Task & Purpose

Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division headed to duty on the U.S.-Mexico border will be among the first to live in new 3D-printed barracks unveiled this week at an Army base in Texas. Two new 3D-printed barracks buildings at Fort Bliss, Texas, which opened on Tuesday, are built for transient soldiers who are not permanently assigned to the base, Army officials said in a release.

Iraq is proving to be a central front in the ongoing war between Iran and the United States once again. On Tuesday U.S. and Saudi fighters carried out  airstrikes against Iranian-backed groups that the U.S. military says were responsible for recent drone attacks against U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.

The Marine Corps has taken delivery of the last of 359 MV-22B Ospreys that it has procured over the past two decades, Corps officials announced on Tuesday. The tiltrotor MV-22B Osprey is the primary aircraft that takes Marines to and from Navy ships, remote bases and battlefields. The Osprey’s unique rotating engines allow it to fly long-range missions like an airplane while also being able to hover and make vertical takeoffs and landings, similar to a helicopter.

Dakota Meyer, who was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2011 and rejoined the Marines last year after more than a decade as a civilian, is now a special assistant to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, according to the Pentagon. No information about Meyer’s responsibilities in his new role was immediately available. Meyer, a sergeant in the Marine Reserve, was awarded the Medal of Honor for rescuing dozens of U.S. and allied troops in a 2009 ambush in Afghanistan. He left the Marines in 2010.

As the Navy begins major upgrades to barracks for its most junior sailors, thousands will soon need temporary housing during those projects — which is where the private sector comes in.

As fighting with Iran restarted in early July, the U.S. Air Force sent more fighter jets to the Middle East. The F-16s and F-35s based in Germany and the United Kingdom carry out multiple missions, but are also capable of suppressing enemy air defense operations. Those missions, also known as SEAD or “Wild Weasel” missions, have become central to U.S. operations in the Middle East, as the military has waged extensive air campaigns over enemy territory in recent years.

The Navy is requiring that sailors under investigation for allegations of sexual assault or stalking only be transferred to shore commands in response to the death of a sailor, said William Speaks, a spokesman for the Chief of Naval Personnel. “This revision was taken as a result of reviews by the Navy in the wake of the murder of Petty Officer 3rd Class Angelina Resendiz by a fellow Sailor,” Speaks told Task & Purpose. No further information about those reviews was immediately available.

The Navy is reinstating flu vaccine requirements for deploying sailors and those just joining the service, as well as some civilians employees, just three months after the Pentagon removed the mandate across the force.

Airmen are required to submit a waist-to-height ratio to the Air Force by the end of the week, but the measurement won’t count towards the service’s official fitness test, the Air Force said. Active-duty Air Force personnel have to submit their waist-to-height ratio data via the Air Force’s myBodyComp app by July 31. The Air Force has been pushing reminders of the deadline to troops for several days.

The Pentagon revealed Saturday that more than 600 troops have been injured or killed in the conflict, more than 200 more than previously revealed publicly. The new figures were released as part of an apparent overhaul of the Defense Department’s official casualty reporting system which now split casualties from the war, for the first time, into two time periods.