The new push from the Defense secretary comes after he looked to cut the number of active-duty four-star generals and admirals in the U.S. military by at least 10 percent last year.
In May 2025, Hegseth directed Pentagon leadership to cut the number of general officers in the National Guard by at least 20 percent and slash the total number of general and flag officers — those with a one-star rank or above — by 10 percent.
Pete Kegsbreath may absolutely suck as a Pentagon chief, but this was a good move.
Oklahoma had the nation’s third highest rate of veteran suicide deaths in 2023.
The statistic was among several concerning trends raised during an interim study at the State Capitol this week. The meeting focused on whether legislative action is needed to improve access to care for Oklahoma’s more than 270,000 veterans.
Presenters pointed to long wait times for physical and mental healthcare, access to firearms and gaps in veteran-specific services in rural Oklahoma as potential factors in the state’s high veteran suicide rate.
Competing against Florida and South Carolina, Oklahoma could become the new home of one of four historic military junior colleges in the United States if the state legislature is amenable during the 2027 legislative session.
Founded in 1935, the Valley Forge Military College in Pennsylvania is “under siege” by its governing municipality, according to Valley Forge Military Foundation Board Chairman John English, who addressed the Oklahoma Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee on Tuesday.
Sen. Kelly Hines, R-Oklahoma City, introduced the subject of the college’s potential relocation to Oklahoma, ultimately calling it “an exceptional opportunity” for the state.
A $4.1 million memorial project is underway at Wiley Post Park to honor the USS Oklahoma City submarine, which served from 1989 to 2022, and to celebrate its legacy.
The memorial will feature memorial walls, a plaza, and a replica of the submarine sail, with plans to eventually bring the original sail to the park. The project is funded through tax increment financing.
The departure of Driscoll, an Army veteran and longtime friend of Vice President JD Vance, comes after months of friction with Hegseth. It also comes six months into the Iran war, which shows no signs of ending.
Earlier this year, Hegseth fired the Army chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, and two other generals. George and Driscoll worked closely together.
Nearly from the beginning of Hegseth’s tenure, multiple sources previously told CNN, the secretary has been distrustful of officials around him — civilian and military alike — and suspicious about their loyalties.
One of the most prominent examples of infighting throughout Hegseth’s tenure has been with Driscoll, often due to the close relationship Driscoll and Vance. CNN has reported that Hegseth has viewed Driscoll’s relationship with the White House as an effort to go around him.
If Driscoll is an ally of Vance, then he is just as subservient to Israel as Hegseth. Perhaps Driscoll does not want to put his fingerprints anywhere near the decision to use tactical nukes after the election.
If you are a veteran in eastern Oklahoma, then you likely received an email last week inviting you to the Ernest Childers Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Tulsa for a “Veterans Health Assistance Expo.” The event was to take place on Thursday, August 27, from 1000 to 1200. Veterans were invited to bring their families, to fellowship with other veterans, and “enjoy a free meal.” Most importantly, the event was to serve as an enrollment drive for those veterans to whom medical benefits have been extended under the PACT Act of 2022.
Veterans who arrived in time for the opening of the expo could not immediately locate the event. After standing by in the main lobby for twenty minutes, one veteran approached the information desk and asked where the event was located. What everyone quickly realized is that no one who worked at the Ernest Childers Department of Veterans Affairs Outpatient Clinic in Tulsa knew anything about any “Veterans Health Assistance Expo.”
No preparations had been made. Mass confusion ensued. One worker, LaShawn Baker, took charge of the situation and a makeshift “Veterans Health Assistance Expo” began to hastily unfold. But there were no extra staff on hand to share the additional tasking.
One veteran, who arrived at 0945, was led into a conference room at 1115 where a makeshift drink station had been set up on an office mail cart, which had no bottom, allowing lemonade and water to drip directly onto the floor from the dispensers sent up from the Canteen. At 1130, that veteran was brought into another room to be enrolled in the VA healthcare system. After a relatively smooth process getting some basic appointments scheduled, on the way out the door at 1230, the veteran saw a stack of pizzas being carried in, presumably on its way to the conference room.
Big VA simply decided that the Tulsa clinic would have an expo without telling anyone at the Tulsa clinic. Although the staff did the very best they could to help those who arrived, it is unknown how many disappointed veterans departed without being enrolled or having any services scheduled at all. It is shocking that this could ever be the first experience veterans have with the system which administers their healthcare benefits. It is hoped that the VA will take steps to ensure that something so discouraging never happens again.
Elaine Johns has been a champion for Oklahoma veterans. She has dedicated her life to fighting to preserve the legacy of the veterans who have fought for our freedom by working to have their service honored and awarded.
Johns has been putting the finishing touches on a new purple heart gallery at the American Military Heritage Museum in Enid. It sits inside the Oakwood Mall.
The American Military Heritage Museum at Oakwood Mall in Enid is free to the public and open Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Thank you, Elaine Johns, for your service to the veterans.
President Donald Trump downplayed concerns about the USS Abraham Lincoln’s extended deployment in the Middle East. Reports have emerged of mental health struggles among sailors, but the Navy says it has not observed an increase in suicidal ideation.
The U.S. military is preparing to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln with the USS George Washington as part of a scheduled Middle East deployment, U.S. officials said, amid growing concerns over living conditions aboard the Lincoln and the strain on troops during the Iran war.
It will be good for the Americans to see how little regard Donald Trump actually has for the US military. There are a lot of good people who still ignorantly cling to MAGA, indoctrinated in Boomer Zionism, fooled by Trump’s false America First rhetoric, who need to wake up. If the crew of USS Abraham Lincoln are suffering, it is not in service to the USA.
Lincoln’s roughly 5,000 sailors and Marines remain on a deployment that began Nov. 21. The carrier has been deployed for more than eight months while supporting U.S. military operations in the Middle East against Iran.
The deployment, which was anticipated to end in May, has been extended with no publicly announced return date.
As a Nimitz-class enlisted surface and aviation warfare specialist myself, about all that I will say about this situation is that the Lincoln Sailors should be thankful that their thoroughly-compromised Commander-in-Chief is not giving them the same treatment that another thoroughly-compromised Commander-in-Chief gave to the Liberty Sailors.
I cannot say that no United States Sailor has ever enlisted out of a duty to serve the Israelis, but it is fair to say that the average US Sailor understands that Operation Iranian Freedom IV has nothing to do with America, or with any American interest whatsoever.
Gonzo Journalist Dustin Reed Terry‘s personal vendetta against Sean Buckner Transparency took an interesting turn this week, as the former somehow managed to land an exclusive interview with President Joe Paul Simon of the Vian school board. The interview, regarding sensitive matters on which President Simon perhaps should not have spoken on the record, served as Dustin’s response to the ongoing coverage by Buckner and his close associate Ron Durbin regarding questionable hiring practices in Vian Public Schools. The immediate controversy generated by the stunt led Dustin to shut down the entire Facebook account on which he had published the interview.
For a solid week now, there has been no activity at Public Crime. All questions regarding the American Hero Project remain unanswered. Since Buckner discovered that Dustin Reed Terry is actually Dustin Demoss of Sallisaw, details are beginning to emerge regarding yet another possible investment scam in Dustin’s past.
An October 14, 2013 News On 6article states that one of “Oklahoma’s own is raising funds to make a feature film about a young veteran’s struggle with mental illness.” It all started one day when Jonathan Looper randomly got a call from his long-lost childhood friend, Dustin Demoss.
Looper said DeMoss opened up to him about being diagnosed with schizophrenia–this after leaving the Air Force to come home and care for his mother, who was battling ovarian cancer. When his friend said he wished he were a writer, so he could share his experience to help others, Looper, who was working on his master’s degree at Georgetown University, got the idea to make a short film.
According to Looper, Dustin continued his involvement throughout the production of the short movie, which was then immediately used as an investment vehicle for a feature-length Dustin Demoss biopic titled Light Wounds. Looper “started an Indiegogo campaign to raise money for the production” with the goal “to raise $107,000” and “to start filming in early 2014.”
Sources say that the production team created a website in late 2013, on which they continued soliciting donations while offering a rosy outlook for completion by winter of 2014. A major distribution deal was announced that summer, and the production team proudly announced that the Dustin Demoss biopic would be directed by one Max Leonida.
However, that artist’s IMDB page mentions nothing of the Dustin Demoss biopic, and the IMDB page for the Dustin Demoss biopic still lists the movie in a status of “pre-production.” Sources say the website was unceremoniously shut down in late 2014.
How involved was Dustin Reed Terry/Demoss in the soliciting of funds for his own feature-length biopic, Light Wounds? How involved was he with its production team? Was any part of the movie ever produced? What amount of money was raised for its production, and where did all of the money go? Who financed the original short movie? Did Dustin finance the entire scheme with leftover funds from the American Hero Project in the immediate aftermath of the AHP’s collapse? Did Dustin ever truly wish to see his life story in feature-length movie format, or was this an investment scam from the start?
Local citizen-journalist, US Air Force veteran, and US Senate candidate Sean Buckner of Sean Buckner Transparency recently found himself in the crosshairs of another journalist, with accusations of stolen valor, in an ongoing saga which has yielded some truly bizarre layers.
For the last year, self-described “Gonzo Journalist” Dustin Reed Terry and his cohorts at The Cold Cases have explored unsolved mysteries “that slipped through the cracks of mainstream attention but are no less deserving of answers.” Earlier this month, his team announced a membership drive in conjunction with the release of exclusive information regarding the death of Kurt Cobain. As explained in a press release to the Alachua Chronicle:
TheColdCases.com, a leading destination for investigative cold case research and analysis, will release an exclusive handwriting analysis of Kurt Cobain’s suicide note on April 4, 2026 at 9:00 p.m. ET — the eve of the 32nd anniversary of his death on April 5, 1994.
It is perhaps because his article was not met with the expected fanfare that, almost immediately upon its publication, Dustin Reed Terry found his career skipping toward an entirely new trajectory. Yet another reason for Terry’s sudden new mission may be the fact that the evening of April 4 is when the Oklahoma Department of Corrections released the unredacted video of an incident involving Sean Buckner and his close associate Ron Durbin of Guerilla Publishing. In the video, Durbin can be heard making remarks which have been widely criticized as racist.
Little more than an hour following the video’s release, on another one of his Facebook profiles, Dustin Reed Terry announced that he had purchased the domain public crime dot com, and that he would now be investigating “white collar and political crime.”
The article treated Sean Buckner lightly, focusing mostly on Dustin Reed Terry’s perceived personal and professional flaws of Ron Durbin. However, now that Terry had definitively linked Buckner to Durbin, Terry quickly revealed in subsequentarticles that his main objective was to end the US Senate candidacy of Buckner. On April 7, Terry published a direct message sent to him by Buckner, in which Buckner offered Terry his private phone number and an opportunity for Terry to correct the record before Buckner files suit. Terry, confident in his work, flatly rejected the offer.
Buckner responded that night by explaining away Terry’s accusations, and vowing to investigate Terry himself:
You chose to publish this. You chose not to correct it. Now you get to deal with the consequences.
Now, Let me look into your life. My understanding is that you have been in and out of Mental Institutions throughout your life and your mom used to have total control of your finances through a conservatorship. Your Request for me to look into Ron Lockhart didn’t go unnoticed as you wanted me to investigate your relative. I will begin a full in-depth dive into you soon.
however, I don’t use AI. I use contacts that know you personally and have probably grown up with you. Pay attention things are going to get real.
The next morning, Buckner published a direct message sent to him by Terry, in which Terry revealed that, in addition to the fact that he has “been in mental institutions,” he has also starred in pornographic videos. Buckner at once called the whole thing off, promising not to sue or engage Terry any further.
Two hours later, Terry responded by announcing that he had been contacted by an attorney who claimed that it was Terry who could sue Buckner for discussing Terry’s mental health “while running as a U.S. Senate candidate.”
Terry continued producing articles and social media posts, as well as photoshopped images, personally and professionally attacking Buckner, while portraying himself as a champion against corruption. On the morning of April 10, Terry announced that he would be going on hiatus from The Cold Cases in order to pursue his agenda against Buckner, whom Terry decried as “a cult leader that is terrorizing Oklahoma.” A few minutes later, Terry posted his latest Public Crimearticle, in which he called into question Buckner’s military service, and called upon Buckner to release his military records. For the next few days, Terry continued making his accusations against Buckner on social media, before producing yet another Public Crimearticle on April 13 declaring that “Senate Candidate Sean Buckner is Allegedly a Stolen Valor Candidate.”
At first, Buckner laughed it off. Then he released his DD214 showing that he is in fact an honorably discharged veteran. Then he released various other records, soundly debunking any and all claims that he had committed the crime of stolen valor.
It quickly became evident that Terry simply did not understand the process of retrieving public records. Although he had made a request for a veteran’s records, the National Personnel Records Center could not find any records of the veteran for whom Terry made the request. However, that did not mean Buckner never served in the military or committed stolen valor. It simply meant that Terry had botched the request and then misinterpreted the NPRC’s response. The next morning, Buckner posted a public comment in which Terry remarked that “Getting my 15 minutes of fame with Sean was a strategic business decision. Nothing more, nothing less.” Terry further stated in the image that “Controversy is a business. I am just a businessman. And Sean is a supplier of business.” Addressing Terry’s confession, Buckner wrote:
Folks, there is a lawsuit that’s going to be filed after the election process. Making claims that I stole valor as a US Senate candidate and denouncing my military service while writing long articles about it for profit is Libel. When a candidate is running for US Senate, you might want to get some facts strait. Thank you dustin, this is going to be an easy one.
Less than an hour later, Terry posted his latest Public Crimearticle, in which he retracted his reporting on Buckner’s military service “until further notice.”
Terry did not, however, end his feud against Buckner. That night, he explained the reason why he began targeting Buckner in the first place: Buckner reminded Terry of someone from Roland whom Terry used to know. The person in question had allegedly stalked and harassed Terry to the point that Terry nearly committed suicide. Although Buckner had done nothing of the sort, Terry made it clear that Buckner now stood as a replacement adversary for the unnamed person from Roland. Terry vowed that he “will not back down from this fight.”
The following morning, Terry officially announced that he was indeed backing down, by “moving on from this Buckner thing” to run his newest entrepreneurial endeavor at debited dot org.
In yet another post an hour later, Terry announced that he had officially transferred ownership of The Cold Cases to investigator Taya Whitney Brown, and that he “will be shutting down PublicCrime.com as I close that chapter of my journey.” Later that afternoon, Buckner posted that he had been “asked to look into an organization calling itself the American Hero Project.” Buckner revealed that the organization had been founded in 2012, by Dustin Demoss and Clint Davis, who “solicited donations under the claim of supporting military families but may have failed to distribute those funds as promised.” Buckner further stated that the charity collapsed when “questions arose regarding Clint Davis’s military record.” Buckner also revealed that the AHP founder Dustin Demoss is none other than Gonzo Jornalist Dustin Reed Terry.
Buckner then posted a YouTube video of Dustin speaking about his military service before an audience, and soliciting donations on behalf of the AHP in 2013. Buckner reiterated his understanding that AHP co-founder “Clint Davis was known to exaggerate his military rank, experience,” and commendations. Buckner also wrote that if “anyone had contributed to this cause please reach out. I will try to help you get your money back.”
Dustin responded by denying that he had scammed anyone out of money with the AHP. However, he completely failed to explain what actually did happen. Did Dustin knowingly send out as his co-founder and sidekick a notorious military service embellisher?
It is important to remember that the Stolen Valor Act of 2005 was struck down as unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in 2012 as an infringement upon the First Amendment right to free speech. Until that time, the simple act of military service embellishment was a crime. Throughout the first half of 2013, a new Stolen Valor Act raced through the US Congress, signed into law that June, which outlaws military service embellishment for profit. Phonies could still legally lie about their military service, under the new law, but they could not do so in exchange for compensation. Did the AHP rely upon that brief period of legal stolen valor to build its presence upon a foundation of lies? Did the AHP run afoul of either law at any time?
On April 16, Dustin issued a warning, threatening to expose any source or informant to Buckner on the matter. A couple of hours later, Dustin exposed one alleged Buckner source as “C.D. (Clint’s Brother),” however, he offered no evidence for the charge. The next day, Dustin announced that he is resuming his feud with Buckner because “artificial intelligence analysis of the DD214 Sean Buckner posted publicly has assessed the probability of it being legitimate at under five percent.”
Dustin created yet another Facebook profile, and he has proceeded to attack Buckner in dozens of subsequent posts, many of which can be described as “unhinged.” Buckner has not yet reported back on the matter. In addition to what actually did happen to the AHP, many questions remain. Who is the person that almost drove Dustin to the point of suicide? For what actual reason does Dustin conflate that person with Buckner? Will Dustin retract his attacks upon the military service of Buckner once and for all?
As the area’s preeminent military blogger, I will keep up with this story as it unfolds–and see what I can dig up on my own.
The Truman Carrier Strike Group had been deployed for nearly nine months, operating primarily in the Mediterranean Sea and the Middle East in support of joint operations, regional security, and freedom of navigation missions. The deployment was originally scheduled for six months but was extended due to shifting global security dynamics and heightened tensions in the region.
When I originally started this blog, I was a crewmember stationed onboard the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). I have written here before about our exploits, when we were the finest ship and crew in the fleet.
Whereas our 2002-2003 deployment is historical, if not legendary, this was a horrible deployment. I am sure the ship is still just fine, but I will reserve my comments about the crew who collided with a merchant vessel, lost their commanding officer, lost three F-18s, and lost a war with Yemen. Welcome home, boys and girls.
The U.S. had no funds left to replace weapons sent to Ukraine, Pentagon press secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a Thursday press briefing.
“We’re out of money,” he told reporters.
We are broke and disarmed, deliberately. It is almost time for the Globalists who have politically captured the US to start a World War against all of our nuclear-armed adversaries.
As a Christian and especially as an American, I have no loyalty or attachment to the modern, Zionist State of Israel. I do not particularly care about the Holocaust; I had two grandpas and a great-grandpa enlisted in the Allied cause during World War II–we did our part. I do not care if the Zionist state is “a democracy” (the US is not “a democracy”). I also do not simp for the Zionists based on the notion that we worship the same God. Christians worship the same God whom the Muslims purport to worship, and I have no special attachment to Islam, either.
I do not believe anything my own government says, and I do not believe anything the Zionist state says, either. My own government is perfectly willing to get its citizens killed in order to plunge the United States into war, the Zionist state is perfectly willing to kill US citizens in order to plunge the United States into war, and so I must therefore conclude that the Zionist state is perfectly willing to get its own civilians killed in order to plunge itself into war.
People who are saying that the October 7, 2023 Hamas offensive was the Zionists’ 9/11 are more correct than they will ever know. The Zionist state watched Hamas prepare. The Zionist state received advance warnings. The Zionist state knew Hamas’ attack was coming. The Zionist state wanted the attack to happen. There is another glaring parallel: just as the United States government created al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the Zionist state created Hamas.
Thus, for the Zionist state, and especially for its current administration, the October 7, 2023 Hamas offensive was a mission accomplished. Now the Zionist state has a pretext to commit various war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. The expansionist, Zionist state needs to commit war crimes and ethnic cleansing in both Palestinian territories in order to claim those territories for itself. We are now seeing it happen in Gaza.
While Hamas hides in the safety of their vast tunnel network, it is the Palestinian people who now face the wrath of the Zionists. Exponentially more innocent women, babies, and children are being mercilessly slaughtered before our very eyes than those who died on October 7. Many of the Palestinians now facing the wrath of the Zionists are themselves Christians, like me.
As an American, I am supposed to have no dog in this fight. My ancestors created the United States and gave us the birthright of not being entangled in foreign wars. Unfortunately, the US government has long been politically captured by non-Americans and anti-Americans alike. And so we face the fact that none of the ongoing horrors in the Middle East would currently be happening without the unwavering support of our own government.
We now stand ever closer to the precipice of World War. The Zionist state will continue its indiscriminate slaughter of civilians until they send thousands of unprepared reservists into an obvious trap. But what will happen next? Before the recent moves toward Sunni-Shiite rapprochement, while the Redirection was generally succeeding, we used Hamas to fight the Shiites in Syria. Will Hezbollah and Iran forgive and forget? Is Hezbollah waiting for the Zionist reservists to invade Gaza before unleashing hell from the north? Will Syria join? Will the Shiite militia networks of Syria and Iraq be a factor? What about Houthi Yemen? Will Iran act to protect the Shiite crescent, or attack the Zionist state outright? Will the United States intervene against Iran? Will Russia intervene against the United States? How are the Sunnis, Arabs, and Turks going to respond? What about Pakistan, India, and China?
It is difficult to see how this situation will be resolved without genocide or World War. With the US political/entertainment Establishment consisting almost entirely of bloodthirsty warmongering Globalists and bloodthirsty warmongering Neocons, who all share an affinity for bloodthirsty warmongering Zionism, all we Christians and Americans can really do is pray and hope for peace.
I stepped away from regular posting early last summer, and should have done the same this year. At least until it starts really getting cold out, I am going to be too busy to blog. I will be around, though. Until I return in full force, email me if you need to, but be sure to check back in for Psychedelic Pseconds.
The Defense Department is reporting high levels of toxic perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in drinking water near several of its bases, according to new data released by the department.
Drinking water testing near bases in Washington state, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan found levels of the chemicals well above a health threshold set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
PFAS is the name for a group of thousands of chemicals, some of which have been linked to health issues such as kidney and testicular cancer and liver damage.
The substances have been used in products such as firefighting foam, which is used by the military. For this reason, PFAS can be found near military bases and can contaminate nearby water.
They are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they build up in the human body and environment instead of breaking down over time.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says several new bills passed this legislative session will help military members and veterans while making Oklahoma a more attractive place for them to live.
The bills include exempting military retirement pay and benefits from state income tax as well as providing money to make sure honorable burials can take place in Oklahoma.
Department of Veterans Affairs officials said the bills speak volumes about Oklahomans’ support of service members.
“It really is evidence of Oklahoma’s commitment to take care of our service members and our veterans from the beginning of the service to the end of the service,” said Sarah Lane, with the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs.
Flags were set at the graves of veterans Thursday at Fort Smith National Cemetery in preparation for the Memorial Day weekend.
A ceremony will be 2 p.m. Sunday, May 29 at the cemetery.
People in Fort Smith will gather at the National Cemetery to honor fallen members of the military, and Clay Quinalty will speak about his time as a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
Volunteers are expected to put out about 19,000 flags at the cemetery for Memorial Day.
In one form or another, the idiom “a yeoman’s job” pervades the anglophone world as a phrase to describe “very good, hard, and valuable work that someone does especially to support a cause, to help a team, etc.”[2] The dictionary defines a yeoman in various ways, from “a person who owns and cultivates a small farm” to “a naval petty officer who performs clerical duties.”[3] The United States (US) Naval Institute describes the enlisted yeoman rating as one of the most “enduring” to serve on our country’s Navy combat team.[4] Because nearly all types of Navy units require a yeoman, Sailors of that particular rating can be found serving in virtually any wartime scenario. Throughout World War II, one petty officer of the US Navy, Chief Yeoman Theodore Richard Brownell (1905-1990) of Fort Smith, Arkansas, served his country in ways that epitomize a yeoman’s job ― as well as another phrase associated with his home town: true grit.
This is an academic research paper, written by a local veteran and historian, about a hero of Word War II that everyone in the River Valley should know.
