A MESSAGE FROM THE DEPARTMENT ADJUTANT
“Pro
Deo et Patria”
James W. Casey
Adjutant
The American Legion
Department of New York
Good morning, Legionnaires and veterans’ advocates, it’s Wednesday, October 21, 2020, which is “Back to the Future” Day, Babbling Day, Celebration of the Mind Day, and National Pets for Veterans Day.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Military Times: Delay in release of annual veterans suicide report raises concerns
- Associated Press: Growing North Korean nuclear threat awaits US election winner
- Army Times: Can empathy and emotions make soldiers better learners? The Army’s trying to find out
- Air Force Times: Space Force gets its first recruits
- Task & Purpose: The studio behind ‘The Mandalorian’ is helping build a simulator for the Space Force
- Stars & Stripes: Promotion rates an issue as VA, union spar over treatment of Black employees
- Military Times: SCOTUS to rule on use of Pentagon funds for border wall, but money already spent
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Military Times: Delay in release of annual veterans suicide report raises concerns
Leo Shane III | 17 hours ago
Lawmakers are raising concerns about Veterans Affairs officials' delayed release of the annual suicide report, saying the information may not be made public until sometime after the November elections.
The report, a key tool for a host of government researchers and veterans advocates, has been released in late September or early October each of the last two years. Department of Defense officials released their annual report on suicides among active-duty personnel on Oct. 1.
In a statement, VA press secretary Christina Noel said the department is “still finalizing its annual suicide data report and will be releasing it this year. A release date has not been set yet.”
But in a letter to the department earlier this month, House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif., lamented the delay as worrisome given the importance of finding solutions to the problem of veterans suicides.
“At a time when VA has been advocating strongly for and against specific pieces of federal legislation related to veteran suicide prevention, it is especially vital that the department share its most recent report now, to ensure that Congress has the opportunity to review VA’s current and proposed prevention efforts in the context of actual data,” he wrote.
Last year, VA researchers reported that about 17 veterans a day die by suicide, along with three more active-duty, Guard and Reserve connected personnel.
The “20 a day” figure has been widely cited by administration officials, members of Congress and outside veterans groups to illustrate the scope of the problem of veterans suicide. That figure has remained largely unchanged in recent years, despite concentrated efforts (and increased funding) on support and outreach programs.
Compiling the annual report is a significant task, requiring department researchers to comb through census data, state death reports and a host of internal documents to account for the full tally of the problem. Prior to 2016, department officials used only estimates for the work, then using the figure of “22 a day” as a rough approximation.
The House Veterans' Affairs Committee has requested a formal briefing on any partial findings by Nov. 1 if the full report is not released before then.
When the report is made public, it is likely not to include much data on the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic on veterans' mental health and suicide. The data typically lags about two years behind current timing.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump signed into law a pair of bills designed to help prevent veterans suicide, including a measure to establish a new three-digit national crisis line similar to 911 for mental health emergencies.
Earlier this summer, the White House completed a 15-month review of federal policies and research on veterans suicide prevention measures, unveiling a plan for more federal coordination with community providers on mental health outreach and a new public awareness campaign on the topic.
Associated Press: Growing North Korean nuclear threat awaits US election winner
Deb Riechmann, The Associated Press | 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON — “Where’s the war?” That’s how President Donald Trump defends his North Korea policy at campaign rallies even though he’s joined the list of U.S. presidents unable to stop the ever-growing nuclear threat from Kim Jong Un. That threat will transcend the November election, no matter who wins.
Despite Trump’s three meetings with Kim, the North Korean leader is expanding his arsenal. This month, Kim rolled out a shiny new, larger intercontinental ballistic missile during a nighttime parade in Pyongyang.
Arms experts said the missile could possibly fire multiple nuclear warheads at the United States. It serves as a reminder that despite Trump’s boasts, North Korea remains one of the biggest dangers to U.S. national security.
North Korea hasn’t been a major campaign issue, though it could surface in Thursday’s debate, which is supposed to include a national security segment. Democrat Joe Biden has blasted Trump’s chummy relationship with Kim, saying that, if elected, he would not meet the North Korean leader unless diplomats first draft a comprehensive agreement. Trump, meanwhile, predicts he can get a deal quickly if reelected, citing the dire conditions in North Korea.
Talk of a quick deal is probably just talk because there’s no sign of significant contacts between Washington and Pyongyang, says Bruce Klingner, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former CIA Korea deputy chief. He and other North Korea watchers say they are bracing for Kim to showcase his military might again after the U.S. election.
“North Korea already has an ICBM that can range all over the United States, down to Florida and beyond, so the only reason to have an even larger missile is to be able to carry a larger payload,” Klingner said. He said it’s likely that North Korea will “do something strongly provocative early next year, regardless of who is elected president.”
North Korea is continuing to produce nuclear material, according to a Congressional Research Service report. In addition, between May 2019 and late March 2020, North Korea conducted multiple short-range ballistic missile tests in violation of United Nations Security Council prohibitions.
Multiple diplomatic initiatives during both Democratic and Republican administrations have failed to get North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump dared to be different, opting for in-person meetings with Kim in Singapore, Hanoi and the Demilitarized Zone.
But despite the summits and exchanges of what Trump called “love” letters, his administration has been unable to get traction on denuclearizing North Korea. The last known working group meeting was last October.
Even so, Trump is still claiming victory, saying he’s kept the U.S. out of war with North Korea.
“Where’s the war?” he asked supporters last week in Greenville, North Carolina. He’s used the same line in other campaign speeches in battleground states.
“We have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,” he said in Freeland, Michigan. “Who knows what likely happens? All I know is we’re not in war and that’s OK.”
Biden says that if he’s elected, he will inherit a North Korean challenge that is worse than when Trump took office.
“After three made-for-TV summits, we still don’t have a single concrete commitment from North Korea,” Biden said in a statement on North Korea. “Not one missile or nuclear weapon has been destroyed. Not one inspector is on the ground. If anything, the situation has gotten worse.”
He added: “North Korea has more capability today than when Trump began his ‘love affair’ with Kim Jong Un, a murderous tyrant who, thanks to Trump, is no longer an isolated pariah on the world stage.” Biden has pledged to work with allies to press Kim to denuclearize.
Biden’s advisers say the former vice president is not averse to sitting down with Kim, but not before a comprehensive negotiating strategy is outlined at working-level meetings by diplomats on both sides. The Biden campaign also criticizes Trump for scaling back military exercises with South Korea.
North Korea typically fires off missiles or conducts tests in a show of force before key U.S. and South Korean elections. This time, experts predict, Kim will engage in saber-rattling after he knows who wins.
“Kim would like to deal with President Trump, rather than Biden,” said Sue Mi Terry, a former intelligence analyst specializing in East Asia who is now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She said Kim does not want to make trouble for Trump by conducting a major provocation before the election. “In January,” she said. “That’s the time we need to watch out for it.”
If Biden wins, the North Koreans will want to engage with the new administration from a position of strength, according to Victor Cha, who negotiated with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration. If Trump wins, Cha thinks the president might want to move quickly to begin negotiations because he went “all in” on his man-to-man diplomacy with Kim and doesn’t want to accept personal defeat.
Some experts believe that instead of repeating diplomatic failures, the U.S. should recognize the reclusive nation as a nuclear weapons state and mitigate the threat through arms control treaties.
Biden’s vice presidential running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, disagrees, saying the U.S. cannot accept North Korea as a nuclear power. But she also said, in written responses to questions posed by the Council on Foreign Relations, that demanding complete denuclearization is a “recipe for failure.”
She has pledged a tough approach to North Korea.
“I guarantee you I won’t be exchanging love letters with Kim Jong Un,” she wrote.
Army Times: Can empathy and emotions make soldiers better learners? The Army’s trying to find out
Todd South | 21 hours ago
The Army wants to know if emotion and empathy can help make soldiers better learners.
To do that, they’re looking for ways to “locate, track and trace” different learning traits through a technology development program known as the xTechSearch Brain Operant Learning Technology (BOLT) competition.
Geared to Army medical professionals, the tech development program looks at how to “unlock the brain and maximize performance,” said Dr. Darrin Frye, medical simulation portfolio manager at the Army Medical Research Development Command.
“We’re looking to the future and the future battlespace and the expectations that we’re placing on our military medical providers,” Frye told Army Times.
Frye noted that the future battlefield will be a mixed environment and soldiers might be cut off from support or medical evacuations that are commonplace and rapid today.
“No evacuation, now what?” Frye said.
So, soldiers with only basic combat lifesaver skills, or medics who have higher levels of training but not all of what an emergency medicine doctor has, will have to adapt and learn on the fly.
The expectation is that training gets better but not necessarily longer. It already takes six months or more to produce a basic medic.
“We have to adapt to that, become more efficient, not just to get training tools but we have to accelerate learning, and not just that but also maximize retention,” Frye said.
The deadline for submitting entries to the BOLT competition was Oct. 16. Five finalists will be selected for the “proof of concept” phase, which lasts a year. Then the finalist will be announced in November or December 2021.
“Learning and memory are critical enablers for all training,” Frye said.
Researchers expect that fundamentals, which can be applied to complex medical training to reduce learning time and increase retention, will also be applicable for other job skills and training.
“Emotion, attention and empathy have significant input to store memories and retrieve them,” Frye said.
The umbrella program for this competition, xTechSearch, started two years ago as a specific contest to cast a wider net in the tech space for defense needs.
Matthew Willis, who directs laboratory management under the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army, said the program has already had some notable success.
He pointed to the winner of the first competition, which developed a novel solid rocket fuel propellant that improved performance by 50 percent compared to traditional rocket fuel sources. In less than two years, the company has won contracts for live field tests of what originally was just a concept on paper.
“That’s a good example of something accelerating quickly,” Willis said.
Zeke Topolsky, Army Research Laboratory engineer, explained that the challenge is put out for competition and then private industry officials submit their concepts. That’s when the Army experts in that area or field review them for feasibility.
In a competition earlier this year, groups submitted a variety of ideas, which included a tactical throwable camera called “Bouncing Image;” a 60-minute, infection and pathogen-detecting portable system dubbed “GeneCapture;” and miniature compasses, called MEI Micro, that work in GPS-denied environments.
Air Force Times: Space Force gets its first recruits
Stephen Losey | 14 hours ago
The Space Force on Tuesday inducted the first seven recruits to the fledgling service.
In a ceremony at Military Entrance Processing Station-Baltimore in Maryland, which was broadcast online, Vice Chief of Space Operations Gen. David Thompson swore in the first four enlisted recruits. Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman, the service’s top enlisted adviser, also attended the Baltimore ceremony.
And if you’re wondering, all on camera wore masks.
A second ceremony, for another three recruits, was scheduled to be held later Tuesday at MEPS-Denver in Colorado.
“Recruits, first of all thanks for volunteering to defend our nation, and congratulations on being the first Americans to enlist directly into the United States Space Force,” Thompson said. He then administered their oath of enlistment and congratulated them with elbow bumps instead of the traditional handshake.
The recruits will now head to the Air Force’s seven-and-a-half-week basic military training at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas.
In a Monday release previewing the ceremony, Thompson said it marked “an important milestone” in the process of standing up the Space Force.
“Until now, we’ve been focused on building our initial ranks with transfers from the Air Force," Thompson said in the release. "With these new recruits, we begin to look to the future of our force by bringing in the right people directly to realize our aspirations of building a tech-savvy service that’s reflective of the nation we serve.”
The Space Force boot camp will use Air Force BMT as its foundation, Monday’s release said, but will add a space-specific curriculum to tailor it to the new service’s needs.
The recruits are from Colorado, Maryland and Virginia, and their ages range from 18 to 31. The Space Force said it wants diversity to be one of its top priorities. Of the seven recruits, there are two women, and two Black recruits, including one Black woman.
The Space Force hopes to have 2,500 members by the end of December, and grow steadily until it reaches 6,500 active-duty members by the end of fiscal 2021.
Active-duty senior enlisted airmen in cyber, intelligence, acquisitions and engineering career fields will start transferring to the Space Force Dec. 1. Officer and other enlisted service members in those career fields will then begin transferring themselves on Feb. 1.
When a recruit asked Thompson how things have differed from the Air Force so far, he said the Space Force is trying to establish its own, unique culture. But he noted that many of the missions the Space Force now does had been going on in the Air Force for decades.
“The things that we’re doing every day, so far, we’ve been doing for a long time,” Thompson told the recruits. “So, we know how to do this. It’s establishing that vision for the future and pursuing that, that we’re working on. And that’s where you all are going to help us.”
“Pretty much the same, but cooler,” Towberman added to laughter.
Task & Purpose: The studio behind ‘The Mandalorian’ is helping build a simulator for the Space Force
DAVID ROZA | OCT 20, 2020 5:00 AM EDT
Science fiction fans rejoice: the studio who helped bring a helmeted mercenary and his frog-like companion to life is now helping develop a simulator for Space Force members to learn how to maneuver spacecraft around the Earth.
Does that mean they'll be flying a TIE Interceptor through enemy blaster fire like in Star Wars: Squadrons? No, not quite, partly because the Space Force does not have any starfighters and proton torpedoes to work with (at least not yet).
But also, space travel is nowhere near as easy as Star Wars makes it look. Complicated astrodynamics means that even simple-sounding maneuvers, like keeping a weather satellite from dipping into Earth’s atmosphere, takes a lot of theoretical know-how to pull off.
"There’s eccentricity, semi-major axis and inclination, the longitude of ascending node, argument of periapsis and true anomaly,” said Melanie Stricklan, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Slingshot Aerospace, Inc., which is leading the development of the simulator. “These orbital elements are not as dimensional as most sci-fi movies make it out to be.”
Those orbital elements sound confusing, but they’re not so bad once you see them in action, Stricklan explained.
“This is especially true once you see how a real spacecraft is launched and operates in orbit, and gain some hands-on practice manipulating the orbital elements in a controlled environment before doing any mission-based planning,” she said.
The problem is, the U.S. military does not have the best tools for teaching astrodynamics — the mechanics of how man-made objects move in space — to service members. Right now the military’s space learning tools are either video lectures or super-detailed mission analysis simulators, and it’s been that way for years.
“Not a lot has changed since we left the Air Force,” said Stricklan, who served in the service's Space Command along with Charlie McGillis, Slingshot’s vice president for business development.
“They were still using the same software systems that they were when I went through the courses many years ago,” Stricklan said. “So we decided to embark on what success would look like for both students and instructors.”
What they found was that students wanted to learn the basics of astrodynamics in a more hands-on, interactive way. The more students can play around with astrodynamics, the better they understand its effects on spacecraft and execute their missions, Stricklan explained. Unlike their current toolsets, students also wanted a simulator that wouldn’t take 20 minutes to configure, and which they could use at home on their tablets or smartphones.
“The problem is we’ve overcomplicated how to teach basic orbital mechanics and Keplerian laws,” she said. “What we’re going to do is simplify the visualization while keeping the rules physics-accurate so the basics become intuitive and will make a lot more sense than all the terms I threw out earlier.”
Again, orbital mechanics are not as difficult as the daunting terms make it out to be, Stricklan explained, especially when you have the right tools to learn them.
Enter Slingshot Orbital Laboratory, the simulator which Slingshot Aerospace received $1 million from Space Force to develop, along with another $1 million from venture capital. Still, the company wanted the simulator to represent space physics accurately, look good, and feel easy to use, and that’s where The Third Floor, the studio which helped make ‘The Mandalorian’ look so cool, comes in.
“Once I sat down with their CEO, Chris Edwards, I really quickly understood that we shared a creative vision and a passion for making space physics accurate in interactive visual content,” Stricklan said.
The Third Floor has a long history of making space look both great and realistic: their list of credits includes films such as The Martian and Gravity, as well as video games such as Anthem and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
“We are known for visualizing many of the most incredible Hollywood productions, but this seminal U.S. Space Force project gives us an opportunity to make a real-world impact on our country’s national security,” Edwards said in a press release.
The Third Floor used game engine technology to create the Space Force simulator. While the simulator isn’t a video game per se, it has interactive elements that should make it accessible to anyone from the most junior Space Force members to PhD-level experts, explained Albert Cheng, creative director for immersive media at The Third Floor.
“We’re trying to make it much more attuned to students of today who might be playing games, but they don’t necessarily have to,” Cheng said.
The way the simulator looks now, students can watch virtual objects in space behave in orbit above a beautiful rendering of planet Earth. Surrounding the image is a dashboard that tracks how far the object is above the Earth, how fast it’s moving, where it is in relation to the equator, the shape of its orbit, and other factors. Students will also be able to see how the object moves over time, Cheng said.
“Some of these maneuvers happen over months, if not years,” he explained.
The simulator will start off as an online app for computers, but the plan is to expand it to mobile devices and eventually into augmented reality and virtual reality. Since so many of Space Force’s missions will involve protecting satellites, Cheng said he also hopes to see a mobile app that allows students to raise their devices up to the sky and see satellites on their screen as they pass overhead.
In the end, the simulator is meant to help prepare space operators for missions. Some of those could include maneuvering satellites out of the way of an approaching debris cloud; coordinating a spacecraft-to-spacecraft rendezvous; getting a communications satellite in place to support other branches of the military or other missions which have not even been invented yet.
“As the Space Force takes on new missions, there will be new tactics and procedures that we’ll learn alongside the Space Force and help bring into the laboratory,” Stricklan said.
It would also be a useful tool for military space operators of all stripes and branches, she explained.
“I do believe the simulator is for anyone in the space operations field,” she said. “But I also think it will prove to be extremely beneficial for leaders of those operators, who may be in staff positions now, to easily go in and refresh their understanding of how these missions work.”
Still, the work of producing the simulator is far from over. Stricklan said the first prototype will be finished in the next few weeks, and the final product will be complete no later than the end of December 2021, though it may be ready before then.
There is no time to lose: there are 2,000 operational satellites in orbit today, but that number is expected to grow to 28,000 satellites within the next three years as the cost of sending satellites into orbit continues to fall, Stricklan said. That’s not even counting the countless dead satellites and pieces of debris in orbit that won’t be coming back down any time soon.
Not only are there a lot of objects up there, but they are also moving incredibly fast. In low earth orbit (1,200 miles or less above the Earth), objects move at 17,000 miles per hour, which means they complete a lap around the planet about every 90 minutes. The speed decreases as altitude increases, but it still makes avoiding orbital debris a tough job.
“You can imagine that understanding the laws that govern spacecraft flight dynamics will be especially important as the probability of collisions increases,” Stricklan said.
The goal is for military space operators to understand space the same way sailors know the seas and airmen know the skies.
“I’m excited for that time when the students that we’re working with can actually govern their own virtual universe,” said Stricklan, who hopes that the simulator “will really allow them to use their hands and gain knowledge on how to manage spacecraft in orbit, so they can truly understand their domain just as deeply as our pilots understand their domain.”
Stars & Stripes: Promotion rates an issue as VA, union spar over treatment of Black employees
By NIKKI WENTLING | STARS AND STRIPES | Published: October 20, 2020
WASHINGTON – White employees who applied for management positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs were promoted at twice the rate of Black workers, according to VA data released last week.
Of the Black employees who applied for promotions, 2.5% were selected in 2019 and 2020. White workers were selected at nearly twice that rate: 4.7% in 2019 and 4.4% so far in 2020. The data was obtained by the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing hundreds of thousands of VA workers.
AFGE and the VA have sparred in recent months over the agency’s treatment of Black workers, and the union claims this latest data points to an underlying bias at the VA against Black employees.
“These troubling statistics … validate the complaints our members have shared regarding the systemic racism they face every day while simply trying to serve our nation’s veterans and war heroes,” said Everett Kelley, the national president of AFGE.
The VA didn’t deny the accuracy of the data but argued that AFGE leaders were trying to distract from their own workplace problems. VA Press Secretary Christina Noel referenced allegations against the union’s former president, J. David Cox, saying he used racial slurs and sexually abused and harassed employees.
Cox was forced to resign in February. Union employees and members filed a lawsuit in June that accuses Kelley and other officials of shielding Cox from scrutiny.
“Unlike AFGE, VA does not tolerate harassment or discrimination in any form,” Noel said.
Noel pointed to an annual report, “Best Places to Work in the Federal Government,” which this year listed the VA at sixth out of 17 agencies. The VA ranked 17th out of 18 agencies in 2017. The report is compiled by the Partnership for Public Service and measures employee satisfaction.
The VA’s climb in rankings was due to the department’s “commitment to fair and equal treatment of all employees,” Noel said.
Some employees disagree. In August, several Black workers spoke to reporters, relaying their experiences with discrimination at work. They claimed that racism was engrained in the VA and recently made worse by leaders who refused to address it.
“I describe it as a mold — in the dark, secret. It’s quiet, but it’s affecting people of color throughout the VA,” said Marcellus Shields, a former VA employee in Wilmington, Delaware, and president of the local union chapter. “This is unacceptable. This is something that needs to be pulled out from the root.”
Also last summer, AFGE released survey results that showed 78% of union members thought racism was a problem at the VA. Of members who responded to the survey, 55% said they had witnessed racial discrimination against veterans.
The survey results prompted two senators – Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii – to ask the Government Accountability Office to investigate systemic racism at the VA.
Earlier this month, the GAO agreed. The office will begin its investigation in about six months. The GAO will “determine the extent to which systemic racism impacts the VA,” including whether VA employees and veterans experience discrimination, a letter from the office says.
“It is our hope that through their investigation, they find what we already know to be true and corroborate the painful stories of our members who have been ignored and denigrated by the current VA leadership,” said Alma Lee, a leader within AFGE.
Military Times: SCOTUS to rule on use of Pentagon funds for border wall, but money already spent
Meghann Myers | 18 hours ago
The $2.5 billion on the table in an upcoming Supreme Court hearing on use of Pentagon funds to build the border wall has already been paid out, a Pentagon spokesman confirmed to Military Times on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court announced Monday that it would take up a challenge to one of the Trump administration’s U.S-Mexico border fencing funding workarounds, specifically $2.5 billion in military counterdrug money re-allocated in 2019 to be paid out to contractors by the Army Corps of Engineers.
“Those funds cover 129 miles across six projects,” Pentagon spokesman Army Lt. Col. Christian Mitchell said, contract awards for fencing in New Mexico, Arizona and California, according to USACE data. The Pentagon could not provide details on how many of those miles have actually been completed.
The original lawsuit, first filed in Texas last year, challenged the legality of using those funds to build fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border. But as it wound its way through the courts, Mitchell confirmed to Military Times on Tuesday, all of that money has been paid out.
A Texas judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs late last year, putting an injunction on any further border construction. But a Justice Department appeal lifted that injunction, and last summer, the Supreme Court in a 5-4 vote decided not to hear a challenge that would have reinstated it.
“The Court’s decision to let construction continue nevertheless I fear, may operate, in effect, as a final judgment,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in his dissent, on behalf of the four justices who voted to hear the case.
It’s unclear, however, what would happen if SCOTUS rules against the administration. The original lower-court ruling stopped construction, but did not cancel contracts or force refunds, which could be the case again this time around.
In total, the Pentagon diverted $6.1 billion in 2019 to fund the border wall, including $3.6 billion in military construction funds.
The Defense Department followed that up with another infusion early this year, of $3.8 billion dollars originally allocated for building planes, ships and ground vehicles, which was instead set aside to pay for 200 more miles of fencing.
Combined with Homeland Security Department funds, that should be enough to cover nearly all of the proposed $18-billion, 722-mile wall, the deputy assistant defense secretary for homeland defense integration told reporters in February.
“Based on where we are in the process, the ability to speed that up and deliver on the border barrier construction has obviously increased significantly,” he said. “I don’t have anything specific, but it’s clear that we’ll be meeting the requirements that have been identified by the president to accelerate and build the border barrier as quickly and effectively as possible."
In the meantime, Defense Secretary Mark Esper issued a new cap on the number of troops ― mostly National Guard and reserve ― who can deploy to the border to assist Customs and Border Patrol with the flow of migrants.
The limit is now 4,000, versus 5,500 previously, though the numbers had stayed at roughly 5,000 for the previous two years. The change effectively amounted to a drawdown, which officials had previously estimated would start to happen once enough border wall had gone up to ease the requirement for boots on the ground.
“So anywhere you’ve now stopped the flow coming across, where we’ve committed both detection and monitoring personnel and border police, we no longer have to commit the same number of personnel,” Lt. Gen. Andrew Poppas, then-director of operations for the Joint Staff ― now director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff ― told reporters in September 2019.
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