commander

WASHINGTON — The Navy admiral who oversees military operations in the region where U.S. forces have been attacking alleged drug boats off Venezuela will retire in December, he and the Defense Secretary announced Thursday.

Adm. Alvin Holsey became the leader of U.S. Southern Command only in November, overseeing an area that encompasses the Caribbean Sea and waters off South America. These types of postings typically last between three and four years.

The news of Holsey’s upcoming retirement comes two days after the U.S. military’s fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean against a small boat accused of carrying drugs. The Trump administration has asserted it’s treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.

Frustration with the attacks has been growing on Capitol Hill. Some Republicans have been seeking more information from the White House on the legal justification and details of the strikes, while Democrats contend the strikes violate U.S. and international law.

Holsey said in a statement posted on the command’s Facebook page that it’s “been an honor to serve our nation, the American people and support and defend our Constitution for over 37 years.”

“The SOUTHCOM team has made lasting contributions to the defense of our nation and will continue to do so,” he said. “I am confident that you will forge ahead, focused on your mission that strengthens our nation and ensures its longevity as a beacon of freedom around the globe.”

U.S. Southern Command did not provide any more information beyond the admiral’s statement.

In a post on X on Thursday afternoon, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth thanked Holsey for his “decades of service to our country, and we wish him and his family continued success and fulfillment in the years ahead.”

“Admiral Holsey has demonstrated unwavering commitment to mission, people, and nation,” Hegseth wrote.

Officials at the Pentagon did not provide any more information and referred the Associated Press to Hegseth’s statement on social media.

The New York Times first reported on Holsey’s plans to leave his position.

Toropin and Finley write for the Associated Press.

Another senior U.S. Army officer has spoken out about the service’s need for Shahed-136 like long-range, expendable drones. The need for the U.S. to procure exactly these kinds of relatively simple, comparatively very cheap and adaptable drones, built at scale, is something that TWZ has recently made a detailed case for.

When asked by Howard Altman of TWZ about a possible Army requirement for Shahed-like drones, the answer from Maj. Gen. James (Jay) Bartholomees, commanding general of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, was unequivocal.

“Absolutely,” Bartholomees said, speaking this week at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) annual symposium. “We are behind on long-range sensing and long-range launched-effect strike.”

Bartholomees confirmed that the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), the unified combatant command responsible for the Indo-Pacific region, is “learning from what is happening in Ukraine,” where the Pentagon’s tardiness at widely adopting lower-end drones for its own offensive operations has been highlighted.

The Iranian-designed Shahed-136 long-range one-way attack drone, which is being mass-produced in Russia as the Geran, has become Moscow’s primary standoff weapon with which it bombards Ukraine on a daily basis.

While the U.S. military is lagging behind, Bartholomees said there’s good news on this front, too.

“I think we can catch up very rapidly,” Bartholomees said. “The formations that we built are ready for those capabilities to land.” Those formations include a launched effects company that the 25th Infantry Division is currently standing up. This will join the launched effects platoon that already exists within its multifunctional reconnaissance company.

As an initial experiment, the launched effects company will be created within the 25th Infantry Division’s artillery unit.

“We absolutely need to build this capability quickly,” Bartholomees continued. “We need to test it in our region; we also need to work with our allies and partners to do the same.”

Referring again to the Shahed, Bartholomees noted that, because this kind of drone “is very cheap, easy to produce, and easy to put together,” it makes it “exactly the type of capability that we would love to have for our allies and partners in the region.” Not only would long-range, expendable drones of this kind help regional allies and partners protect their sovereign territory, but they would also be relevant to defend their maritime spaces, something Bartholomees described as “a unique problem set.”

When asked where the U.S. Army was in relation to Russian efforts in the field of long-range one-way attack drones, Bartholomees admitted that “We are behind in that sense, we need to push faster, all the services, frankly, are on this chase to move faster.”

He did, however, note that there are some “defeat mechanism concerns” that have put something of a brake on the development of at least certain types drones.

Bartholomees identified the importance of the work being done within divisional innovation labs, specifically the work on a nascent long-range one-way attack capability.

“We’re building our own drones,” Bartholomees said. “We’re already starting to produce one-way attack, fixed-wing [but] the longer range obviously gets harder and harder to do, that’s where you need more airworthiness expertise.”

It should be noted that, with its focus on long range and cost effectiveness, a drone in the mold of the Shahed is of particular relevance to a future contingency in the Indo-Pacific theater in which the 25th Infantry Division would likely be engaged.

The Shahed-136 has a range of around 1,000 miles, depending on variant and payload. The extreme challenges of the Pacific call for strike weapons with long range. In fact, TWZ has advocated in the past for an extended-range one-way attack drone, which would be especially useful for reaching from the Second Island Chain to the Chinese mainland — a one-way trip of roughly 2,000 miles.

Bartholomees said he agreed with Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, commander of the Army’s V Corps, which has a presence on NATO’s eastern flank, who also discussed drones and counter-drone capabilities at AUSA before talking further with Howard Altman of TWZ.

“We aren’t moving fast enough,” Costanza continued. “And it really took Russia’s invasion of Ukraine [in 2022], and the way they’re innovating, and Ukrainians are innovating, to realize, hey, we need to move fast.”

When asked specifically if the U.S. military needed a capability broadly in line with the Shahed drone, Constanza responded: “I think we do.”

Returning to Bartholomees, he argued that the rapid pace of drone development in the Ukrainian war is, in no small part, due to the result of an existential threat, which means the Ukrainian industrial base is “pushing incredibly hard for the sovereignty of their entire nation.”

“I have no doubt that we can push further, faster to get there,” Bartholomees, pointing to the partnership the Army is forging with the Marine Corps and Air Force, in this regard.

Of course, as we have argued repeatedly in the past, the United States could also find itself facing an existential threat, including an adversary that has a much larger arsenal of long-range, expendable drones. Namely, China.

At the same time, the need for huge numbers of long-range guided weapons that can pierce China’s anti-access bubble is coming to the forefront at a time when existing stockpiles are clearly below the required threshold. This is a reality that is meanwhile driving the development of a wide array of lower-cost, long-range weapons. These include low-cost jet-powered cruise missiles, but these are still significantly more expensive and complex than a Shahed-136 clone and/or they lack range in comparison.

Currently, there are a handful of smaller companies in the United States that are pitching a Shahed copy, or something very similar. While this is a useful starting point, it should be recalled that Russia is already mass-producing these kinds of weapons and is now understood to be building 5,000 a month.

Thankfully, we are finally seeing some much-needed change when it comes to the U.S. military’s plans for fielding its own lower-end drones.

With senior officers like Bartholomees and Costanza making the case for long-range one-way attack drones, we might also start to see some more urgency here, too.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Oct. 9 (UPI) — The U.S. Navy has fired the commanding officer of the USS Wyoming Blue Crew, the service has announced.

Cmdr. Robert Moreno was relieved of his duties after staff lost confidence in his ability to command.

“Navy commanding officers are held to high standards of personal and professional conduct,” a Navy release said. “They are expected to uphold the highest standards of responsibility, reliability. And leadership and the Navy holds them accountable when they fall short of those standards.”

There were no details in the release about a reason for the dismissal, but the military often uses “loss of confidence” as a general statement when dismissing senior leaders.

Capt. David Burke, Submarine Squadron 20 deputy for training, was temporarily assigned responsibility of the USS Wyoming Blue Crew, the release said.

Moreno was temporarily assigned to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, and took command of that ship in 2024. He became a commissioned officer in 2005, and was an enlisted sailor before that, his Naval biography said.

From 2001 to 2003, he was the commander of the Joint Force Marine Component.

Dan Keeler, the new captain of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, called up his football coaches from his days at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High earlier this week, along with his English teacher, to give them a salute for the impact they made on a teenager now in charge of one of the Navy’s most powerful ships.

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Capt. Dan Keeler recognizes his Sherman Oaks Notre Dame teaches and coaches during a changing of command ceremony for the USS Abraham Lincoln.

The speech by Keeler on Wednesday in Coronado at a changing of the command ceremony offered the real reason coaches coach and teachers teach — to make a difference in a student’s life.

“I learned more about hard work, grit, determination and how to handle pain, honestly, from this group,” he said.

He recalled when Notre Dame coach Kevin Rooney gave him a recommendation letter for the Naval Academy:
“Coach Rooney, when you handed me the letter, you said, ‘I think you’re going to be good at this,’ and you were right.”

Keeler added, “There were plenty of championships, but I don’t think that’s how these people measure success. I was a very mediocre backup quarterback and defensive back. If I was playing in a football game, we were winning by a lot.

“Those metrics of winning and losing weren’t the only things that mattered. They were important. These educators took all the time to get the best out of their students and I was one of them. They saw something in me and chose to make a positive impact, and I am forever grateful.”

This past week Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump spoke at a rally. Trump’s speech seemed familiar: Disparage Los Angeles (“trash heap”). Criticize Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass (“incompetent, and they paid troublemakers, agitators and insurrectionists”). Restate grievances about the 2020 election (“rigged and stolen”). Chide the crowd to support the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (“You better push your favorite congressmen”).

But this speech was different from his others. The location was Ft. Bragg in North Carolina — and the audience was mostly soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division, the “All Americans.” Internal unit communications revealed soldiers at the rally were screened based on political leanings and physical appearance. “If soldiers have political views that are in opposition to the current administration,” the guidance advised, “and they don’t want to be in the audience then they need to speak with their leadership and get swapped out.”

So what followed was to be expected. A sea of young soldiers in uniform — selected for their preference for the president — cheering and clapping for partisan commentary. This obviously violates Defense Department regulations. Heck, it’s even spelled out in a handy Pentagon FAQ:

Q. Can I ever wear my uniform when I attend political events?

A. No; military members must refrain from participating in political activity while in military uniform in accordance with both DoDD 1344.10 and DoDI 1344.01. This prohibition applies to all Armed Forces members.

But what happened during Trump’s appearance at the Army base is worse than breaking regs. The commander in chief forced an important unit to choose sides. He broke the All Americans in two. In essence, his statement to the troops there was: “Those who like me and my politics, come to my rally. The rest of you — beat it.” (Maybe we should start calling them the “Some Americans.”)

Imagine what it was like the day after. The soldiers who chose not to attend wondered how their next rating would go. Some lieutenant from California worried if his commander now has a problem with where he’s from — and is checking whether he was at the rally. Maybe it’s better if he wasn’t, and he instead chose to abide by Defense regulations?

No matter which way you lean, that speech injected partisan acid into the 82nd Airborne. And it will drip down and corrode from the stars at the top to the lowest-ranking private.

Militaries require extraordinary cohesion to function in combat. For those of us who’ve chosen this profession, one thing is burned into our brains from that very first day our hair’s shorn off: We’re all we’ve got. There’s nobody else. When you are hundreds and thousands of miles away from everyone else you’ve ever known, and you’re there for weeks and months and a year, you realize just how important the person next to you is, regardless of where they’ve come from, who their parents are, or whether their community votes red or blue.

Fighting units are like five separate fingers that form a fist. Partisan acid burns and weakens our fist.

Then there are the indirect effects. This speech damaged the military’s standing with a large swath of America. The image of soldiers cheering the partisan applause lines of a commander in chief who just sent thousands of troops to Los Angeles over the state’s objections? Not a good look.

These optics risk ruining the military’s trust with roughly half of America. The military is the last remaining federal institution that a majority of Americans trust “a great deal.” But it’s been slipping since the last Trump administration and may fall under 50%. Yet the military requires firm trust to fund and fill critical needs.

That’s important because not everyone wants to serve in the military. Many would prefer not to think about the expected self-sacrifice, or the daily discomforts of military discipline. Moreover, not everyone is even able to serve in the military. Roughly three-quarters of young Americans can’t qualify.

What if someone who would have been the next Mike Mullen — Los Angeles native, Navy admiral and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs — gets turned off by this rally and opts against the Naval Academy?

Then zoom out a little. What if much of California takes offense at this speech, not to mention at the soldiers and Marines so recently forced upon the local and state governments?

California hosts more active-duty troops than any other state — by a wide margin. It’s also the biggest donor state in the country, contributing $83 billion more to the federal government than it receives. The bases and other strategic locations up and down the Pacific Coast are beyond value. California is America’s strong right arm.

To sever California’s support for the military is simply unthinkable. It just can’t happen. We’ve got to fix this.

The first fix is simple. Hold troops to the accepted standards. Hegseth’s most recent book argued that the Defense Department has “an integrity and accountability problem.” Here’s the secretary’s chance to show America he stands for standards.

But we know mistakes happen, and this could become a powerful teachable moment: When the commander in chief orders troops to such an event, the only acceptable demeanor is the stone cold silence the generals and admirals of the Joint Chiefs display at the State of the Union, regardless of their politics and regardless of what the president is saying. Just a few years ago, two Marines in a similarly awful situation did just this right thing.

A further fix calls for more individuals to act: The roughly 7,500 retired generals and admirals in America need to speak up. The military profession’s nonpartisan ethic is at a breaking point. They know the old military saying: When you spot something substandard, and you fail to correct it, then you’ve just set a new standard.

The reason many of these retired senior officers often don’t speak out is their fear that defending neutrality risks having a political impact. Yet their continued silence carries a grave institutional effect — the slow-motion suicide of the profession that gave them their stars.

The president mentioned Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in his speech, and it’s too bad his speechwriter didn’t include a certain anecdote that would’ve fit the occasion. When the Civil War was over and terms were being agreed upon at Appomattox Court House, Lee noticed Col. Ely Parker, a Tonawanda Seneca man serving on Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s staff. Lee quipped, “I am glad to see one real American here.”

To which Parker replied, “We are all Americans.” Since that very moment, we’ve been one country and one Army, All Americans, indivisible and inseparable from society.

If only we can keep it.

ML Cavanaugh is the author of the forthcoming book “Best Scar Wins: How You Can Be More Than You Were Before.” @MLCavanaugh

June 17 (UPI) — Israel claimed Tuesday it had killed Iran’s highest-ranking military chief after just days in the job in an airstrike by Israeli warplanes.

“Ali Shadmani, Iran’s senior-most military official and Khamenei’s closest military adviser, was killed in an Israeli Air Force strike in central Tehran, following precise intelligence,” the Israel Defense Forces said.

Shadmani was appointed as the new head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard‘s Emergency Command to replace Gholam Ali Rashid in the hours after Rashid was among five of Iran’s most senior military commanders killed in the initial phase of Israel’s surprise attack early Friday.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the commander-in-chief of the country’s armed forces.

The development came as both sides continued to trade deadly attacks into a fifth day — Israel leveraging its stranglehold on Iranian airspace to ramp up its airborne assault on key military and nuclear targets while Iran launched 30 ballistic missiles with blasts reported in northern Israel.

Israel’s health ministry said another 154 people had been injured overnight, with 149 admitted to hospital in a moderate condition or with only minor injuries.

However, Israel said there had been noticeably fewer missiles incoming than on previous days.

Two dozen people in Israel have been killed since Friday, mainly in missile strikes on residential districts in the center and north of the country, while Iran’s Health Ministry says Israel’s attacks have killed 224 people and injured more than 1,200, mostly in Tehran.

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One after cutting short his meeting with world leaders at a G7 summit in Canada to head back to Washington, President Donald Trump, in a somewhat cryptic comment, denied an Israel-Iran truce was afoot, saying “we’re looking at better than a cease-fire.”

Before departing Calgary, Trump had told Iranians they needed to evacuate Tehran immediately.

Analysts were trying to figure out whether Trump intends to try to go the diplomatic route and get Tehran to return to the negotiating table to deal on its nuclear development program or double down on his support for Israel.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian issued renewed but vague threats Tuesday, warning Iran “will have to show more painful responses,” unless the United States reined in Israeli aggression and repeated the claim that none of what was occurring could take place without Washington’s involvement.

“If the U.S. government does not prevent the spread of insecurity to the region by bridling that savage [Israeli] regime, Iran will be obliged to give heavier and more painful responses beyond what has occurred so far,” Pezeshkian warned in a call with Omani sultan Haitham bin Tariq.

Oman has been hosting talks on Iran’s nuclear program between top U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff and Iranian officials that began in April.

Pezeshkian insisted all regime officials, political factions of all persuasions and the people of Iran were willing the armed forces to succeed in their fight against Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, similarly, gave away no indication of wanting to end the conflict any time soon, saying Israeli air power was operating freely while the city of Tehran burned.

“The Israeli Air Force controls the skies over Tehran. We strike regime targets — not civilians. That’s the difference between us and Iran’s terrorist regime that aims to murder women and children,” he said in a post on X.

“I am proud of our security forces and our wonderful people. Together we will win.”

At least two European countries have already begun implementing plans to evacuate their citizens from the region.

A Czech government evacuation flight touched down Tuesday with 66 people on board, according to Defense Minister Jana Cernochova, with another 11 due to be brought out on a Slovakian government flight in the coming hours.

Another flight that landed in Bratislava from Jordan on Monday evening had 14 other Czech citizens aboard.

Poland is sending planes to collect up to 300 of its nationals who have asked to be repatriated from Israel, Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said Monday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Henryka Moscicka-Dendys said initial evacuations would be via Egypt and Jordan, with a government-chartered aircraft due to depart Sharm el-Sheikh early Wednesday, followed by a military flight out of Amman on Thursday.

For all the push-ups completed, for all the running drills endured and for all the yelling received during his days playing high school football at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High in the 1990s, Dan Keeler is getting the last laugh later this month when he takes command of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in Coronado.

“Now I’m going to have to salute him,” former Notre Dame coach Kevin Rooney quipped.

Keeler, who graduated from high school in 1994 and went on to the Naval Academy, is taking command of one of the Navy’s most prominent ships.

The USS Abraham Lincoln arrives San Diego in 2020.

(Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

“It is incredible that he has earned this responsibility,” Rooney said.

Keeler was a defensive back and track athlete for the Knights and is one of five siblings who attended Notre Dame. Track coach Joe McNab, who just won his 11th Southern Section championship, was his defensive backs coach.

“Good kid,” McNab said.

“He’s a guy who fit all the boxes in terms of being a great kid and doing things right,” Rooney said.

Rooney, McNab and former football assistant Jeff Kraemer will make the trip to the San Diego area for the change-of-command ceremony. For some reason, Keeler invited his former high school coaches after all those days of sweat and tears in Sherman Oaks.

“If I had known he was going to be so powerful, I wouldn’t have made him run so much,” Kraemer said.

Keeler isn’t the first Notre Dame graduate to rise in the Navy ranks. Retired Adm. Mike Mullen was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2007 to 2011 and graduated from Notre Dame in 1964. Mullen once came back to his alma mater to address the student body.

Rooney, who retired in 2019 after 40 years as football coach, said his goal was always to “help kids become great people and do things right.”

Coaches know that the best day of all is when a graduate comes back to campus and tells them how they are doing and explains how lessons learned as teenagers really made a difference in their life.

As summer begins and graduates move on with their lives and the class of 2029 arrives, it’s a good reminder to everyone that it’s not wins and losses that matter most in high school. It’s teaching life lessons and preparing students to become adults, good people and good community members.

To see a former Los Angeles-area high school football player take charge of an aircraft carrier is proof that all that running to gain stamina, all that preaching to work together as a team, all those lectures that practice makes perfect … it’s true.

You only need to listen, learn and dedicate yourself to reaching a goal.

A salute to all the coaches and teachers who understand their real job is to create opportunities for their students to succeed through wisdom and inspiration.

Capt. Keeler, Bravo Zulu and Anchors Aweigh. Be safe.