As COVID-19 Cases Mount, Pentagon Limits Who Can Come to Work

Sept. 7, 2021 | By Tobias Naegele

The Pentagon is imposing new limits on how many people may come to work as the numbers of COVID-19 infections continue to rise in the National Capital Region. Beginning Sept. 9, Pentagon offices will be limited to 40 percent of capacity as the Pentagon institutes Health Protection Condition “Bravo+.”

The new limits on capacity at the world’s largest office building come at a time when most military leaders had imagined things would be returning to normal. But the spread of the delta variant of the disease forced officials to ratchet up protections to “HPCon” Bravo on Aug. 2, and five weeks later, to do so again.

“We continue to see a steady increase in coronavirus disease … cases and positive test results in the National Capital Region,” wrote Michael B. Donley, the director of administration and management at the Pentagon, a role sometimes dubbed “mayor of the Pentagon.” “Data suggests the COVID-19 Delta variant may be more transmissible than the original strain of the virus,” he added.

Donley said the number of cases in the D.C. region had reached the Bravo+ threshold of 16-30 average new cases per 100,000 people over a seven-day period.

Under the new guidance, commanders and supervisors are directed to support maximum telework opportunities to eligible employees, and masks must be worn indoors at all times except when alone in an office, for identification purposes, or when necessary to accommodate a disability. In addition, the workforce will be subject to random COVID-19 entrance screening, and all visitors will be screened. Pentagon dining facilities are open but for takeout service only.

The move follows new vaccination deadlines for Air Force and Space Force members announced over the Labor Day weekend. Active-duty Airmen and Guardians have until Nov. 2 to be fully vaccinated. Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve members have until Dec. 2. Members can get any COVID-19 vaccination they choose, but only the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Because the protocol requires three weeks between shots to be fully vaccinated, time is short for members who have not yet received their first dose.

Noteworthy among the limits imposed by the Pentagon is the shuttering of its outdoor 9/11 Memorial, which is closed to the public except for pre-approved activities just as the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Valerie Graw

Sept. 7, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Valerie Graw, a cyber operations controller with the 88th Communications Squadron Cyber Operations Center.

Graw led nine personnel and steered cyber operations for Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio, during the coronavirus pandemic. Her team resolved 5,800 network outages and enabled the increase in Air Force virtual private network users from 60,000 to 428,000, which resulted in her selection as Air Force Materiel Command’s 2020 cyber systems Airman of the Year.

Additionally, as the installation’s sole maintenance tracking system administrator, she created and managed accounts for 400 users and eight Air National Guard units. Her actions protected $6 million in information technology assets and shielded the Department of Defense’s second-most-attacked network.

Graw also earned her Community College of the Air Force degree in Information Systems Management and graduated from Airman Leadership School in the top 10 percent of her class, garnering distinguished graduate and the academic achievement award.

Staff Sgt. Valerie Graw, one of 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021. Air Force photo.

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

Cutting-Edge Digital Solutions for USAF ICBM Modernization

Sept. 7, 2021

The United States Air Force’s transition from the Minuteman III ICBM to the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent will be one of the most important weapon system deployments ever.

The U.S. Air Force debuted the Minuteman I Missile in 1962, the Minuteman II in 1965, and the Minuteman III—with a planned a 10-year life span—in 1970. A half-century later, 400 Minuteman IIIs remain on alert.

“Minuteman III was a 10-year weapon system that was asked to last 60 years,” said Maj. Gen. Anthony W. Genatempo, commander of the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center and program executive officer for strategic systems, during an AFA conference in June. But now the transition to a next-generation missile is beginning—and awareness that there’s more to be modernized than the missile alone is growing clearer.

As the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) is developed and fielded, the Air Force must also update its missile launch facilities and support infrastructure, launch control centers, squadron and wing support infrastructure, and command and control systems, as well as policies, processes, procedures, security, the supply chain, and even the workforce. All must adapt to the coming changes, even as the existing systems must remain ready and continuously on alert, ready to deploy on very short notice.

“The Air Force operational tempo is to effectively replace one missile per week for nine years without sacrificing sortie alert status,” notes Ryan McKeon, director of strategy and defense at global management consultant Guidehouse. “That’s an incredibly complex endeavor, arguably one of the most complex and important weapon system rollouts and deployments ever planned.”

Keeping that rollout on track while keeping existing missiles ready and on alert is what makes the endeavor so challenging for the combat crews, maintainers, command authorities, and program office.

“It takes a wide variety of expert services, across the industrial base, to support this mission,” McKeon says. “From digital engineering, model-based systems engineering, acquisition, program management, financial management, cybersecurity and industrial coordination. The Air Force needs a strong, collaborative partner to help drive that transition. They’ve set a very high bar: There’s no room for failure, because this truly is a no-fail mission.”

Keeping the Minuteman IIIs operational is already a growing challenge. Parts are increasingly hard to source, and long-term, experienced professional staff are retiring.

To manage the effort, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center split the ICBM Systems Directorate in 2020. It now has two directorates to manage ICBMs at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, one for Minuteman III and the other for GBSD. To sustain the former and successfully develop and deploy the latter, the Air Force is seeking a single industry partner that can provide support through the transition, filling in the gaps and ensuring a successful way forward. Under the Integration Support Contract 2.0, the Weapons Center will strike a long-term partnership worth some $900 million to ensure Minuteman III operations continue unabated until the last missile stands down, all while deploying GBSD replacements on a relentless schedule from about 2029 to 2038.

“The new contract is completely different from the past support,” McKeon says. “What the government needs from the ISC 2.0 provider is a collaborative partner who understands the importance of that mission risk and has a depth of knowledge in all of the broad domains needed to keep this very large, very complex weapon system transition on schedule.”

Guidehouse, as a consultancy with decades of experience supporting large customers and bringing best-of-breed solutions to complex challenges, is uniquely situated to lead such an effort—consulting is its forte, and that’s ultimately what a trusted partner does.

“A program of this magnitude requires a broad, diverse and complex set of skills,” McKeon said. “So we went out and found the experts in industry.” A leading aerospace manufacturer is on board to ensure “knowledge parity” with GBSD builder Northrop Grumman; the leading digital engineering and digital twin company with experience in nuclear recapitalization; and a leading provider to the Air Force of program management and acquisition support. “We went out and found the expert in industry for every single one of those areas, and we also have a portfolio of critical small businesses that we’ve worked with before.”

To support long-term recruiting and retention requirements, Guidehouse reached out to academia, forging partnerships with several universities to support “upskilling” for current workforce members who will have to transition to new systems and technologies, but also to develop the workforce through recruiting by accessing students and those schools’ alumni networks.”

Charles Beard, Guidehouse’s Chief Operating Officer, began his career as an Air Force Space & Missile Operations Officer. “A credible nuclear strike capability during this transition to GBSD may be more important today than when I worked behind that blast door,” he said. Even years ago, he recalls being “amazed when I was first introduced to the weapon system at Vandenberg Air Force Base and became aware of the underlying technology. The designs were 50 years old and borrowed from other weapon systems of that era. The systems we were operating were built in the 1960s and modernized in the ’70s with a service life extension program in the 80s. This program isn’t a ‘cutover’ to GBSD—it’s a re-platforming of the mission to a 21st century missile, ground support, and command and control environment to support the warfighter’s ability to conduct this mission on behalf of the national command authorities. This program is about being able to maintain readiness of an aging weapon system and supporting the Global Strike community to make the transition to GBSD while maintaining readiness of the current platform, and to relieve some of the stress on combat crews and maintainers that stand alert on this mission every day.”

Beard said Guidehouse approached this program initially thinking it would take a secondary role but the more the consulting firm and its industry partners studied the unique needs of the Air Force, the more they realized they were better suited to deliver on the mission by leading. “The team that we’ve assembled is replete with former operators and maintainers, people who know this weapon system and understand the reasons why it needs to retire. It includes maintainers, manufacturers and developers of subsystems and components. That means we know what happens beneath the launcher lid and behind the blast door, we can translate the failure analyses into operational readiness and advise the Air Force on optional paths forward balancing the retirement of Minuteman and onboarding of GBSD.”

The Air Force split its directorate, Beard said, to help each group focus on their mission. The contractor support will be part of what bridges the parallel efforts. “They’ve got one team that’s trying to build a new weapon system and get it through the milestones, and another that’s got to support and maintain the existing system, and it’s all taking place in a geopolitical context that hasn’t been seen for three decades,” Beard said. “So our role, as a consultant, is to help orchestrate that … to bring some of those new technologies and capabilities to those teams so they can focus on the blue suit roles they need to fulfill. We need to augment them, be their partners and provide the capabilities and tools to help them be successful.”

As a strategic partner and advisor, Beard sees the role of the ISC 2.0 contractor as offering a critical third perspective in discussions with the GBSD prime contractor. “We’ll provide an independent, objective, unbiased opinion that’s not wedded to a production schedule,” he said. With the contract structured to support ongoing operations as well as the transition, he explained, “we can really look at this through a strategic lens with an operational perspective.”

A twist to ISC 2.0 is its focused requirements for digital engineer know-how. That’s not surprising given that GBSD will be a 21st century weapon system conceived, modeled, and tested in a digital era. But the concept here is to also apply digital engineering to the existing system, Beard said. “In the case of a new start, like GBSD, digital engineering enables lots of variants and virtual prototyping, so you can make decisions through computational analysis,” he said. New digital models of the legacy Minuteman III have been created, he noted, “and that’s a great first step.” But Guidehouse sees potential to combine those models with other data, and to “apply some artificial intelligence to do prognostic health monitoring of the system … and use it to inform not only how we sustain that system for the next 10 years, but also how we can inform and prioritize solutions for the GBSD deployment.”

This is the critical advantage, Beard said, of a single contractor for both programs. Neither exists in isolation. Both must be successful to ensure U.S. security.

“We built a team of people who understand the mission, who understand there is no failure option here,” Beard said. “We understand the broad geopolitical context and how that is translated down to the crews who are working in very difficult circumstances. Our place is to help de-stress that, to allow them to see where they’re heading and to get there without delay, without extra cost, without stress.”

Vaccines Required for Active-duty Air Force, Space Force by Nov. 2

Sept. 5, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

Active-duty Airmen and Guardians have until Nov. 2 to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, while members of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve have until Dec. 2.

Personnel will be considered fully vaccinated two weeks after the second dose of a two-dose vaccine, according to a Department of the Air Force release, or two weeks after the first dose of a single-dose vaccine.

Because two-dose vaccines are usually given three weeks apart, that means those who have never received a dose at all may have to squeeze in the five-week process over the next eight weeks.

Exemptions may apply on medical or religious grounds. A forthcoming separation date won’t factor in, according to the release: “No exemptions from the vaccine will be approved solely because Airmen and Guardians have an approved retirement or separation date,” according to the release.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III mandated vaccination a day after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received full Food and Drug Administration approval, directing the services to set “ambitious timelines.”

The guidance approved by Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall on Sept. 3 is “taking an aggressive approach” to the “highly transmissible Delta variant” to protect the whole force, including everyone’s families and the local communities, said undersecretary of the Air Force Gina Ortiz Jones in the release. “As members of the nation’s Armed Forces, our Airmen and Guardians must be able to respond to situations around the globe—being fully vaccinated will help us safely meet the readiness requirements that our national security depends on.”

The full approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine precipitated the mandate, but troops may also fulfill the requirement by voluntarily receiving another vaccine that has the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization, “including Moderna, Janssen, and AstraZeneca, from both military and civilian providers,” according to the guidance.

As of Aug. 30, 65 percent of Active-duty Department of the Air Force personnel, including both Air Force and Space Force, were fully vaccinated. Another 6.2 percent were partially vaccinated, according to the most recent statistics published by the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs. Adding in Guard and Reserve troops brought the percentages down overall—to 60.7 percent fully vaccinated and 5.2 percent partially vaccinated. Out of the 39,071 recorded cases among the DAF’s military personnel, 16 resulted in hospitalization, with two deaths.

Limitations on activities authorized for unvaccinated personnel are already underway. Kendall has authorized only vaccinated Airmen, Guardians, and Department of the Air Force civilians to attend AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference on Sept. 20-22, for example. Unvaccinated personnel will be limited to virtual attendance, Kendall determined.

New legislation in the House of Representatives would ban dishonorable discharges for troops who refuse to comply with the vaccine mandate.

House Impatient With Air Force’s and Navy’s Electronic Warfare Progress

Sept. 3, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The House of Representatives’ version of the National Defense Authorization Act would call on the Air Force and Navy to provide a report next spring on how they’re going to accelerate the use of adaptive and cognitive electronic warfare capabilities.

The House Armed Services tactical air and land forces subcommittee added language to the draft 2022 NDAA saying members are “concerned with the pace of development of true cognitive electronic warfare capabilities,” referring to those that incorporate machine learning or artificial intelligence into capabilities such as jamming communication signals.

The amendment recognizes that the Air Force’s Electromagnetic Spectrum Superiority Strategy states that “anticipatory cognitive systems and platform-agnostic applications” form the core of the Air Force’s EW modernization plan; and that while the Navy hasn’t yet finished its own EW roadmap, the service is studying adaptive EW technology.

But, “while the committee understands and supports the effort to field near-term improved EW systems” to both services’ aircraft fleets, the HASC “believes greater emphasis should be placed on cognitive and other advanced techniques.”

The amendment would order the Secretaries of the Air Force and Navy to provide a report by April 1, 2022, on current research-and-development and procurement programs associated with advanced or cognitive EW. The report would include descriptions of the technologies being studied; acquisition techniques being pursued; the intended application of these EW technologies; the estimated technology readiness levels of each one; costs incurred so far; and planned spending across the Future Years Defense Plan for each project.

The HASC also wants to know about any “technology or resource challenges” that could interfere with implementing these technologies in the fleets.

The new language says the Air Force’s EMS Superiority Strategy was released in April 2021, but the Air Force actually released it in December 2020 and provided Congress an implementation plan in April.

Commenting on the strategy in late January 2021, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said the service has been “asleep at the wheel” in electronic warfare since the 1990s and needs to come charging back decisively. Speaking at an online event of the Association of Old Crows, a private EW industry and interest community, Brown said, “Bottom line, we are not deterring our adversaries like we need to” while at the same time, Chinese and Russian cyber personnel have “invaded the U.S. without a declaration of war.”

A drastic revamp of EMS warfare is needed, not incremental changes; otherwise, the U.S. will simply “lose” rather than “accelerate change or lose,” Brown said. He said the Air Force must move beyond “defensive capabilities” such as stealth and jamming and go on the offensive “to maneuver and fire in the EMS.”

While the Air Force’s EMS strategy called for major changes in how to prosecute adversaries in that domain, it stopped short of calling the EMS a domain unto itself, calling it instead a “critical battlespace” that can’t be divorced from any other arena of competition.

The strategy involves the Air Force “hiding” in civilian bands and rapidly frequency-hopping to complicate jamming and eavesdropping, but some of its plans would require the Federal Communications Commission to change its rules about reserving certain parts of the spectrum for civilian use.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Alex M. Sandmann

Sept. 3, 2021

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 20 to 22 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each workday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Alex M. Sandmann, a noncommissioned officer in charge of electronic security systems at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

In his role with Air Force Global Strike Command, Sandmann leads two Airmen and directs the testing and maintenance of over 7,100 sensors located in the Weapons Storage Area and flight line. His team ensures the protection of 89 sectors, 25 B-52 Stratofortresses, and 21 facilities valued at $5.5 billion.

Sandmann organized a fix action for four badging systems by coordinating with six organizations, eliminating the need to reissue 3,000 badges. His ingenuity also led to the development of three alarm-testing tools that cut average testing time by 50 percent, saving 2,400 personnel hours annually. He oversaw the installation of a $1.7 million temporary alarm system during the WSA upgrade, cutting posting by 80 percent.

Finally, Sandmann earned his CCAF in criminal justice, was awarded the Airman Leadership School Commandant and Distinguished Graduate Awards, and completed the Electronic Security System Manager’s course, earning his special experience identifier.

Read more about the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2021:

Space Startup’s Rocket Explodes After Launching From Vandenberg

Sept. 3, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Space Launch Delta 30 was forced to terminate the first test flight of space startup Firefly Aerospace’s rocket due to an anomaly Sept. 2, resulting in a dramatic explosion over the Pacific Ocean near Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif.

Firefly was testing its Alpha rocket, designed to carry small satellites into orbit, for the first time. Launching out of Vandenberg’s Space Launch Complex 2 West, the 95-foot vehicle successfully lifted off and ascended for roughly two-and-a-half minutes, as seen in live-streamed video, before abruptly exploding, just moments after flight control operators said it had reached supersonic speeds.

In a press release, Space Launch Delta 30 public affairs said it terminated the flight after a reported anomaly. Firefly issued its own statement saying it was “too early to draw conclusions as to the root cause” of the anomaly.

Both organizations reported no injuries, though Space Launch Delta 30 did issue a statement warning local residents that there could be debris as a result of the explosion. Recreational areas, including beaches on the base, will remain closed while an investigation takes place, and if residents spot debris, they are instructed to stay at least 50 feet away.

Photos and videos of the flight reported by NASASpaceFlight.com and the Santa Maria Times appear to show the rocket spinning in midair in the moments leading up to its explosion.

“While we did not meet all of our mission objectives, we did achieve a number of them: successful first stage ignition, liftoff of the pad, progression to supersonic speed, and we obtained a substantial amount of flight data,” Firefly said in its statement.

Firefly took over one of Vandenberg’s launch pads in 2018, when the Delta II rocket, operated by NASA and the Air Force, was officially retired.

Originally, the startup planned for its first launch in the third quarter of 2019. That timeline was delayed, however, with the COVID-19 pandemic playing a large role. In its Sept. 2 statement, the company thanked Vandenberg personnel and Space Launch Delta 30 for their “partnership” and promised “further updates as more information becomes available.”

What Drove Air Force Software Chief Chaillan to Quit

Sept. 2, 2021 | By Tobias Naegele

Nicolas M. Chaillan, the first-ever chief software officer of the Air Force, announced his resignation Sept. 2 in a candid LinkedIn post citing, as the final straw in his decision, diminished support for investing in the technologies needed to enable joint all-domain command and control.

Chaillan came to the Air Force in 2018 following a stint at Homeland Security and a successful career as a technology entrepreneur. Joining several other technology-savvy tech civilian leaders in the Department of the Air Force, including former acquisition assistant secretary Will Roper, Chief Information Officer Lauren Barrett Knausenberger, and Chief Architect of the Air Force Preston Dunlap, he championed rapid software development embodied by the DevSecOps agile software movement and chafed at conventional “waterfall” development processes that produce slower results.

DevSecOps breaks development down into manageable pieces and pushes iterative improvements out in periodic sprints, while waterfall development delivers updates far more slowly. The difference can be compared to the difference between an old Windows XT computer and today’s Windows 10 or iPhone operating systems, for which updates are rolled out continuously.

As Chief Software Officer, Chaillan helped lead the DOD Enterprise DevSecOps Initiative; Platform One, an open-source DevSecOps development platform; implementation of a zero-trust security architecture focused on securing data rather than the network perimeter; new acquisition agreements to accelerate acquisition of software development services; and the successful use of Kubernetes and containerization in legacy weapons platforms such as the U-2 spy plane, which culminated in the ability to do over-the-air software updates while the U-2 was flying.

“We demonstrated that a small group of people can turn the largest ship in the world through grit, wit and hard work,” he wrote. “If the Department of Defense can do this, so can any U.S. organization!”

But he also ran into barriers. At a recent AFA Gabriel Chapter lunch, he said resistance and a frequent lack of understanding frustrated his efforts and expressed worry that the Air Force and Space Force might go their own separate ways in software development.

“I’m actually very concerned with the Space Force starting to potentially drift away from the Air Force,” he told that gathering. “It would really be a big mistake, compounding the existing silos between the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, and fourth estate.”

Military assignment policies rankled him as he watched inexperienced officers try to take on projects that demanded technology experience and understanding they couldn’t deliver. But Chaillan was unable to overcome the frustrations inherent in so large a bureaucracy, and he bristled over counterproductive assignment policies that put people unfamiliar with information technology development in charge of technical projects.

“Please stop putting a major or [lieutenant colonel] (despite their devotion, exceptional attitude, and culture) in charge” of technical projects affecting millions of users “when they have no previous experience in that field,” he wrote. “We would not put a pilot in the cockpit without extensive flight training; why would we expect someone with no IT experience to be close to successful?”

Likewise, he butted heads with service leadership over the value of investing in technology and “prioritizing IT basic issues for the Department,” he wrote. “A lack of response and alignment is certainly a contributor to my accelerated exit. There have been continuous and exhausting fights to chase after funding ‘out-of-hide,’ because we are not enabled to fix enterprise IT teams within Program Offices. Worse, some are starting to use the size of the DoD as an excuse to claim that Enterprise Services cannot succeed in the Department. That is false.”

But the last straw was a lack of support for JADC2. “One of the main reasons for my decision was the failure of OSD and the Joint Staff to deliver on their own alleged top priority, JADC2—they couldn’t ‘walk the walk,’” he wrote. “I put my reputation on the line when I shared that I was asked by the Joint Staff to join the JADC2 team as their CSO. They wanted me to help deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) within 4 months so that we would finally have a tangible deliverable to show for JADC2, not just redundant and siloed work performed by each of the DoD services or vaporware/stale documents. After a massive undertaking … based on demands from our warfighters and [combatant commands], I had just started the work … when I was told by the Joint Staff that there was no FY22 funding to support the MVP after all.”

Instead, he wrote, DOD continues to invest in parallel architectures and system stacks without benefit. Each service pursues its own direction not for the betterment of defense, he said, but to support egos and “a thirst for power.”

“DOD must do better,” he wrote. “There are 100,000 software developers in the DOD. We are the largest software organization on the planet, and we have almost no shared repositories and little to no collaboration across DoD Services. We need diversity of options if there are tangible benefits to duplicating work. Not because of silos created purposefully to allow senior officials to satisfy their thirst for power.”

As a parent, he worries about a future in which the U.S. faces a Chinese nation that is bigger and growing faster. “Twenty years from now, our children … will have no chance competing in a world where China has the drastic advantage of population over the U.S.,” he wrote. “If the U.S. can’t match the booming, hardworking population in China, then we have to win by being smarter, more efficient, and forward-leaning through agility, rapid prototyping and innovation. We have to be ahead and lead. We can’t afford to be behind.”

House Panel Addresses Women in the Draft, Waivers for Generals in NDAA Markup

Sept. 2, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

In a marathon session that started Sept. 1 and stretched into the early morning hours of Sept. 2, the House Armed Services Committee approved its markup of the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act as representatives spent the better part of 16 hours debating and voting on amendments on everything from the top line of the defense budget to the recent events in Afghanistan to waivers for retired generals hoping to become Secretary of Defense.

The biggest adjustment came from an amendment offered by ranking member Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), who proposed increasing the budget’s top line some $23.9 billion over the $715 billion requested. That increase was approved 42-17, with many Democrats crossing party lines in a rebuke of President Joe Biden’s budget.

Beyond that major change, however, scores of other amendments were also considered and added to the bill.

Afghanistan

As widely expected and reported before the Sept. 1 markup, House Republicans filed a barrage of amendments related to the last few weeks of the Afghanistan War as President Joe Biden oversaw a withdrawal that turned chaotic and deadly when the Taliban seized control of Kabul and an Islamic State suicide bomber killed 13 U.S. troops.

Many of the amendments were agreed to on a bipartisan basis, such as prohibiting the transfer of money or goods to the Taliban; requiring the Pentagon to brief Congress on terrorism threats in the country now that the U.S. presence on the ground is gone; asking for reports on the number of Americans remaining in Afghanistan who wish to be evacuated and the military equipment left behind during the withdrawal; and establishing a bipartisan commission to study lessons learned from the 20-year war.

Some, however, provoked sharp partisan debate as Republicans criticized Biden’s actions and Democrats sought to defend him. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), a retired rear admiral in the Navy, introduced an amendment seeking a report from the DOD inspector general on any potential political motivations that went into the decision to withdraw troops. While Jackson insisted his amendment was “not a shot at President Biden and his administration,” the committee’s chair, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) retorted that regardless of intent, it would have that effect, calling the notion of Biden being politically motivated to leave Afghanistan “offensive.”

Jackson’s amendment was defeated by voice vote, as was an amendment from Rep. Mike Waltz (R-Fla.), which he said would “express a lack of confidence in President Biden’s performance as commander-in-chief during this withdrawal.” Waltz’s amendment also sparked intense debate.

Women in the draft

The House committee also voted to approve an amendment from Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) requiring women to register for the military draft, on a 35-24 line.

The provision was also included in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s markup of the NDAA. After years of debate over all women ages 18 to 25 registering, the requirement is now closer than ever to becoming law, representing a major overhaul of the Selective Service System.

There has not been a military draft in the U.S. since 1975, but should a draft become necessary, “we need man, woman, gay, straight, any religion, Black, white, brown. We need everybody, all hands on deck,” Waltz said before voting for the amendment.

National Guard

HASC split on a pair of amendments offered in relation to the National Guard, agreeing to one but rejecting the other.

The amendment that was approved, offered by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), proposed prohibiting the deployment of any state’s National Guard across state lines if the mission was funded by “non-governmental grant, donation or private source of funding, unless for emergency or disaster relief efforts.”

Escobar’s amendment comes on the heels of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem using a $1 million donation from a prominent Republican booster to deploy her state’s National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border. Escobar didn’t explicitly call out Noem’s actions in speaking on her amendment, but she did make reference to the National Guard being “rented out.”

The amendment that was rejected came from Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) as he sought to eliminate a provision in the chairman’s mark that would put the Washington, D.C., National Guard under authority of the mayor of Washington, D.C., instead of the president.

Debate on Kelly’s amendment quickly turned to questions of D.C.’s push for statehood and unique constitutional status, but in the end, it was voted down 31-28 on a party-line basis, keeping the provision intact as it heads to the full House.

Waivers for generals

In a move he said was designed to reinforce civilian leadership of the Defense Department, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) introduced an amendment establishing a new requirement that retired officers ranked brigadier general and above must be out of the military for 10 years before they are allowed to become Secretary of Defense, up from the current seven-year waiting period.

Gallagher’s proposal also calls for a three-fourths vote in both the House and Senate to grant a waiver to the 10-year rule.

Since World War II, Congress has granted only three waivers to the seven-year rule—George C. Marshall in 1950, James Mattis in 2017, and Lloyd J. Austin III in 2021. Gallagher pointed to the fact that two of those retired generals, Mattis and Lloyd, were granted waivers in the past four years—along Austin currently serving as Defense Secretary—as proof that what once was seen as an exception is dangerously close to becoming the norm. His amendment was approved by the committee.