress uses DOT&E reports to inform funding decisions, and making them publicly available gives voters and taxpayers insight into the lawmakers’ decisions, according to the Project on Government Oversight, or POGO, a non-profit government watchdog group.

Months after Hegseth proposed the $300 million cuts to DOT&E, POGO released a detailed analysis showing how DOT&E reports have been effective in the past.

For instance, Congress made DOT&E responsible for live-fire testing in 1986, after Army officials allegedly misled lawmakers about the performance of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The Government Accountability Office seemed to validate critics’ concerns about defanging DOT&E as well. In a June report, the office warned that the Pentagon’s drive to field new weapons will outpace the DOT&E’s ability to catch problems before systems reach troops.

In their letter, Warren and Norcross requested that the Defense Department submit responses to their committees by Aug. 26.

The Aug. 21 announcement links the Marine Corps’ “uniform grooming standards” directly to “operational readiness and compatibility with protective equipment.”

In practical terms, the policy is intended to ensure Marines and sailors can establish a proper seal between their faces and gas masks, demonstrating that the fit is not compromised by facial hair.

The new requirement comes about 18 months after the services tightened restrictions on shaving waivers for personnel with medical conditions following directives from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

In March 2025, the Marine Corps, for instance, ordered troops diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae — commonly known as razor bumps — to undergo medical reevaluations. The policy also included language allowing the service to administratively separate Marines who required a medical shaving waiver for more than a year.

Critics have argued that the policy disproportionately affects Black service members and other people of color because of the higher rate of pseudofolliculitis barbae among these populations.

Kyle Bibby, a Marine veteran and co-CEO of the Black Veterans Project, said during a Congressional roundtable in July that the policy change could affect about two-thirds of Black service members.

He explained that while the servicemen who suffer from pseudofolliculitis barbae and need a waiver could be discharged, others who don’t have it as severely could face punitive issues.

“This is just one more thing for a commander to seize on — commanders who might not necessarily understand the intricacies of pseudofolliculitis barbae,” Bibby said.

Research generally supports the Marine Corps’ concern about facial hair and protective masks.

Studies have found that facial hair can significantly degrade the performance of close-fitting masks. However, other research found that how much facial hair interferes with a gas mask’s seal depends on factors such as hair length and density, and the type of mask being used.

In short, the latter study shows that people with facial hair can achieve an adequate seal with certain masks.

Under the new gas mask rule, commanders must validate the annual mask-fit training status of all assigned personnel by Aug. 31. They have until Sept. 30 to submit training plans for active-duty Marines and until Dec. 31 for reservists.

According to a recently released charge sheet, Aviation Boatswain’s Mate Jayjrion L. Rodriguez is accused of killing Boatswain’s Mate Seaman Jesse Braswell on June 6. He allegedly pointed his service pistol at his head and shot him.

The two men were aboard the Kennedy serving as part of the ship’s in-port security forces during the incident, USNI News reported. Afterward, Rodriguez was placed in pre-trial confinement before being released on June 11. Then, authorities charged him on July 29.

The investigation into the shooting is ongoing. The Navy did not immediately respond to questions about the incident Tuesday.

Rodriguez is from Massachusetts and enlisted in the Navy in 2025, USNI News reported. He joined the crew of the Kennedy that October, shortly after attending the Naval Air Technical Training Center at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida.

Braswell, from Colorado, enlisted in October 2024, The Virginian-Pilot reported. He was assigned to the Kennedy in March 2025.

In addition to the death of Braswell, Rodriguez also faces simple assault and reckless endangerment charges. According to the charge sheet, he unlawfully pointed his loaded service pistol at different individuals once in February and twice in May.

After several delays, including the shooting, the Kennedy completed acceptance sea trials, which puts it on track to meet its scheduled delivery in 2027.

The Aug. 7 statement followed a review of the Modular Handgun System, a program led by the Army’s Project Manager Soldier Lethality, initiated after an airman was shot and killed because of an alleged “uncommanded discharge” with an M18 handgun.

Last year’s incident resulted in an immediate inspection of all M18 handguns issued by the Air Force Global Strike Command as well as a temporary pause of their use, which was lifted a month later.

Additionally, three airmen involved in the deadly shooting were charged with lying to investigators. They claimed the gun just “went off” when the shooter slammed his duty belt against a desk, when in reality, he had pointed it at the victim in a “joking manner.”

According to the statement, the Army has investigated all reports of incidents involving MHS pistols discharging without a trigger pull, and firearms mishaps account for less than 0.006% of all MHS pistols issued.

“All investigated incidents of alleged ‘uncommanded discharges’ have been traced back to the trigger being pulled,” Army officials say, adding that they blame “public speculation and online misinformation” for the safety concerns regarding the handgun design.

However, the civilian version of the handgun has been linked to dozens of injuries and a handful of deaths, with victims claiming the gun discharged a round without a trigger pull. In turn, the design has been the subject of more than 100 legal challenges since it was introduced in 2014, with varying outcomes.

In many of the lawsuits, attorneys argue that the design’s passive safeties can fail to adequately prevent unintentional manipulation of the trigger. It’s important to note that unlike the civilian P320, the M18 and M17 pistol designs are equipped with a manual safety.

Since the SIG design won DoD approval in 2017, M17 and M18 pistols have become the standard-issue sidearm for the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy. There are more than 400,000 currently in service.