Unrest at the Capitol: Potential Violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice

"After the unrest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, sources reported that current and former military service members were among the participants in the unrest. These reports prompted several Members of Congress to ask the Department of Defense to investigate service members’ participation and take disciplinary action. The military is investigating whether any active-duty service members participated in the unrest, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a memorandum condemning the “violent riot” and actions “that were inconsistent with the rule of law.”

This Legal Sidebar examines potential violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), codified in Title 10 of the U.S. Code, those service members may have committed. The Sidebar begins by discussing which current and former service members are subject to the UCMJ. It then examines offenses under the UCMJ that current or former service members may have committed on January 6, 2021, including potential sentences for each offense. It concludes with several considerations for Congress.

For information on federal criminal laws that may be relevant to the unrest at the Capitol, see CRS Legal Sidebar LSB10564, Federal Criminal Law: January 6, 2021, Unrest at the Capitol, by Michael A. Foster and Peter G. Berris. For general information on the military justice system and courts-martial, see CRS Report R46503, Military Courts-Martial Under the Military Justice Act of 2016, by Jennifer K. Elsea and Jonathan M. Gaffney..."
Capitol unrest 

Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Iraq and Afghanistan: 2007-2016

"This report provides background information for Congress on the levels of Department of Defense (DOD) troop and contractor personnel deployed in support of prior and ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. For more information on DOD’s use of contractor personnel to support military operations, see CRS Report R43074, Department of Defense’s Use of Contractors to Support Military Operations: Background, Analysis, and Issues for Congress, by Moshe Schwartz.

The Role of Contractors in Military Operations

Throughout its history, DOD has relied on contractors to support a wide range of military operations. Operations over the past 30 years have highlighted the critical role that contractors play in supporting U.S. troops—both in terms of the number of contractors and the type of work being performed. During recent U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, contractors frequently averaged 50% or more of the total DOD presence in-country..."
Afghanistan troop levels

Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces

"On July 26, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed this executive order establishing the President’s Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services, committing the government to integrating the segregated military..."
Armed Forces Desegregation

Long-Term Implications of the 2016 Future Years Defense Program

"In most years, the Department of Defense (DoD) produces a five-year plan, called the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP), associated with the budget that it submits to the Congress. The FYDP describes DoD’s plan for its normal, peacetime activities (corresponding to what is often labeled its base budget). DoD’s current plans are described in its 2016 FYDP, which covers fiscal years 2016 through 2020.

Those plans call for relatively flat budgets that average $534 billion for 2016 through 2020. (Unless otherwise noted, all costs in this report are expressed in 2016 dollars to remove the effects of inflation.) If DoD’s plans are projected for an additional 10 years, CBO’s analysis indicates that defense budgets would be larger, averaging $565 billion per year from 2021 through 2030 under DoD’s cost assumptions. Moreover, CBO estimates that the cost of DoD’s plans would be 4 percent higher over the next 15 years under a set of policies and prices that more closely matched recent experience..."
Defense programs

Using Data to Improve Defense Acquisitions: Background, Analysis, and Questions for Congress

"Many analysts believe that data analysis is a critical element in making smart, informed, policy decisions and in managing government programs. Without data, there may not be an appropriate basis for making policy decisions, measuring or assessing the effectiveness of government programs, or providing transparency into government operations. Despite the importance of data, most observers believe that the Department of Defense (DOD), and other government agencies lag behind the private sector in effectively incorporating data analyses into decisionmaking. These analysts argue that by using data more effectively to support acquisition decisionmaking, DOD could save billions of dollars, more efficiently and effectively allocate resources, and improve the effectiveness of military operations.

In FY2014, DOD obligated more than $280 billion for federal contracts, more than all other federal agencies combined. Given the size of the defense budget, Congress has pursued a variety of approaches to improving the efficiency of DOD, such as requiring the department to be auditable, including provisions on acquisition reform in National Defense Authorization Acts, and holding numerous hearings on agency operations and acquisition reform. To the extent that improved data analysis could enable more effective decisionmaking, Congress may opt to conduct oversight in this area and explore ways to enable DOD to conduct more effective data analysis..."
Defense Acquistions

FDA clears military traumatic wound dressing for use in the civilian population

"Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administrationcleared the use of the XSTAT 30 wound dressing, an expandable, multi-sponge dressing used to control severe, life-threatening bleeding from wounds in areas that a tourniquet cannot be placed (such as the groin or armpit) in battlefield and civilian trauma settings. The clearance expands the device’s indication from use by the military only to use in adults and adolescents in the general population.  

Early control of severe bleeding may prevent shock and may be life-saving. According to the United States Army Institute of Surgical Research, 30 to 40 percent of civilian deaths by traumatic injury are the result of hemorrhaging. Of those deaths, 33 to 56 percent occur before the patient reaches a hospital..."
Trauma wounds

Replacing Military Personnel in Support Positions With Civilian Employees

"Only military personnel engage in combat operations, according to U.S. government policies. However, either military personnel, civilian employees of the Department of Defense (DoD), or contractors may carry out support functions, such as accounting services. In 2012, about 340,000 active-duty military personnel were assigned to commercial positions that perform support functions. Those functions require skills that could be obtained from the private sector so that, in principle, those same positions could be filled by civilian employees.

To cut costs, DoD could transfer some of those positions to civilian employees and then reduce the number of military personnel accordingly. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that doing so for 80,000 full-time positions could eventually save the federal government $3.1 billion to $5.7 billion per year. (Those savings are measured in terms of annualized costs. That term encompasses all liabilities, current and future, that the federal government incurs by employing a military service member or a civilian today, expressed as annual amounts. All annualized amounts are in real terms, meaning that they have been adjusted to remove the effects of inflation.) Some costs of hiring military personnel are paid from accounts outside DoD’s budget, so the department would not realize all of those savings..."
military personnel

Executive Order 9981: Desegregation of the Armed Forces

View a facsimile of President Harry Truman's Executive Order 9981,  issued on July 26, 1948 establishing the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Services committing the government to integrate the armed forces..."
Armed forces desegregation

Suicide in the Military: Army-NIH Funded Study Points to Risk and Protective Factors

" The largest study of mental health risk and resilience ever conducted among U.S. military personnel today released its first findings related to suicide attempts and deaths in a series of three JAMA Psychiatry articles. Findings from The Army Study to Assess Risk and Resilience in Servicemembers (Army STARRS ) include: the rise in suicide deaths from 2004 to 2009 occurred not only in currently and previously deployed soldiers, but also among soldiers never deployed; nearly half of soldiers who reported suicide attempts indicated their first attempt was prior to enlistment; and soldiers reported higher rates of certain mental disorders than civilians, including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), intermittent explosive disorder (recurrent episodes of extreme anger or violence), and substance use disorder..."
Suicide in military

CRS Report for Congress Prepared for Members and Committees of Congress A Guide to U.S. Military Casualty Statistics: Operation New Dawn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom

"This report presents statistics regarding U.S. military casualties in the active Operation Enduring

Freedom (OEF, Afghanistan), as well as operations that have ended: Operation New Dawn (OND,

Iraq) and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF, Iraq). This report includes statistics on post-traumatic

stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury (TBI), amputations, evacuations, and the

demographics of casualties. Some of these statistics are publicly available at the Department of

Defense’s (DOD’s) website, whereas others have been obtained through contact with experts at

DOD.."
Military casualty statistics

Approaches to Reducing Federal Spending on Military Health Care

"In 2012, the Department of Defense (DoD) spent $52 billion on health care for service members, retirees, and their families. The department offers health care to nearly 10 million people through its TRICARE program, an integrated system of military health care providers and regional networks of civilian providers. Established in 1993, TRICARE now consists of three major plans: TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Standard, and TRICARE Extra..".

Military Healthcare

New Online GI Bill Comparison Tool

"The Department of Veterans Affairs launched today an online GI Bill® Comparison Tool to make it easier for Veterans, Servicemembers and dependents to calculate their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits and learn more about VA’s approvedcolleges, universities and other education and training programs across the country..:.
GI-Bill

Servicemembers, you have new mortgage protections in 2014

"It’s no secret that the housing crisis in recent years was particularly hard on military families. Servicemembers and their spouses at installations around the country, and even abroad, cited problems with mortgages as some of their most serious financial challenges. But now, the CFPB has written new mortgage rules that can help..."
Servicemember and Mortgages

Sexual Assault in the Military

"On behalf of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and pursuant to Public
Law 103-419, I am pleased to transmit our 2013 Statutory Enforcement
Report, Sexual Assault in the Military. The report is also available, in full, on
the Commission’s website. The purpose of the report is to examine how the Department of Defense and its Armed Services — the Army, Navy, Marine
Corps, and Air Force — respond to Service members who report having been sexually assaulted and how they investigate and discipline Service members accused of perpetrating sexual assault.."
Sexual Assault in Military

Kids Can Strangle in Window Cords

"Do you live in military housing with your family?   Take a look at your window blinds or other type of window coverings, including Roman shades.  If you can see any dangling or accessible cords, your child is at risk..."
Kids and Window cords

Leader's Information Assurance/Cybersecurity Handbook

 "Commanders, leaders, and managers are responsible for ensuring that Information Assurance/Cybersecurity is part of all Army operations, missions and functions..."
 Army's Cybersecurity Handbook

Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2012

"This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted. The listing often contains references, especially from 1980 forward, to continuing military deployments especially U.S. military participation in multinational operations associated with NATO or the United Nations. Most of these post-1980 instances are summaries based on Presidential reports to Congress related to the War Powers Resolution..."
https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42738.pdf

U.S. Arms Sales: Agreements with and Deliveries to Major Clients, 2003-2010

"This report provides background data on U.S. arms sales agreements with and deliveries to its major purchasers during calendar years 2003-2010, made through the U.S. Foreign Military Sales (FMS) program. In a series of data tables, it lists the total dollar values of U.S. governmentto-government arms sales agreements with its top five purchasers, and the total dollar values of U.S. arms deliveries to those purchasers, in five specific regions of the world for three specific periods: 2003-2006, 2007-2010, and 2010 alone. In addition, the report provides data tables
listing the total dollar values of U.S. government-to-government arms agreements with and deliveries to its top 10 purchasers worldwide for the periods 2003-2006, 2007-2010, and for 2010 alone..."

Recent Development Efforts for Military Airships

"During the past decade’s operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has come to rely heavily on the continuous or nearly continuous presence overhead of both manned and unmanned aircraft to support ground troops. Unmanned aircraft that
remain aloft in particular locations (or “orbits”) have been primarily used to provide timely information about activities on the ground and to attack ground targets on short notice. Most prominent among these aircraft are the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) fleets of unmanned Predators, Reapers, and Global Hawks; however, satellites and manned conventional aircraft, including fighters and long-range bombers, have also contributed..."

Stars, stripes - and scams

"Between the picture of the President and Vice-President standing in front of the American flag and the references to government funds to stabilize the economy, it’s understandable that people who signed up for the service advertised on the Grant Connect website thought they were on their way to landing a grant. Promoters even described Grant Connect as “a unique, consumer-friendly US government grant program that delivers all of the tools for the consumer to search multiple databases, write grant proposals, and deliver polished plans. . .”

Not so, alleged the FTC in a lawsuit against Juliette Kimoto, Johnnie Smith, and others behind the Grant Connect operation. The FTC also charged the defendants with making misleading claims for other products, including First Plus Platinum, an online shopping club represented to be a line of credit; One Hour Wealth Builder, a purported work-at-home business opportunity; and Acai Total Burn, a purported weight loss pill the defendants falsely claimed had been endorsed by Oprah Winfrey and Rachael Ray..."