Navy MWR Entertainment hosted the band which played a handful of their most well-known songs before using the aircraft carrier as the backdrop to film a music video for their new song “Coming Home”.

In a report released last week, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs identified problems at the medical center related to surgical services and how leadership there addressed quality management concerns.

“We take allegations of oversight and misconduct seriously and have strengthened our policies and procedures to ensure consistent, high-quality care from licensed professionals,” said Terrence Hayes, the VA’s press secretary, in a Tuesday statement. “We plan to fully implement all recommendations by December.”

The Hampton facility recently confirmed it was replacing several top officials, including its director, chief of staff and chief of surgery.

The OIG launched its review following multiple complaints it received about the center in 2022.

“We got some concerns about surgical quality so we engaged with the facility trying to get some response,” said Julie Kroviak, the department’s principal deputy assistant inspector general for health care inspections. “We then sent further questions to the regional office — and after that we just became more concerned about the quality review processes.”

Kroviak said the report can get a “little bit technical” but shouldn’t be dismissed.

“I think it can be written off as ‘Oh just some detailed processes weren’t followed by clinical leaders.’ But those processes are so critical to the foundation of a patient’s safety program,” she said. “If the highest levels of leadership are not aware of them, truly not aware of them, there are so many places for things to go seriously wrong.”

For example, the report found that after concerns were raised about patient safety, facility leaders issued a summary suspension of the assistant chief of surgery’s clinical privileges in January 2023. But it says the surgeon’s clinical privileges were restored after facility leaders failed to follow required protocol. The surgeon transferred to another VA health facility in June 2023, which “precluded facility leaders from correcting the process, including initiating additional actions,” the report states.

The Hampton center serves southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. From Oct. 1, 2021, through Sept. 30, 2022, the center served more than 66,000 patients.

The report states OIG received a complaint, which included five patient case examples, in December 2022 that the assistant chief of surgery provided poor surgical care and that the chief of staff was aware of the concerns but did not address them.

After OIG requested additional information, the Veterans Integrated Service Network responded and said the facility conducted a focused clinical care review of 15 cases performed by the assistant chief of surgery. It found six cases did not meet the standard of care and four of those had intraoperative complications, including one patient who experienced a laceration of the liver and another who underwent surgery in concerningly close proximity to having received chemoradiation therapy.

The report states OIG opened its hotline inspection in May 2023. During this review, widespread failures and deficiencies were identified related to facility leaders’ responses to care concerns and subsequent privileging actions involving the assistant chief of surgery, professional practice evaluations of surgeons, surgical service quality management and institutional disclosures.

“The findings identified through this inspection highlight not only failures of facility leaders to ensure that the required processes were appropriately implemented, but also a lack of leaders’ basic understanding of the processes that support delivery of safe health care,” the report states.

The report provided a dozen recommendations, including that summary suspensions, clinical care reviews and proposed revocation of privileges are conducted in accordance with the requirements and policies of the Veterans Health Administration. It further advised the center to ensure that ongoing professional practice evaluations include documentation of all conclusionary outcomes.

In his statement, Hayes said the VA fully supported OIG’s findings.

Hayes said a new team is meeting bi-weekly to address OIG’s recommendations with a target year-end completion goal. He said the facility has introduced a new reporting tool to track clinical care metrics, suspensions, privilege changes, state board reports and ongoing evaluations. Additionally, the facility has initiated monthly patient risk meetings in surgery services.

Hayes noted Michael Harper is taking on the role of acting medical center director until Aug. 5. Harper will then be replaced by Walt Dannenberg, who currently serves as the medical center director of the Long Beach VA Medical Center in California. Hayes said the leadership changes were done to “align with the VA’s commitment to high-reliability principles” but were not directly related to the report.

The House of Representatives’ Committee on Veterans’ Affairs also recently completed an investigation into the Hampton VA Medical Center after lawmakers said they received credible complaints about patient safety concerns and medical incompetence. As a result of the investigation, the committee announced last week that the center was making a series of personnel changes.

Katie King, katie.king@virginiamedia.com

Calley died on April 28, according to his Florida death record, which said he had been living in an apartment in Gainesville. His death was first reported by The Washington Post on Monday, citing his death certificate.

Calley had lived in obscurity in the decades since he was court-martialed and convicted in 1971, the only one of 25 men originally charged to be found guilty in the massacre, which helped turn American opinion against the war in Vietnam.

On March 16, 1968, Calley led American soldiers of the Charlie Company on a mission to confront a crack outfit of their Vietcong enemies. Instead, over several hours, the soldiers killed 504 unresisting civilians, mostly women, children and elderly men, in My Lai and a neighboring community.

The men were angry: Two days earlier, a booby trap had killed a sergeant, blinded a GI and wounded several others while Charlie Company was on patrol.

Soldiers eventually testified to the U.S. Army investigating commission that the murders began soon after Calley led Charlie Company’s first platoon into My Lai that morning. Some were bayoneted to death. Families were herded into bomb shelters and killed with hand grenades. Other civilians slaughtered in a drainage ditch. Women and girls were gang-raped.

It wasn’t until more than a year later that news of the massacre became public. And while the My Lai massacre was the most notorious massacre in modern U.S. military history, it was not an aberration: Estimates of civilians killed during the U.S. ground war in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973 range from 1 million to 2 million.

The U.S. military’s own records, filed away for three decades, described 300 other cases of what could fairly be described as war crimes. My Lai stood out because of the shocking one-day death toll, stomach-churning photographs and the gruesome details exposed by a high-level U.S. Army inquiry.

Investigations into the massacre and allegations of a Pentagon coverup were launched after a complaint by a helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson Jr., who saved 16 Vietnamese children in the village and later testified against Calley.

Multiple other soldiers at the scene also spoke out after the scandal broke. Some said civilian deaths were inevitable in a war where the enemy could be anywhere. Others said Calley, who was charged with killing 109 civilians, shouldn’t have been singled out.

“Calley, he didn’t kill the 109 all by himself. There was a company there,” said Herbert Carter, a soldier from Houston. “We went through the village. We didn’t see any VC (Viet Cong). People came out of their hootches (huts) and the guys shot them down and then burned the hootches, or burned the hootches and then shot the people when they came out. … It went on like this all day. Some of the guys seemed to be having a lot of fun doing it.”

Calley was convicted in 1971 for the murders of 22 people during the rampage. He was sentenced to life in prison but served only three days because President Richard Nixon ordered his sentence reduced. He served three years of house arrest.

After his release, Calley stayed in Columbus and settled into a job at a jewelry store owned by his father-in-law before moving to Atlanta, where he avoided publicity and routinely turned down journalists’ requests for interviews.

Calley broke his silence in 2009, at the urging of a friend, when he spoke to the Kiwanis Club in Columbus, Georgia, near Fort Benning, where he had been court-martialed.

“There is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that day in My Lai,” Calley said, according to an account of the meeting reported by the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. “I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed, for their families, for the American soldiers involved and their families. I am very sorry.”

He said his mistake was following orders, which had been his defense when he was tried. His superior officer was acquitted.

William George Eckhardt, the chief prosecutor in the My Lai cases, said in 2009 that he was unaware of Calley ever apologizing before.

“It’s hard to apologize for murdering so many people,” said Eckhardt. “But at least there’s an acknowledgment of responsibility.”

Calley was born in June 8, 1943 in South Florida, where friends called him “Rusty” growing up. He eventually dropped out of Palm Beach Junior College, and worked as a dishwasher, bellhop, railroad switchman, salesman and insurance appraiser before joining the Army in 1966.

At about 5-foot, 3-inches tall and 120 pounds when he was in the Army, Calley didn’t stand out. Fellow officer candidates told the AP in 1969 that there was nothing unusual about him. But his military career was advancing until the scandal. Months after the massacre, he returned home, then re-upped for another tour. Eventually, he was wounded, awarded the Purple Heart, and won two Bronze Star medals.

His sister Dawn was living with their father in a mobile home in Hialeah when she told reporters during the trial that her brother was a “sweet, sensitive guy.”

Calley married and had a son after returning to civilian life, but later got divorced. Messages left for his son and ex-wife on Tuesday were not immediately returned.

The 19-year-old sailor, Xavier Mitchell-Sandor, was one of three sailors on the USS George Washington aircraft carrier who took their own lives in April 2022. Their deaths triggered Navy investigations into the suicides and what could have prevented them.

According to the lawsuit, Mitchell-Sandor enlisted in August 2021. But after completing his initial military training in January 2022, the new seaman didn’t get assigned to a ship ready to go out to sea.

Instead, Mitchell-Sandor was sent to the Newport News shipyard, where the George Washington was in drydock undergoing its mid-life refueling and overhaul, a four-year project that ended up taking nearly six years.

“Upon his arrival to his duty assignment, Xavier discovered there were no adequate living quarters and services provided to him by the United States and/or (the shipyard), and that he was required to live aboard the drydocked aircraft carrier,” the lawsuit said.

That is, the ship’s commanding officer ordered that all junior sailors live on the vessel at least initially. Mitchell-Sandor was assigned to work as a security guard on the carrier, typically from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m.

The aircraft carrier was mostly quiet overnight, but during Mitchell-Sandor’s off hours, “there was continuous noise on board” — bells, grinding, paint and rust removal and “frequent announcements.”

“Xavier could not sleep and became severely sleep deprived,” said the lawsuit, filed by the Reardon Law Firm of New London, Connecticut. “In order to rest, Xavier slept in his car frequently because he was unable to do so on the GW.”

But the lawsuit said Mitchell-Sandor was assigned a parking lot nearly a mile from the carrier, and  he “had to travel long distances by foot to obtain food and the essentials of living,” given that Newport News’ downtown is largely bereft of food options.

Moreover, the complaint said, electricity, heat, air conditioning and hot water on the ship would “routinely be shut off” without warning — with the outages lasting anywhere from a couple hours to two weeks. The sailors living on the warship also didn’t have access to TV or the internet, the complaint added.

Though Mitchell-Sandor’s family complained to the Navy about the conditions, nothing was done, the lawsuit maintains. Instead, the Navy instead “stigmatized” mental health care, looking down on sailors for trying to get help.

“Xavier grew increasingly depressed and suicidal due to the conditions onboard the GW, something he shared with shipmates and colleagues, as well as family and friends,” the lawsuit says.

After two other sailors in Mitchell-Sandor’s unit died by suicide in April 2022, he followed suit. On April 15, 2022, Mitchell-Sandor — “mentally and physically exhausted” — took his own life with his Navy-issued pistol.

“He took his own life in a state of complete despair due to the deplorable conditions inflicted upon him and other junior Naval personnel,” the lawsuit maintains.

The federal lawsuit — filed in Mitchell-Sandor’s home state of Connecticut in March but moved to U.S. District Court in Newport News this week — asserts that Mitchell-Sandor’s death was the result of the defendants’ “negligent acts” and their “failure to provide him with basic living necessities.”

The lawsuit names as defendants the United States of America and Huntington Ingalls Industries, Newport News Shipbuilding’s parent company. Mitchell-Sandor’s father, Janos Sandor, is listed as the plaintiff and estate administrator.

Though the shipyard was initially expected to return the USS George Washington to the Navy in August 2021 — or five months before Mitchell-Sandor was assigned to the carrier — the project wasn’t actually finished until May 2023.

The Navy’s contract with the shipyard, the lawsuit said, included $75 million for living accommodations for sailors during the project. But the complaint asserts that the yard shifted much of that money to other projects, “in violation of its contractual obligation.”

“As a result of the motivation of (Huntington Ingalls) to place profits over safety, the living conditions at the shipyard deteriorated,” the lawsuit says.

The suit alleges that the Navy failed to act when Mitchell-Sandor was “struggling to adjust to life” on the ship. Among other things, it contends, the Navy did nothing when enlisted leadership “learned Xavier was sleeping in his vehicle.”

The Navy failed to “provide additional assistance” to sailors who had to work the overnight shift, and senior sailors failed “to notify anyone that Xavier was visibly struggling.”

Moreover, the suit contends the Navy failed to provide Mitchell-Sandor with counseling or tell him about mental health resources, failed to help him find housing off the ship, and failed “to follow up with Xavier after (his) family members notified them of safety concerns.”

In addition, the lawsuit says, the Navy failed to provide adequate training to sailors on suicide prevention.

On May 29, Huntington Ingalls lawyers asked that the case be dismissed. They contended that the Connecticut federal court had no jurisdiction over the matter and asserted that the company can’t be blamed for Mitchell-Sandor’s actions.

“The Complaint does not contain a single allegation that (Huntington Ingalls) knew or had reason to know that Mr. Mitchell-Sandor had mental health issues,” said the lawyers with the firm Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP, adding that his suicide “was not reasonably foreseeable,”

Moreover, they said, Huntington Ingalls “did not owe any duty to Mr. Mitchell-Sandor to prevent his suicide or to protect him from his infliction of self-harm,” the motion says, noting that the plaintiffs did not specify which contractual provisions the company allegedly breached.

“The Decedent’s act of suicide, and that tragic act alone, produced his … death,” the motion says, asserting that Mitchell-Sandor “failed to care for his own mental health” before ending his life.

“Our thoughts remain with Seaman Sandor’s family and his shipmates, and our shipbuilders, as we expressed at his passing,” Todd Corillo, a spokesperson for Huntington Ingalls, added in a statement Thursday.

“We at (Huntington Ingalls Industries) work side-by-side with our U.S. Navy teammates, and we prioritize their safety — and that of our own employees and visitors to our shipyards — as we strive every day to advance the national security mission of our customers,” Corillo wrote. “We reserve further comment due to pending litigation.”

On July 22, lawyers for all parties agreed to have the case transferred to U.S. District Court in Newport News, across the street from the shipyard.

A Navy spokeswoman at the Pentagon on Friday referred a call about the lawsuit to the Justice Department, which could not immediately be reached.

Court documents show the Navy previously declined an out-of-court wrongful death claim from Mitchell-Sandor’s family. The Navy told them service members are precluded from suing for injuries and deaths arising from their service.

The Navy concluded in a December 2022 report that the three suicides in April of that year were unrelated.

That report said that Mitchell-Sandor was sleep deprived from juggling his 12-hour workdays with 8-hour commutes to visit family and friends in Connecticut and South Carolina. It also said he had undiagnosed depression.

The Navy’s report said Mitchell-Sandor was offered several opportunities to switch living spaces on the carrier, but he declined. Yet the report said senior enlisted sailors should have encouraged Mitchell-Sandor to relocate off the ship and should have tried to better understand why he was sleeping in his car.

“This was a time for intrusive leadership,” the report said.

In April 2023, the Navy’s Fleet Forces Command issued another report into the three George Washington suicides, finding that the Navy needs to better incentivize shipbuilders to get projects done on time so sailors aren’t living for long stretches in industrial shipyards.

That report added that the area of the city around Newport News Shipbuilding needs improvement.

“There remains inadequate parking, transportation, access to food and nutritional options, training space, physical fitness facilities, and housing options available to support the number of Sailors assigned to ships and submarines in the shipyard,” the report said.

Peter Dujardin, 757-897-2062, pdujardin@dailypress.com

Escambia County, Florida, according to some civic leaders, who are eyeing to bring the SS United States to Pensacola waters, already raising $21,000 for the cause this month.

Members of Escambia’s Special Marine Advisory Committee met Monday and unanimously voted to try and bring the ship from its South Philadelphia berth to Florida, according to a report from the Pensacola News Journal.

The catch? They want to sink the ship and turn it into an artificial reef, an avenue the SS United States Conservancy, the vessel’s stewards, say is “clearly not” their first choice.

“Our highest priority remains locating a safe temporary or permanent location for the ship and ultimately her redevelopment as a dynamic stationary, mixed-use destination,” according to a statement from the Conservancy when asked about conversations with Escambia County.

Still, the Conservancy and the ship find themselves in a difficult position with dwindling options.

A rent dispute with their landlord ended in a major loss. Now the vessel must vacate its South Philadelphia berth by mid-September. The Conservancy filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider the timeline, citing the logistical difficulties with moving a behemoth of a ship, as well as the looming hurricane season. The judge has yet to weigh in and in the meantime, the Conservancy continues its search for a potential partner.

Several port authorities and other entities have already said they can’t take the vessel or lack suitable docks. The Philadelphia Navy Yard, the Virginia Port Authority, the Maryland Port Authority, the North Carolina State Ports Authority, the South Carolina Ports Authority, the Georgia Ports Authority, and the Florida Ports Council have been ruled out for now, according to court filings.

Newport News Mayor Phillip Jones has expressed interest in becoming the ship’s next host, but there are no piers available there either.

The Conservancy would ideally be able to buy itself more time through a judge’s order or a temporary berth where it could continue to pursue a redevelopment partner. The cost of the type of redevelopment the Conservancy would like to see is estimated to run upward of $400 million.

Absent of those measures, the vessel risks being scrapped for metal, increasing the appeal of sending the ship to Escambia County, which has reefed a ship like the SS United States before.

Federal and local agencies joined forces to sink former naval warship USS Oriskany in nearby Pensacola waters back in 2006. The ship has helped attract divers and one member of the advisory committee told the Pensacola News Journal the community saw a $150 return for every dollar invested. Yet the committee believes that the Oriskany needs company in order to keep those tourism numbers up, hence the interest in the SS United States.

The New York Times reported it cost the Navy $20 million to clean the Oriskany for sinking. But an advisory committee member estimated the cost of transporting and preparing the SS United States for sinking would run $10 million, according to the News Journal.

Attempts to reach members of the Florida advisory committee were unsuccessful but a source familiar with ongoing conversations between the Conservancy and the group said the conversations remain ongoing, though both sides still have questions on what the reefing would look like.

In its statement, the Conservancy described the merits of reefing the ship. It would help the ship avoid the scrapyard, should it come to that, and help retain the vessel’s economic and tourism potential. Because of this, the Conservancy said it is open to reefing the ship as a “fallback scenario.”

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©2024 The Philadelphia Inquirer. Visit inquirer.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

“The Navy conducted an investigation into the events from last spring,” according to Ted Brown, co-director of media operations/installations and environmental public affairs officer. “The waste that washed ashore was confirmed to have been from USS George H.W. Bush. Appropriate action was taken as a result of the investigation and Sailors [sic] from the ship participated in cleanup efforts.”

Previously, in May 2017, “processed plastic disks” from USS Whidbey Island washed ashore on the Outer Banks, Brown said in an email. The sailors found responsible following that investigation similarly “were held accountable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

The 2017 event totaled approximately 860 pounds of garbage. About 43 disks were recovered, each with an average weight of 20 pounds, according to Brown.

“The Navy has very strict procedures for [the] processing of trash and waste while at sea,” Brown said.

“Plastic waste is not permitted to be released into the ocean,” he continued. “All plastic waste is separated onboard, then processed into disks which are stored onboard until they can be properly disposed of ashore.  No fuel or oil waste is permitted to be released into the ocean. Other trash (i.e. metal, paper, food waste) must be processed, and there are requirements for how far offshore the vessel must be to dispose of these trash substances. These requirements have been in place for decades.”

Aside from the Navy’s two confirmed incidents of ocean dumping impacting the Outer Banks, “I think that we have a very strong reputation and history of being extremely environmentally friendly,” Capt. Dave Hecht said in a phone call.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore reported last year that beginning on April 27, its staff and the Town of Nags Head observed “plastic, metal, paper and textile fabric debris washing up in low densities along approximately 25 miles of beaches, from Nags Head to the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo,” according to an April 30, 2023, National Park Service press release.

The park service reported the incident to the U.S. Coast Guard’s Sector North Carolina. Staff from Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, the Coast Guard, the Navy and the Town of Nags Head had been removing debris for three days at the time of the release and would continue to do so over the coming days, it said.

David Hallac, superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in a phone interview this month that staff called him at the time to report beach debris that was “all very similar—lots of flip-flops and Crocs, empty toiletry bottles like shampoo [and] food supplements like protein powder.”

Paper with “identifying marks,” Navy clothing and a Navy-issued boot clued them into the debris’ likely origin, Hallac said. The Navy “sent dozens of sailors down” to help clean up the beach once the park service got in touch with officials.

“Certainly truckloads of debris” were removed from the beach, Hallac said. His understanding was that the loose debris that washed up originated from bagged trash dumped off the ship.

“Two hundred fifty to 300 bags or sacks of trash may have been dumped over the edge of the vessel,” he said. “Presumably a lot of that sunk. A significant amount of debris did leave that ship…including things that are not normally dumped in the ocean, like plastics.”

On the north end of Hatteras Island, Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge experienced similar debris on its 12 miles of shoreline.

Staff on the beach doing nesting shorebird work last spring reported an “abundance” of plastic and trash, “almost that would be like your household waste-type plastic,” according to Dawn Washington, refuge manager for Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

The refuge had an interim manager at the time, but records indicated items like water bottles, containers for protein shakes and powder, shampoo and other toiletry bottles, laundry detergent and cleaning product bottles washed up, she said.

Meanwhile, Roberta Thuman, town of Nags Head spokesperson, said “very little” debris washed up in Nags Head last spring from the Navy ship, and she didn’t recall any washing up from the 2017 incident.

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A larger issue with debris

Some trash can always be found on area beaches, from a variety of sources, according to both Hallac and Washington.

“You’re going to see stuff out there, either washing ashore anytime of the year or [from] people leaving it because people are allowed to be on the beach and not everybody does the right thing—pack their stuff out,” Washington said.

“We do have debris washing up every day from offshore,” Hallac said, “from a variety of land-based and marine-based sources.”

Ocean dumping for land-generated waste was common worldwide until its “harmful impacts” became more widely known in the 1970s, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s website.

The Outer Banks Surfrider Foundation partnered with several northern towns in Dare County years ago to coordinate regular beach cleanups through the Adopt-A-Beach program.

This year, for the first time, the National Park Service launched its own Adopt-a-Beach program for its 75 miles of coastline.

Washington, who became refuge manager in December, started organizing monthly beach cleanups this year. The next one is slated for Aug. 1 at 10 a.m. Interested volunteers can meet participating staff at the Pea Island refuge’s visitor center, located at 14500 N.C. 12 in Rodanthe.

Hallac encourages visitors and residents to do their part to keep beaches clean, but to call the park service if any trash isn’t immediately identifiable as safe to clean up.

“Sometimes we find things that are actually hazardous,” Hallac said. During his tenure, fuel containers, flares, “training bombs” and torpedoes have been found on the beach.

The House committee launched an investigation after lawmakers said they met with people who work at the medical center in March to discuss the delivery of care after recent scrutiny.

Earlier this year, the House committee requested documents related to disciplinary actions against employees, patient safety reports related to the medical center’s surgical department and policy language on the medical center’s cleaning of exam and procedure rooms. The committee said they received credible complaints of employee retaliation, patient safety concerns and medical incompetence stemming from the Hampton Veterans Affairs facility and its surgical department. The allegations were brought by more than a dozen people.

As a result of the investigation, the committee announced it would replace its director, chief of staff and chief of surgery at the medical center, according to a statement from U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, the chair of the committee. The medical center will also address its anesthesiologist shortage, staff morale and allegations of retaliation. Other policy changes include increasing accountability in substandard care and ensuring medical facilities are properly cleaned and maintained.

Eliza Noe, eliza.noe@virginiamedia.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Defense Department must invest more to upgrade sensors, communications and space-based technologies in the Arctic to keep pace with China and Russia who are increasingly operating there, including in joint military exercises, a new Pentagon strategy says.

Saying that now is “a critical time” for the Arctic, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told reporters Monday that climate change, increased activity by adversaries and degrading U.S. infrastructure are forcing the department to rethink how to keep the Arctic secure and ensure troops are well-equipped and protected.

The Arctic strategy is short on specifics, but broadly pushes for greater spending on high-tech sensor and radar systems, a range of military equipment, and continued investment in Pituffik Space Base, the U.S. Space Force base in the northwest corner of Greenland. And it relies on growing partnerships with Canada and a number of NATO allies in the north.

Defense Department leaders have, for more than the past decade, warned that the U.S. needs to step up its activities in the Arctic to better compete with China and Russia as climate change makes the frigid region more accessible.

But the remote northern expanse presents an array of challenges, including demands for deep-water ports, weapons, drones and equipment that can withstand the climate, and additional ships that can handle the cold waters and break through the ice.

The U.S. has also struggled with Cold War-era Defense and State Department infrastructure that is degrading in the frigid weather, and erosion on the coasts.

The cold and increasingly unpredictable weather also restricts military training and affects equipment. And the region, which has limited satellite coverage, requires a far more expansive array of sensors for communications and military awareness.

“Slowly over time, there’s been a bit of a greater awakening in the department,” said Iris Ferguson, the deputy assistant defense secretary for the Arctic. “Now we’re getting into the nitty gritty of how you implement a strategy.”

The report notes that the Arctic is warming “more than three times faster than the rest of the world” and could see its first “practically ice-free summer” by 2030. As the ice melts, the increased traffic, it said, will boost the risks of accidents, miscalculation and environmental degradation.

Hicks couldn’t quantify the increased activity by Russia and China in the region, but she called the growing cooperation between the two troubling. In 2022 and 2023, they conducted joint military exercises off the coast of Alaska.

Meanwhile, the melting ice caps are opening sea lanes for longer periods of time each year, making lucrative oil and gas deposits more accessible. And China has provided critical funding to Russia for energy exploration.

China has also increased its own activity in the region, including by its three icebreaker ships that do civil-military research in the region. According to the report, Chinese vessels have tested underwater drones and polar-capable aircraft there.

Russia, which has the largest amount of Arctic territory and has the most developed military presence there, including important strategic nuclear capabilities, such as its submarine-launched ballistic missile force.

Going forward, the strategy says the department will review options for better sensors, and new space-based missile-warning and observational systems with greater polar coverage. Insufficient investments in early warning and air defense sensors in the Arctic will increase risks to the U.S. homeland, the report warns.

“Is he safe? Is he OK — mentally and emotionally?” she would ask herself.

Petty Officer 1st Class Drew Holbert deployed Oct. 14 from Naval Station Norfolk with aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower for what the couple thought would be a typical six-month deployment with port calls and regular communication with the family.

The idea of a “typical deployment” faded 12 hours after the Eisenhower pushed off the pier when the warship and its strike group were ordered by the secretary of defense to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to deter wider conflict amid the Israel-Hamas war.

The family didn’t know then their patriarch would become part of the Navy’s most intense combat since World War II.

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No guide book for this

At their Virginia Beach home in November, the smell of burnt grilled cheese hung in the air.

“Momma! Momma, look!” exclaimed Kelly Michael, then 3, doing a strong man pose.

The family’s labradoodle puppy, Scarlett, barked incessantly and their 9-year-old golden retriever, Brody, whined for attention.

“I need help with homework!” Penelope, 8, shouted from her seat at the dining room table.

The TV in an adjoining room blared as Harper, then 6, turned up the volume.

“Two more hours until bedtime. We can do this,” Kelly said under her breath as she scraped crusted cheese off a sizzling frying pan.

Her mumbled motivation was almost lost in the sounds of a full house as the family settled into its evening routine.

When her husband deployed, Kelly was thrust into tackling the challenges of life solo — juggling three young children, two dogs, a full-time job, upkeep of their home and her emotional well-being. It’s not easy being a mom, she said, but being a mom with a deployed spouse takes the cake.

“And it is not something that comes with a guide book,” Kelly said, tears welling up in her eyes. “There is no ‘how to’ on being a Navy wife.”

Meanwhile at sea, aircraft mechanic Drew Holbert and his fellow sailors aboard the Eisenhower and its strike group vessels became embroiled in firefights in the Red Sea for the bulk of their deployment, defending merchant vessels and military ships traveling through the Suez Canal that were the target of attack drones and anti-ship missiles launched from Houthi-controlled Yemen.

The Houthi attacks on shipping escalated after the start of the Oct. 7 Israel-Hamas war, and the U.S.-led campaign against the Houthi rebels, overshadowed by bombings over the Gaza Strip, turned into the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced in nearly eight decades, its leaders and experts told The Associated Press.

U.S. Central Command reported almost daily instances of missiles being fired toward U.S. Navy ships in the Middle East for the nine months the Eisenhower was deployed to the region. Drew Holbert, his wife said, was part of the team that prepared aircraft for retaliatory strikes under the cover of darkness.

“He actually told me this deployment was worth it. The adrenaline of being part of it, he loved it,” Kelly said.

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‘I wasn’t ready for a war’

But as Christmas approached, Kelly kept thinking about her husband’s proximity to danger. It was the first Christmas that Drew Holbert would miss celebrating with their three young children. The Holberts had experienced a deployment in 2017. At the time, the couple only had infant Penelope and Kelly was pregnant with Harper.

“I could not do this — raise the kids alone — for the rest of my life, God forbid something happen to him,” the mother said. “But when you have kids, you don’t have a choice. You have to be OK.”

Red Sea attacks kept making headlines online and at home.

“Do you have CNN on?” Drew said to his wife in a text message shared with The Virginian-Pilot.

Continual news of Houthi attacks combined with the “thought of the unimaginable,” Kelly said, pushed her emotions over the limit just 75 days into her husband’s deployment.

“I was ready for a deployment. I wasn’t ready for a war,” Kelly said Dec. 27 in a tearful voice recording shared with the Pilot.

But it was far from over.

The U.S. designated the Iran-backed Houthis a terrorist organization in January and launched a campaign to strike back. The Eisenhower strike group and its air wing engaged in combat with dozens of Houthi-employed one-way attack drones traveling by air, sea or underwater to target critical shipping lanes, according to U.S Second Fleet.

“I know the best place for them to be is on the ship. But it is still hard and I don’t like it. I don’t really want to do this anymore,” Kelly said tearfully.

Several scheduled port calls were canceled. Sailors aboard the Eisenhower spent six months at sea before they set foot on land, visiting Greece in late April.

While Wi-Fi for personal devices was available for sailors in designated spaces, it was occasionally turned off for days at a time, forcing the Holberts and about 5,000 other families to rely on brief, infrequent emails to communicate with their sailors.

The isolation, Drew told his wife in a text message, was “insane” on one’s mental state. In the same conversation, he said he had been experiencing “really bad anxiety.”

“I’m just praying they let us go home in time,” he told her in a text.

___

‘Where’s Daddy?’

The widespread news made it difficult for Kelly to shield her children from the ongoing conflict.

“A kid should not have to worry about war, people killing people, and if their dad will ever come home,” she said.

But Penelope spotted a magazine in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. On the cover was a dead child in the rubble following an airstrike on Gaza. When explaining the situation, the mom included the younger siblings in the conversation.

“Now, if you ask Kelly Michael, ‘Where’s Daddy?’ He will say, ‘Killing the bad guys.’ I mean, how else do you explain it to him?’” Kelly said.

In the weeks after their dad deployed, the children went through bouts of tantrums and misbehavior, Kelly said. Throw-down fits became routine for Kelly Michael while Penelope was unusually quick to cry. Harper, who the mom said is typically unbothered, would randomly say, “I miss my dad.”

To help Penelope through the deployment, Kelly enrolled her in Operation Hero, a free after-school enrichment program offered by the Armed Services YMCA of Hampton Roads. The program, available to military children in second through fifth grades, addresses unique obstacles they face, including parental deployment, stress related to frequent moves and trauma if a parent is wounded or killed in service.

Makayla Torrey, an Operation Hero facilitator, said a parent’s absence as a result of military service is a tough topic for kids 7 to 11 to understand.

“They don’t understand why parents have to leave them or why they have to miss their birthdays or holidays,” Torrey said.

Oldest children, like 8-year-old Penelope, typically have more responsibility when a parent deploys as they are tasked with helping the non-deployed parent with other siblings and household chores, she said.

Penelope became her mom’s helper and sounding board, filling the void left by her dad, Kelly said. Penelope recognized when her mother was overwhelmed and would step in to help with the younger children.

“That turns into mom guilt. Like, am I putting too much on her? But also, I need her,” Kelly said.

___

Reconnecting …

On Jan. 3, Kelly clung to a text message instead of her husband on their ninth wedding anniversary.

“You’re strong and resilient, the hardest working woman I’ve ever met and that includes the jobs you don’t get paid for. I love you with all of my heart. To spend a life with anyone else would be a waste of my time,” Drew texted his wife. “You are the brightest part of my life and you always will be.”

Despite only being alone for about an hour a day, Kelly said this deployment felt lonelier than the one seven years ago. The chaos of kid life and her missing co-parent reinforced her loneliness, such as when Harper went to the emergency room after a bad fall or when Kelly Michael’s father missed him breakdancing in the living room.

Communication was an ongoing struggle.

“Reconnecting is my marriage now,” Kelly said as the couple unsuccessfully video chatted while she tucked the kids into bed one night in May. The call dropped after about 30 seconds.

The longest video call the couple managed lasted eight minutes — on Thanksgiving night about five weeks into the deployment. Since then, Kelly’s days were scheduled around making an effort to communicate with her husband at select times — typically 10 a.m., 2:30 p.m., 7 p.m. or 11 p.m. Often, messages were only snippets of a sentence and would go unanswered for days.

The couple exchanged about a dozen messages and a three-minute video call March 18. On March 20, Drew texted, “I’m starting to get really really upset not talking to you.” It was another three days before he had a chance to check in with his family.

“I had to learn to let go of it all. Let go of my feelings about him not telling me he misses me enough or him not saying he loves me enough,” Kelly said. “Nothing pauses just because you are not getting what you need from your spouse, who is on a ship really far away. Life goes on for everybody around you, so I just had to keep it moving.”

Best friend Tiffany Dixon stepped in to support the Holberts. She had been in their shoes — her father missed 16 Christmases due to deployments when she was a child.

“I think even she didn’t realize how isolating and lonely it would feel to be in this little house with three children,” Dixon said. “Just not having a second grown-up to say, ‘Yeah, this sucks. This life we live is hard.’”

Dixon said her friend is good at picking herself up, keeping things upbeat for the kids and acting on her husband’s behalf. Kelly tackled Christmas shopping and wrapping, surprised the girls with Valentine’s Day gifts from their dad and organized birthday parties.

“Kelly’s strength outwardly in front of the kids is what allows them to continue as if life is normal,” Dixon said. “…The way that the kids coped is very much a testament to her ability to keep their life stable with some sprinkles on top to make it a little bit easier.”

And on the days that were harder — when it was 11 p.m. before Kelly realized they were out of milk or when she was late to a school event she nearly forgot — Dixon was there to help. All the while, Dixon reminded the Holberts about the “light at the end of the tunnel” despite the deployment’s extension to nine months.

“Every deployment ends. It might feel like it won’t, like it will go on forever. But this will end,” Dixon said. “He will come home.”

___

The wait is over

As the Eisenhower entered the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay on July 14, Drew ran his sailor’s cap between his hands while sweat collected on his brow outside the airframes and corrosion shop on board.

His mind focused on the narrowing distance between him and his family, how they would celebrate, what they could do together and ordering the Mexican food he couldn’t find abroad.

Over the course of the 275-day deployment, he frequently thought about what he missed at home. He said he kept his mind level by focusing on work.

“This is the first time I have ever missed major holidays or birthdays,” Drew said. “On me, those days were tough. At Thanksgiving, we normally get together as a family, and I couldn’t do that. Especially since I’m night check, I didn’t really get a Thanksgiving dinner. I woke up and I got right to work.”

Penelope was only 22 months old when her father returned from his first deployment in 2017. She wasn’t sure what to make of him in the first meeting; she was too shy to say anything. He wondered this time about 4-year-old Kelly Michael’s reaction.

“I’m more worried about how the kids will adjust to me rather than me to them,” Drew said. “I thought about it a lot and I’m just ready to be with them again after the distance we had.”

Through two extensions, he leaned on the ship’s Wi-Fi granting him access to talk to his family to stay sane for himself and for the sailors around him.

“This deployment showed me what we can do,” Drew said of his crewmates. “There were a lot of ups and downs. I saw what we could accomplish with our minds in it. We all came together, and we all took care of one another. That’s how we made it.”

The carrier strike group accumulated more than 31,000 flight hours and completed more than 10,000 aircraft launches and recoveries and more than 13,800 sorties in a busy operational tempo during the combat deployment, the Navy reported. Overall, the strike group launched attacks against more than 460 Houthi targets.

A quick visit from Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro to sailors waiting in the hangar bay concluded their time on board. Before departure, Drew called his wife on the pier to organize where to meet in the chaos of thousands eagerly awaiting their loved ones.

“I love you,” the husband said. “I will see you soon.”

In the shadow of the bow, Kelly Michael stomped his feet in a jig as he chanted, “Daddy’s home, daddy’s home, daddy’s home!”

Kelly wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and let a few tears fall. Inches away, Penelope and Harper desperately tried to hide their own tears.

The Holbert family had finally closed the roughly 5,000-mile distance between their lives.

“I couldn’t do what I needed to out here without someone like Kelly back home,” Drew said. “She holds it down at home, and I don’t have to worry about anything at home.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Caitlyn Burchett, 727-267-6059

Billy Schuerman, william.schuerman@virginiamedia.com, 832-451-2465

In a letter sent to Austin on Thursday, Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Rep. Richard Neal called the decision to return Ospreys to limited flight status “misguided.”

In March, Naval Air Systems Command said the aircraft had been approved to return to limited flight operations, but only with tight restrictions in place that currently keep it from doing some of the aircraft carrier, amphibious transport and special operations missions it was purchased for. The Osprey’s joint program office within the Pentagon has said those restrictions are likely to remain in place until mid-2025.

The Ospreys had been grounded military-wide for three months following a horrific crash in Japan in November that killed eight Air Force Special Operations Command service members.

There’s no other aircraft like the Osprey in the fleet. It is loved by pilots for its ability to fly fast to a target like an airplane and land on it like a helicopter. But the Osprey is aging faster than expected, and parts are failing in unexpected ways. The Japan crash was the fourth fatal accident in two years, killing a total of 20 service members.

Marine Corps Capt. Ross Reynolds, who was killed in a 2022 crash in Norway, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Jacob Galliher, who was killed in the November Japan crash, were from Massachusetts, the lawmakers said.

“The Department of Defense should be making service members’ safety a top priority,” the lawmakers said. “That means grounding the V-22 until the root cause of the aircraft’s many accidents is identified and permanent fixes are put in place.”

The lawmakers’ letter, which was accompanied by a long list of safety questions about the aircraft, is among many formal queries into the V-22 program. There are multiple ongoing investigations by Congress and internal reviews of the program by the Naval Air Systems Command and the Air Force.

The Pentagon did not immediately confirm on Friday whether it was in receipt of the letter.