Navy Lt. Rufus Geddie Herring was in command of a gunboat supporting a reconnaissance mission before the Battle of Iwo Jima kicked off when his ship came under heavy enemy fire. Despite serious wounds, Herring managed to fire back and steer his vessel to
During a reconnaissance mission before the Battle of Iwo Jima, a wounded Navy Lt. Rufus Geddie Herring heroically defended his gunboat and steered it to safety without leaving a single member of his team behind.
A week after Democratic lawmakers demanded answers, Pentagon officials are staying tight-lipped about a six-figure taxpayer-funded effort to upgrade the soon-to-be home of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth while the secretary himself has taken to attacking reporters who cover the story.
What they have confirmed is that the secretary of defense will follow a 2008 law and pay rent, though the figure appears to be well below market value for housing in the Washington, D.C., area.
Hegseth is eyeing a move into military family housing at Fort McNair, a historic Army[1] installation tucked away in southwest D.C., where the Anacostia and Potomac rivers meet. But before he moves in, at least $137,000 in repairs have been requested -- among them, a $50,000 paint job. Who initiated the request remains murky, but as head of the Pentagon, Hegseth ultimately has the final say on anything that happens in the department.
The cost breakdown has raised eyebrows, particularly since it comes at a time when other officials in the Trump administration -- namely, Elon Musk -- have been gutting government contracts and firing swaths of federal employees in the name of cost savings. Military families have also struggled for years to get repairs made to base housing, an issue that has triggered multiple congressional inquiries.
The news of the housing costs broke earlier this month when a pair of Democratic lawmakers -- Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut -- released a letter demanding more details[3]. The military services are required to notify Congress when undertaking significant expenditures on renovations.
Since then, Military.com has spoken with half a dozen officials to try and better understand the nature of the repairs and upgrades, with no success. Officials within the secretary's office were reluctant to even confirm the repair request existed.
The Pentagon's acting spokesman, John Ullyot, released a statement earlier this week saying that "any repairs, if they in fact occurred, were initiated by the Department of Defense, not by Secretary Hegseth," but declined to share what those repairs are and who actually made the request.
After the secretary's office directed Military.com to the Army, an official for the service, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that the service ordered the upgrades since it "performs routine maintenance and repairs to all vacant government-owned residences it controls before they are occupied by a new tenant, regardless of the new tenant's rank or position," and added that the historic 100-year-old home Hegseth is planning to move into has a greater cost to maintain, given its age. It was unclear why the Army official would need anonymity to discuss who ordered the renovation.
When Military.com asked for details of what work was done, the Army official directed questions back to the secretary's office which, a few days later, provided a nearly identical statement attributed to another anonymous official on Friday. It was also unclear why a Pentagon official would need anonymity to discuss housing renovations.
Meanwhile, Hegeseth himself has taken to criticizing reports about the repairs[4]on his home on social media[5], by claiming that the repairs were initiated by the department he now oversees and not him personally while mocking the Fox News reporter who covers the Pentagon and posted on social media about the lawmakers' letter.
In last week's letter, the two lawmakers also pressed Hegseth on whether there were any available homes that require less expensive updates, whether other secretaries who lived in military housing had costly renovations done before they moved in, and why the notification described the repainting as an "emergency."
One question that the pair of Democratic lawmakers had that the secretary's office was able to answer was that Hegseth is committed to paying rent on the property.
A defense official confirmed to Military.com that Hegseth will pay $4,655.70 per month for calendar year 2025 to stay at the property.
Under a 2008 law, a defense secretary who lives in military housing is required to pay rent that is equivalent to 105% of the Basic Allowance for Housing[6] rate for a four-star general with dependents assigned to the same base.
The law was passed by Congress in response to concerns about cost disparities for civilians and generals that arose when then-Secretary Bob Gates was living in military housing.
Comparing the rate Hegseth will pay to rental averages in Washington, D.C., it appears that he is getting a good deal. According to the real estate website Zillow.com[7], a four-bedroom house rental in Washington, D.C., has an average rent of $5,624.
Gates paid the full market value to rent a Navy[8] house, over $6,500 -- or more than double what the BAH[9] rate for a general was at the time, Stars and Stripes reported in 2008. Arguing that having a secretary living in military housing was more cost effective than outfitting a private residency with the necessary security and communications equipment, the Pentagon asked Congress to amend the law so that a secretary's rent would be comparable to what a general pays.
In 2018, during the first Trump administration, then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis lived in the same Navy house Gates once rented, according to The New York Times[10]. Mattis' rent was $3,383.10, according to the Times.
In addition to dictating the rental rate, the law calls for the secretary to consider whether there are "any available military housing units that are already substantially equipped for executive communications and security" when choosing which house to live in.
The law also requires the rent to be deposited into a special account to be used for "maintenance, protection, alteration, repair, improvement or restoration" of the house.
It is not clear why the Pentagon would not discuss or confirm any of these legally mandated improvements and upgrades.
The Pentagon will continue to reimburse service members who travel to get fertility treatments, the department confirmed this week, walking back its earlier move to fully repeal its reproductive health care travel policy.
Late last month, the Pentagon quietly updated its travel regulations[1] to remove all the language allowing service members to get travel and transportation allowances for trips related to reproductive health care. That meant travel was no longer covered for either abortion or fertility treatments.
But in a follow-up memo dated Feb. 4[2] that was similarly published on the Pentagon's travel regulations website without fanfare, the department clarified that it was not repealing the travel policy for fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization.
"This item reestablishes the authority to travel for Non-Covered Assisted Reproductive Technology," said the newest memo, signed by Sarah Moore, deputy director of the Defense Travel Management Office. The memo last month "should not be interpreted as the elimination of access to non-covered Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART), such as in vitro fertilization (IVF)."
Asked about the reversal Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesperson confirmed the policy was again updated to allow for IVF-related travel, but did not provide a comment by Military.com's deadline on whether the earlier full repeal was a mistake or intentional.
The policy to provide travel reimbursement for a range of reproductive health care was first put in place by the Biden administration in response to the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that allowed states to ban abortion.
The Biden administration maintained that making it easier for troops to travel for reproductive health care was imperative to ensuring women join and stay in service since the biggest military bases are located in states that have banned or severely restricted abortion and service members cannot choose where they are stationed.
Republicans fumed against the policy, arguing that it violated a legal prohibition on federal funding being used for abortion. In protest of the policy, Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., launched an 11-month blockade of senior military promotions that left the highest ranks of the military vacant and caused turmoil for military families counting[4] on the promotions.
At the same time, though, Republicans raced to declare their support for IVF after an Alabama court ruling suggested further restrictions on reproductive care were in store after the abortion bans. The Alabama court ruled that frozen embryos could be considered children under state law, which would not outright ban IVF but would make the procedure unfeasible.
After the Alabama court ruling, President Donald Trump vowed during his election campaign that the "government will pay for, or your insurance company will be mandated to pay for, all costs associated with IVF treatment." He also dubbed himself "the father of IVF" even as he acknowledged he was unfamiliar with the procedure until last year.
Despite the rhetoric, Republicans have blocked efforts to ease access to IVF. In addition to the Pentagon originally repealing the full reproductive care travel policy to comply with an executive order Trump issued on his first day in office, congressional Republicans last year scuttled a proposed expansion[5] of Tricare[6]'s coverage of IVF for troops.
The Pentagon's move to partially backtrack from repealing its reproductive health care travel policy was first reported by Task & Purpose[7].
Groups that blasted the Pentagon for repealing the travel policy last month commended the partial walkback to allow for IVF travel.
"The aggressive action taken by the new administration that didn't just target those seeking travel for abortion care, but service members and their dependents seeking fertility care was woefully out of touch," Allison Jaslow, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said in a news release. "This is a step in the right direction for the Pentagon, but the support that we give to women in the military and military families can't stop there."
Navy Lt. Rufus Geddie Herring was in command of a gunboat supporting a reconnaissance mission before the Battle of Iwo Jima kicked off when his ship came under heavy enemy fire. Despite serious wounds, Herring managed to fire back and steer his vessel to
