Latest news with #V-22Osprey
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Lawmakers Push for Osprey Safety Report to Be Added to Annual Defense Funding Bill
House lawmakers want a safety report about the V-22 Osprey to be included in the annual defense appropriations bill after several deadly crashes killed troops and raised questions about the aircraft's continued use by the military. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., wrote a letter to the leadership of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense on Friday, asking for language to be added to the fiscal 2026 appropriations bill that would shed more light on historic mechanical failures with the aircraft. "These servicemembers are heroes, and their legacy should reflect their decorated careers, bravery and service to this nation," the letter says. "There is no question that our service members deserve better than to be protecting our country in an aircraft with known mechanical issues." Read Next: Pentagon Diverts $1 Billion from Army Barracks to Fund Border Mission Emmer and Grothman's letter follows a deadly Air Force Special Operations Command Osprey crash in November 2023 in Japan that killed eight airmen during a training mission. exclusively reported last year, after reviewing privileged safety information, that the crash was caused by issues in the tilt-rotor aircraft's gearbox -- specifically a fractured single high-speed planetary pinion gear. That internal Safety Investigation Board report detailed that other failures in the gearbox were first flagged back in 2013, a decade prior to the deadly crash, and concerns were raised at the Pentagon. Additionally, the company that made the part that failed has been plagued with a history of manufacturing issues. Emmer and Grothman's letter cited past reporting and specifically asks for language to be included that will examine past safety reports that probed failures, including that gear from the Japan crash. The letter asks the defense appropriator subcommittee to request "a report that includes the results of any safety investigation pertaining to any crash of the CV-22 Osprey since the introduction of the aircraft or other mishap involving the failure of the single high-speed planetary pinion gear." The language would require the defense secretary to submit the safety information within 30 days of the passage of the appropriations bill. Jason Gagnon, a spokesperson for Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., the chair of the defense appropriations subcommittee, said the congressman would be working with other lawmakers on Osprey safety. "Chairman Calvert looks forward to working with Majority Whip Emmer and other colleagues on this issue," Gagnon said in an emailed statement. "The safety of our service members remains one of the top priorities of the Defense Subcommittee." Notably, almost a year ago, Grothman led a House Committee on Oversight and Reform subcommittee hearing into the safety record of the V-22 Osprey. reported earlier this month that the investigation had stalled with the Republican-led committee, which angered Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the crash and are still hoping for answers. "I'm beyond disappointed, to say the least, that these oversight efforts seem to have stalled or disappeared," Amber Sax, the wife of John Sax, a Marine Corps pilot who died in a 2022 Osprey crash, told earlier this month. Grothman blamed the previous administration for a lack of transparency. He signed the letter alongside Emmer, calling for safety reports two weeks after reporting pointing out the lack of progress. Air Force Special Operations Command spokesperson Lt. Col. Rebecca Heyse told in an emailed statement that they "continue to welcome congressional interest and oversight" on the Osprey program. "We maintain close coordination with the V-22 Joint Program Office to ensure resourcing and funding are prioritized to maximize readiness and safety of the CV-22, like we do for all our aircraft," Heyse said. Related: Osprey Safety Investigation Stalls in Congress, Angering Gold Star Families
Boston Globe
07-05-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Weather and night vision goggles were likely factors in Marine Corps helicopter crash, report finds
The limits of night vision goggles also have been identified as a potential factor in the fatal collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a passenger jet near Reagan Washington National Airport in January that killed 67 people. The goggles can reduce a pilot's ability to determine distance and can be degraded by weather or light pollution. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The Marine helicopter was flying in icing conditions with low cloud cover that obscured the mountainous terrain along the flight path. The crew was using night vision goggles, which likely did not give them the clear picture needed to avoid a crash into terrain, investigators found. Advertisement The precipitation and clouds probably degraded the goggles' performance and possibly gave the crew a false sense that they were maintaining the safe distances needed in the flight, investigators found. The pilot and crew chief 'most likely believed they were operating legally and within their comfort level,' investigators found. Advertisement Ultimately, though, investigators found that the pilot's failure to avoid the terrain was the primary cause of the crash. They also found that the commanding officer, who was relieved of duty due to a loss of confidence in an ability to lead, should not have given the crew approval to fly. The Super Stallion vanished during the overnight flight on its way back to Miramar from Creech Air Force Base. The helicopter was discovered in the morning near the mountain community of Pine Valley. All five Marines aboard were killed in the crash: Lance Corporal Donovan Davis, 21, of Olathe, Kan.; Sergeant Alec Langen, 23, of Chandler, Ariz.; Captain Miguel Nava, 28, of Traverse City, Mich.; Captain Jack Casey, 26, of Dover, N.H.; and Captain Benjamin Moulton, 27, of Emmett, Idaho. In interviews contained in the report, multiple members of the squadron said that the crews had been stretched thin because their unit had to fly additional missions to compensate for last year's monthslong grounding of the V-22 Osprey fleet.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Marine Corps Fires Commander of East Coast Air Station
The Marine Corps fired the commanding officer of one of the service's most storied air stations on Tuesday, a regional spokesperson confirmed to Col. Mark D. Bortnem, a former F/A-18 pilot with more than 30 years in the service, was relieved of his duties as commander of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, Nat Fahy, director of communications for Marine Corps Installations East, said in an emailed statement. Fahy said the reason was "due to a loss of trust and confidence" in Bortnem's ability to command. The military often uses that phrase as an opaque justification for firings that avoids specifics. Read Next: Shaving Waivers Revoked by Massachusetts Guard in Change Disproportionately Impacting Black Troops Brig. Gen. Ralph J. Rizzo Jr., the commanding general of MCI East-Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, fired Bortnem "effective immediately." The decision came nearly two years into Bortnem's tenure as MCAS Beaufort's commander, meaning he was likely nearing the end of his command time. asked why Bortnem was fired and whether his relief came in response to a criminal probe, part of a personal misconduct issue, or based on performance, but Fahy did not offer additional details. Lt. Col. Michael R. Eubanks, the air station's headquarters and headquarters squadron executive officer, is the acting commander of MCAS Beaufort until a permanent leader is officially appointed, Fahy said. The Island News, a South Carolina paper, first reported Bortnem's relief on Tuesday. Bortnem first enlisted into the Marine Corps in 1991 and served as a supply administration and operations specialist before commissioning as a second lieutenant in 1998, according to his biography, which was still posted on a Marine Corps website as of Tuesday afternoon. Bortnem deployed several times, including to Iraq, where he flew combat missions in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His biography said that he had nearly 3,000 flight hours under his belt, including more than 500 hours of combat flights. He took command of MCAS Beaufort in July 2023. attempted to reach Bortnem through a publicly listed phone number and social media, but was unsuccessful. His relief came just two days after the installation's annual air show, one of Beaufort's largest events of the year, in which Navy Blue Angels and prop planes performed maneuvers, and the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey was on display. There were no known reported incidents at the air show. Bortnem was pictured greeting a Blue Angels pilot on April 9, prior to the air show, alongside his senior enlisted adviser, Sgt. Maj. Bryan Alfaro. Related: Commander, Command Master Chief Fired from Navy Expeditionary Security Squadron
Yahoo
02-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Could this device help catch Osprey clutch problems before disaster?
The Navy has awarded defense and aviation technology company Shift5 a contract to test predictive maintenance technology on the V-22 Osprey, which the company hopes might prevent gearbox catastrophes that have proven fatal in recent years. Under Shift5′s contract with Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, the Marine Corps will run the company's manifold technology on Osprey's flown by its operational test squadron. This will allow the V-22 Joint Program Office to test how well continuous operational data monitoring works on the tilt-rotor aircraft, and how to develop rules for detecting maintenance problems that need to be quickly addressed, the company said in a release Wednesday. 'Given the criticality of solving some of these life-threatening issues that are happening on the V-22, it really is all about providing real-time insights to the crew for situational awareness so they can make better decisions,' said Shift5 chief executive and co-founder Josh Lospinoso. Perhaps most critically, Lospinoso said, the predictive maintenance technology could help the military understand how problems called 'hard clutch engagements' happen. Hard clutch engagements occur when an Osprey's clutch connecting the engine to a propeller's rotor gearbox briefly slips and then reengages. This can cause the aircraft to lurch and damage crucial components, which, in some instances, has been a factor in fatal Osprey crashes. Five Marines died in a June 2022 Osprey crash in Southern California, which was later attributed to a hard clutch engagement. Multiple other Ospreys have experienced hard clutch engagements that alarmed Air Force leaders and have, at times, caused aircrews to cut flights short. An Air Force CV-22B Osprey also crashed off the coast of Japan in November 2023, killing eight airmen and prompting a military-wide grounding of the tilt-rotor aircraft that lasted for months. The Air Force concluded that a critical gear in that Osprey's proprotor gearbox failed and caused the crash. Shift5′s manifold device will help build a dataset of clutch engagements, analyzing whether such engagements are becoming more aggressive and contributing factors, Lospinosa said. 'That really is the Holy Grail that NAVAIR has been after,' he said in an interview with Defense News. Shift5′s device, a four-pound box that will be plugged into the Osprey's data network, will upgrade how the aircraft collects data and make it more readily available to aircrews via a tablet-like display, Lospinoso said. Until now, he said, the most important data on hard clutch engagements have typically been only able to be accessed after the aircraft lands and investigators dive deep into the aircraft's inner workings. 'It's, in some cases, literally just taking data that already exists on a data bus and presenting it to the user,' Lospinoso said. That data can include precise readings on the intensity and frequency of vibrations within the gearbox, for example, Lospinoso said. The device could also give Osprey pilots reminders about the many actions they need to take and environmental factors they need to monitor, he said, which could reduce the chances of human error. 'Being an Osprey pilot is probably the most challenging job flying any aircraft of any kind,' Lospinoso said. 'If they forget to take [certain steps], it can be extremely dangerous, but there's nothing in the cockpit alerting them to [the fact that] these conditions exist. [The Shift5 device's alerts are] almost like the equivalent of a seat belt reminder.' According to Lospinoso, Shift5′s device will just be tested by the Joint Program Office for now. Eventually, the company hopes to have them installed in all of the military's Ospreys, which he said would require a phased approach of taking some Ospreys down to install the devices during maintenance. He hopes the military and Shift5 might be able to start working towards full fielding of the device in the next quarter.
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Pentagon seeks spending on Pacific forces, cuts to environmental and cultural programs
KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ A crew member aboard an American V-22 Osprey transporting a group of international military personnel to the USS Carl Vinson during RIMPAC 2024. 1 /8 KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ A crew member aboard an American V-22 Osprey transporting a group of international military personnel to the USS Carl Vinson during RIMPAC 2024. U.S. AIR FORCE SENIOR AIRMAN MADELYN KEECH / U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, right, has pledged to 'rebuild ' the military but has requested that the Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command be exempt from budget cuts. The INDOPACOM plays a significant role in RIMPAC and training exercises at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. Hegseth welcomed Elon Musk on Friday at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. 2 /8 U.S. AIR FORCE SENIOR AIRMAN MADELYN KEECH / U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, right, has pledged to 'rebuild ' the military but has requested that the Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command be exempt from budget cuts. The INDOPACOM plays a significant role in RIMPAC and training exercises at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. Hegseth welcomed Elon Musk on Friday at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ A U.S. Army soldier prepares for battle in an exercise at Pohakuloa Training Area. 3 /8 KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ A U.S. Army soldier prepares for battle in an exercise at Pohakuloa Training Area. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ Members of the Oahu-based 25th Infantry Division use a lava rock formation as a fighting position as they fire from enemy forces during a simulated battle on Nov. 2, 2022, at the Pohakuloa Training Area. 4 /8 KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ Members of the Oahu-based 25th Infantry Division use a lava rock formation as a fighting position as they fire from enemy forces during a simulated battle on Nov. 2, 2022, at the Pohakuloa Training Area. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ / 2022 Environmental issues and the future of ancient Hawaiian cultural sites are among the discussions going forward as the Army negotiates lease renewals with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. Lena Schnell, senior program manager with Colorado State University's Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands shows off several native plants at Pohakuloa Training Area's greenhouse. 5 /8 KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ / 2022 Environmental issues and the future of ancient Hawaiian cultural sites are among the discussions going forward as the Army negotiates lease renewals with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. Lena Schnell, senior program manager with Colorado State University's Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands shows off several native plants at Pohakuloa Training Area's greenhouse. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ The Pohakuloa Training area is classified as a sub-alpine tropical dry land forest, one of the rarest kinds of ecosystem in the world. 6 /8 KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ The Pohakuloa Training area is classified as a sub-alpine tropical dry land forest, one of the rarest kinds of ecosystem in the world. STAR-ADVERTISER Army Col. Steven McGunegle with offering of ho 'okupu during a visit to the military's Makua Valley training ground on April 25. 7 /8 STAR-ADVERTISER Army Col. Steven McGunegle with offering of ho 'okupu during a visit to the military's Makua Valley training ground on April 25. STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 The Marines have a rifle range next to Puuloa Beach Park. Signs warn people not to enter the area. 8 /8 STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 The Marines have a rifle range next to Puuloa Beach Park. Signs warn people not to enter the area. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ A crew member aboard an American V-22 Osprey transporting a group of international military personnel to the USS Carl Vinson during RIMPAC 2024. U.S. AIR FORCE SENIOR AIRMAN MADELYN KEECH / U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, right, has pledged to 'rebuild ' the military but has requested that the Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command be exempt from budget cuts. The INDOPACOM plays a significant role in RIMPAC and training exercises at Pohakuloa Training Area on the Big Island. Hegseth welcomed Elon Musk on Friday at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ A U.S. Army soldier prepares for battle in an exercise at Pohakuloa Training Area. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ Members of the Oahu-based 25th Infantry Division use a lava rock formation as a fighting position as they fire from enemy forces during a simulated battle on Nov. 2, 2022, at the Pohakuloa Training Area. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ / 2022 Environmental issues and the future of ancient Hawaiian cultural sites are among the discussions going forward as the Army negotiates lease renewals with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. Lena Schnell, senior program manager with Colorado State University's Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands shows off several native plants at Pohakuloa Training Area's greenhouse. KEVIN KNODELL / KKNODELL @ The Pohakuloa Training area is classified as a sub-alpine tropical dry land forest, one of the rarest kinds of ecosystem in the world. STAR-ADVERTISER Army Col. Steven McGunegle with offering of ho 'okupu during a visit to the military's Makua Valley training ground on April 25. STAR-ADVERTISER / 2019 The Marines have a rifle range next to Puuloa Beach Park. Signs warn people not to enter the area. President Donald Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have promised sweeping changes to the U.S. military. Hegseth has pledged to 'rebuild ' the military by investing in high-tech weapon and industrial programs while simultaneously cutting costs. The administration has promised to reduce the Department of Defense's massive spending budget by 8 % each year as part of sweeping cuts being undertaken across the federal government. Those cuts are being overseen by billionaire Elon Musk and the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency, made up mostly of junior programmers and engineers from Musk's various companies. On Friday, Musk met with Hegseth and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon. While Hegseth supports budget cuts, he specifically requested that the Hawaii-based U.S. Indo-Pacific Command—which oversees all operations across the Pacific—be exempt from any reductions, a strong sign that Hawaii is being put squarely at the center of the new administration's military strategy. 'His request that INDO PACOM be exempted from budget cuts indicates a priority shift from Europe to the Indo Pacific, ' said Elizabeth Freund Larus, adjunct senior fellow at the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum. 'It recognizes that China poses the biggest threat to the post-World War II global order. Hegseth's list of 17 offsets includes funding for military construction funding in the Indo-Pacific to support the military's Pacific Deterrence Initiative strategic plan.' Hawaii currently has the highest share of the military's construction budget of any state, accounting for roughly 8 % of the total. The biggest share of those funds—$1.2 billion—is meant for the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard's Dry Dock 5, which is the single most expensive construction project in Navy history. Don 't miss out on what 's happening ! Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It 's FREE ! Email 28141 Sign Up By clicking to sign up, you agree to Star-Advertiser 's and Google 's and. This form is protected by reCAPTCHA. The shipyard is the state's largest industrial employer with a workforce of more than 6, 000 employees. That spending is expected to stay stable amid DOGE's aggressive federal cuts. But while military spending has helped prop up Hawaii's economy, countless dollars also have been spent over the decades on cleaning up pollution associated with the military presence in the islands. In particular, the Red Hill water crisis, which began in 2021 when jet fuel from the Navy's underground Red Hill storage facility tainted the area's water system serving 93, 000 people, and efforts to shut down the facility has put military operations in Hawaii under the microscope. Though the Trump administration wants to keep spending to build the nation's Pacific forces, the future of the military's environmental cleanup and cultural programs in Hawaii is less clear. 'A give-and-take thing' The military has several interests it hopes to maintain in Hawaii. Notably, the Army has several land leases on state lands it uses for training that will expire in 2029. The training areas, acquired for a mere $1 in 1964, have been increasingly used for international exercises, bringing foreign troops from across the globe. Environmental issues and the future of ancient Hawaiian cultural sites are among the discussions going forward as the Army negotiates lease renewals with the state Board of Land and Natural Resources. 'While we've been making gains in building up relationships and trust, trying to have conversations about what this balance looks like between military presence and the community, we are nowhere near even close to getting down to the brass tacks of it all, ' said U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda, D-Hawaii, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. 'You've got a definite change in leadership that's coming in. It's really hard to say what they will decide to do, what their posture in Hawaii will be in regards to the lease renegotiations.' Hegseth has pledged to slash many environmental programs and prohibit military officials from discussing climate change. Even under Trump's previous administration, the Pentagon studied climate change, including a 2018 study that concluded the majority of U.S. bases faced threats from intensifying weather patterns. 'Some segments of our society can consider climate change to be either nonexistent or just a matter to be kind of thrown away from a political perspective, ' said U.S. Rep. Ed Case, D-Hawaii. 'But the military has studied the consequences of changes in our weather, on their preparation, on their installations, on their ability to fight wars, on their basic ability to function, and they've reached a very definite, objective conclusion—absent of politics—that the kind of climate changes we're seeing in the world are detrimental, if left unaddressed, to their mission.' Larus said Hegseth has been critical 'of ideological training in the U.S. military, including workshops and education modules outside the war-fighting domain, such as on diversity, equity and inclusion programs and those on climate change.' Last month he fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. CQ Brown Jr., who was formerly the top Air Force commander in the Pacific, and several other top officers the administration deemed as 'woke.' The military has spent millions on environmental remediation and on preserving ancient Hawaiian cultural sites on lands it controls and uses for its operations in Hawaii. When asked if the Pentagon under Hegseth would actively pursue promised environmental cleanup and cultural preservation programs specific to Hawaii under the new administration, Larus said Hegseth 'is single-minded when it comes to the U.S. military. He has said over and over that the mission of the U.S. military is warfighting.' Larus said Hawaii residents should expect to see environmental and cultural programs drastically scaled back and argued most were the result of congressional mandates that 'warped military priorities and distracted the military from warfighting with an emphasis on lethality. Recognizing that U.S. adversaries, such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, have no such desire to make the military a kinder and gentler organization, Hegseth and President Trump want to return the U.S. military to a fighting force that is more lethal than that of its adversaries.' But state Sen. Kurt Fevella, who has represented portions of the Ewa area since 2018 as one of Hawaii's few Republican lawmakers, said that talk of cutting back on environmental efforts troubles him. 'I know they got to be ready, not taking away anything from there, but there's parameters … , ' he said. 'The disrespect for the host people is something that is troubling for me.' Fevella has already tangled with military officials under both the Trump and Biden administrations when it comes to environmental and community concerns around the Marine Corps' Puuloa Range Training Facility in his district, pollution coming out of Pearl Harbor and Army land leases, including the large Pohakuloa Training Area on Hawaii island. He said he remains committed to those fights in the long term. 'We want to be able to protect our environment when it comes to any kind of military presence. To be a good partner is a give-and-take thing, ' Fevella said. 'Do they have a cleaning plan for Pearl Harbor ? Do they have any plan to clean up all the oil that is leaking into the ocean that's coming to my community at Puuloa Beach Park ? No, they don't address these things. So to be a good neighbor to the host community—or host people—just do your job. They have the the best engineers … (so ) why you cannot just be pono to the land ?' Warfighters China has been proactively building up its military capabilities and clashing with neighboring countries. In particular, the Chinese military has sought to impose control over the South China Sea—a critical waterway that more than a third of all international trade travels through—over the objections of its neighbors, often clashing with vessels from those countries. It has also stepped up military maneuvers around Taiwan, a self-ruled island democracy with close U.S. trade ties that Beijing regards as a rogue province. 'Threats across the region from North Korea, China and Russia are real and stretch from illicit to strategic dangers, ' according to Brent Sadler, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. 'The Chinese in particular have engaged in nefarious influence campaigns from pressuring local island governments to enabling criminal organizations to operate in the region, weakening local governance.' The U.S. military has conducted constant patrols and training exercises throughout the region. Larus argued 'the Biden administration was strong on diplomacy with Pacific allies as well as with projection of soft power but was weak on military power and military power projection ; (it ) was weak on backing up diplomacy with military strength.' China now has the world's largest navy in terms of number of ships and is growing its capacity, while the U.S. is struggling to maintain ships at its aging shipyards. 'The biggest mistake that previous administrations made in the Pacific is failing to maintain a navy adequate to sustain U.S. maritime power in the region and to uphold the peace and security of the Indo-Pacific, ' Larus said. 'U.S. Navy assets are inadequate to deter China's muscular and growing navy. In particular, the U.S. has lost its ability to keep up with China's shipbuilding capacity.' Military leaders have expressed optimism about Hegseth's pledge to streamline the acquisition of new military hardware and trim the bureaucracy. On Feb. 13 at the Honolulu Defense Forum, INDOPACOM chief Adm. Samuel Paparo said the U.S. military needs 'procurement at the speed of combat, not at the speed of committees … Technology alone is not going to win this fight. We've also got to reform defense bureaucracy with unprecedented urgency.' But several military officials who spoke to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser also expressed unease about the administration's apparent dismissal of climate change, which many Pacific countries see as their No. 1 threat, its contentious dealings with traditional allies and an aggressive push to gut any programs deemed to promote DEI. When it comes to diversity, some military officials said they are concerned about an over-correction of the Biden administration's embrace of identity politics toward outright rejection of efforts to capitalize on America's cultural diversity. An Army official noted that Hawaii serves as both a key military and diplomatic meeting site for the U.S. government in part because its diverse Asian and Pacific Islander diaspora populations vividly demonstrate America's deep Pacific ties—something U.S. officials have proudly highlighted to their Pacific allies in the past. Under Trump's first presidency and the Biden years, there was a push to recruit young Hawaii residents to serve as military officers and diplomats and in intelligence roles to support America's 'pivot to the Pacific.' 'Anything that says the word 'cultural'—even 'historical'—is looking to be removed from the Department of Defense, ' Tokuda said. She noted that she and other lawmakers have fought for cultural training for military personnel coming to Hawaii and the Pacific, arguing 'it's so critically important they understand the history of where we have been as a people, as a community, in regards to our relationship with the military, so they better understand how we must do better going forward.' Recently, the Pentagon drew immense backlash in Hawaii when it removed digital content about Asian American and Pacific Islanders in the service. Among the culled content was an Army webpage dedicated to the legendary 442nd Regimental Combat team, which was drawn largely from Hawaii-born Nisei and became one of the most decorated combat units in American history. Fierce public response led to the swift republishing of the Army's 442nd history as a news item on its website, but much of the rest of the content remains unavailable. Pentagon officials have insisted they intend to honor veterans but say they now want to remove race and culture from the discussion as much as possible. 'Anybody that claims to know exactly how this is all going to unfold is on a fool's errand, ' Case said. 'I'm eyes wide open that, if nothing else, we're dealing with a very fluid and uncertain situation where a new administration could make changes with dramatic ripple effects around our region and, in fact, the world. 'And so I don't think any of us can predict with any degree of certainty what President Trump will do, either generally or specific to the DOD, or what the consequences of what he does will be either.' 5 Comments By participating in online discussions you acknowledge that you have agreed to the. An insightful discussion of ideas and viewpoints is encouraged, but comments must be civil and in good taste, with no personal attacks. If your comments are inappropriate, you may be banned from posting. 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