My Base Guide

Answer 10 questions to discover which branch of the U.S. Armed Forces best matches your personality, interests, and goals. 10 questions • Takes about 2 minutes Understanding the Military Branches Choosing the right military branch is a significant decision that will shape your career, lifestyle, and future opportunities. Each of the six branches of the U.S. Armed Forces has a unique mission, culture, and career paths. The Army is the largest branch, offering the most diverse career opportunities.

By Amanda Huffman For past Olympic games held in the US, sitting presidents have served in passive, ceremonial roles. However, President Trump has hinted at other plans for the LA 2028 Olympics. On August 5th, Trump signed an executive order outlining a general framework for an Olympic task force, appointing himself as the chair and the Vice President as the vice chair. While the President has historically played a role in the Olympic games, it has historically been ceremonial and passive.

During President Trump’s first term, the Pentagon transferred $1 billion dollars allotted for the construction of new Army barracks to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to build 57 miles of new border wall. In Trump’s second term, this will happen again. In a May 2025 letter, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth notified Congress that he intends to transfer $200 million from planned DoD construction projects to pay for 20 miles of new border wall near a military training area in Arizona.

When the floodwaters swallowed Kerr County over the Fourth of July weekend, help came from the sky. Nearly 200 people were stranded—many of them children—after the Guadalupe River surged 26 feet, swallowing roads and wrecking Camp Mystic, a beloved girls summer camp in the Texas Hill Country. Communication lines were down. Panic was setting in. Then came Rescue 6553.

During his 2024 Presidential campaign, President Trump assured the American people that he could end the Russia-Ukraine War within 24-hours of being elected. When that didn’t happen, an increasingly frustrated Trump, assisted by Vice President JD Vance, held a now famous February 2025 meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that devolved into a shouting match with Trump and Vance questioning Zelenskyy’s gratitude for US military aid.

Prior to Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, NATO held a summit for heads of state from its member nations irregularly, usually every two years. Since then, Russian aggression toward Ukraine on the fringes of the NATO Area of Responsibility (AOR) has driven annual summits where the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian War has driven important NATO policy decisions. Only the COVID pandemic could force cancellation of the summit in 2020.

It’s a major win for the U.S. military, as the Navy announced that it reached its fiscal 2025 enlistment goal of signing more than 40,000 new Sailors three months ahead of schedule. The announcement was made by Navy Secretary John Phelan via social media, and was met with praise across defense and government circles. The U.S. Navy recruitment numbers this year is a turning point, as the Navy missed its recruiting targets for the first time in 2023.

Everything we experience in life teaches us things that sometimes a classroom can’t, and it’s also like that in the Navy. It’s tough, yes, but in between the routines, the training, and often the long nights at sea, there is for sure growth that you can take from it. You come out with more than just discipline and skills. There are a lot of lessons from the Navy and from other branches too — you will walk away with them, and they will stay with you for the rest of your life.

At the end of WWII, the US helped Japan draft its new constitution, a constitution that was intended to prevent Japan from ever again becoming a military power. In the years that followed, Japan built one of the world’s most technologically advanced ground, air, and maritime military forces all in the name of self defense. To this day, that pacifist principle, expressed in Article 9 of Japan’s constitution, is deeply embedded in Japanese culture and its foreign policy.

In an increasingly uncertain world with tensions rising between the USA and both Iran and China, it sometimes seems like the USA is, once again, on the brink of a major military operation. Of course, military members strive to maintain a constant state of preparedness for any task from small to large. It’s their job.