When Military.com started in 1999, it wasn't clear whether it would survive the rough and tumble dot-com boom in which technology magnates were striving to stake their claim in the new digital frontier.

The website went live in March 2000, and a Wall Street Journal report at that time^[1] noted that five military-focused websites were all starting around the same time and "will begin fighting it out for the military audience."

Christopher Michel, Military.com's founder, saw it a little differently.

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In an era before widespread social media, Michel, himself a Navy^[3] Reserve officer and a Harvard Business School graduate, saw how the military was a small community and one in which people sought connection, advice on how to navigate the bureaucracy, knowledge on how to secure their benefits, and guidance on their careers in the service.

"One weekend, it really hit me like a ton of bricks that the internet would be the perfect way to sort of connect and empower military people," Michel told Military.com in an interview. "The idea would be, there would be lots of social connections. So, all the military units would be groups on the website, we would do news, we would help people get access to their benefits."

As Military.com celebrates its 25th anniversary, the site has survived the burst of the dot-com bubble and outlasted many of its early competitors, producing award-winning watchdog journalism^[4] for millions of readers and becoming a go-to resource for detailed information on service member benefits for the community.

In the past few years, the publication has won the Gerald R. Ford Journalism Award for Reporting on National Defense, as well as the Joseph L. Galloway Award and the James Crawley Award from Military Reporters and Editors, collectively the most significant awards for military reporting bestowed annually, along with a slew of other accolades.

It's a reflection of the leading role Military.com has taken in providing news to those in uniform, veterans, and their families. It is the most-read publication focused on the U.S. military and has the largest newsroom.

From the Pentagon to the Front Lines

Bradley Peniston, the executive editor of Defense One and Military.com's first-ever managing editor, told Military.com that those early days were innovative, such as generating a newsletter of stories from all sorts of outlets while still writing original stories for readers.

Peniston said Military.com was the first exclusively online publication ever to receive Pentagon press credentials.

"We just kept showing up to the Pentagon and asked to be let in," he said. "So, finally, they granted us press passes."

But on Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and America was soon at war.

Sarah Blansett, a retired Navy commander and Military.com's publisher who has been with the website for 15 years, said those years following the terrorist attacks really defined the voice of the news organization. The website had purchased numerous other homepages and blogs, some of which had been documenting the experiences of troops on the ground in the Middle East.

"The majority of the life of Military.com has been while our nation was at war," Blansett said. "We were really a good host for a lot of military bloggers very early on in the war. ... That all gelled together to create this personality of Military.com that provided news and benefits information. It spoke directly to the reader through those documenting their experience going to war."

One major moment of that era, Michel recalls, was Military.com breaking the story of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's capture in late 2003. An image of the deposed politician was posted by a user on Military.com^[5], and the site's founder woke up to calls from ABC News asking about the unreleased image.

"They said, 'Is that picture on your homepage of Saddam being captured real?' ... We were the first people to tell that story," Michel recalled. "We were very disruptive to the Department of Defense, in a way. I think that they mostly liked us because they trusted us and they knew that we cared about service members."

Watchdogs at Home

In 2004, Military.com was purchased by Monster Worldwide -- in 2016, Randstad Holding acquired Monster -- and the site continued to grow, helping veterans and service members connect with resources and find jobs, as well as secure their benefits.

As the blogging era of journalism and information began to wane, Military.com worked to consolidate all the various homepages and blogs and bolster its news resources into one website.

Much of that work was done under Amy Bushatz, a military spouse^[6] who started working with Military.com in 2010 and became the executive editor from 2018 until 2023 -- a position she "still very proudly” tells people about, she said in an interview.

Bushatz noted that, when she joined the website in 2010, the internet had transitioned from being a novelty to a critical part of life, and the website needed to try and reach readers in constantly evolving terrain.

But she noted that part of what has made Military.com strong throughout all the changes in journalism and the digital world has been its consistency in bringing news and information to service members and veterans, wherever they may be.

"I never questioned that it would have staying power, because it's filling such a need that would not otherwise be filled," Bushatz said. "It really is taking care of something that doesn't exist anywhere else. There is literally nowhere else that you can find the breadth of information that is on Military.com when it comes to these explainers about benefits and how this stuff works. And pair that with the Military.com news coverage and this watchdog journalism."

As service members and veterans began to return home from deployments^[7] and tours in the Middle East, Military.com started to provide news coverage and vital resources to those most affected. The website's staff has always included a large number of veterans and military spouses, ensuring that it highlights issues that really matter to the community.

Part of Military.com's focus under current Managing Editor for News Zachary Fryer-Biggs has been a relentless approach to watchdog journalism centered on accountability and original investigative reporting.

"Military.com's mission has always been to serve the military community; that never changed," Fryer-Biggs said. "But as many media outlets have faced relentless cuts leading to fewer questions being asked of military officials, and government agencies have become increasingly hesitant to provide information, we've seen that, to get our readers real answers, we have to dig deeper and work harder. I can't tell you how proud I am of the tireless reporting our journalists do to reveal important issues facing the community."

The website is also evolving to create new ways for readers to engage with its original reporting. Military.com started its "Fire Watch" podcast in 2022, which was recognized as the top podcast in 2023 by the Military Reporters and Editors organization.

Blansett said throughout all of Military.com's history and for the next 25 years and beyond, the site's focus has and will remain the same.

"We will always provide the highest-quality news and benefits information," she said. "That's going to happen no matter what form this website takes, no matter what changes technologically. Those two things will always remain true."

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On the same day Donald Trump was declared the winner in the 2024 election, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin sent a memo to all Defense Department personnel^[1] that promised an orderly transition to the new administration and that the military would "continue to stand apart from the political arena."

"The department will make a calm, orderly, and professional transition to the incoming Trump administration," Austin wrote in the memo, which was publicly released by the Pentagon on Thursday. "As it always has, the U.S. military will stand ready to carry out the policy choices of its next commander in chief, and to obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command."

The memo comes as the Trump campaign begins planning its transition and staffing for the Pentagon and other federal agencies, and begins to weigh who could fill top positions such as secretary of defense, a position that is confirmed by the Senate. Trump will be sworn in as president in January.

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The Defense Department is focused on getting ready for the transition that is set to begin in the coming weeks, said Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokeswoman. She said Trump transition officials have not yet been in touch with the Pentagon.

"We are committed to ensuring a peaceful transition and ensuring that the incoming team has the building blocks and everything it needs to be successful," Singh said.

"It's something that we felt the need to reiterate," she said. "There have been transitions that haven't been seamless, that haven't gone as peacefully."

Pentagon officials have said that the note is not meant to address any specific promise or rhetoric^[3] by the president-elect and his campaign. Trump has talked about using troops to target fellow Americans and to enact his plans for a mass deportation of undocumented migrants.

During a rally in October, Trump said he would use the military to target Americans, including "the fascists, the Marxists, the communists, the people that we have that are actually running the country."

"Those people are more dangerous -- the enemy from within -- than Russia and China and other people," Trump said, specifically naming former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who was elected to the Senate on Tuesday night.

In his memo, Austin was specific that the military would obey all "lawful orders" from its civilian chain of command. Military.com has previously reported^[4] that service members are compelled by their oaths not to follow unlawful orders, but there are several U.S. laws that would allow a wide range of orders to be deemed unethical or abusive but lawful.

"America's soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Guardians swear an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution of the United States' -- and that is precisely what you will continue to do," Austin wrote.

Singh said that the Defense Department has "taken seriously" Trump's rhetoric, but she wouldn't speak to hypotheticals when reporters asked whether the Pentagon was preparing for the possibility of its troops being used against the domestic population.

Singh said that they "expect" norms -- such as the military's apolitical nature -- to continue.

"The incoming secretary and the incoming administration will make its own policies," she said.

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WASHINGTON — A military judge has ruled that plea agreements struck by alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants are valid, voiding an order by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to throw out the deals^[1], a government official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the order by the judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, has not yet been posted publicly or officially announced.

Unless government prosecutors or others attempt to challenge the plea deals again, McCall's ruling means that the three 9/11 defendants before long could enter guilty pleas in the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, taking a dramatic step toward wrapping up the long-running and legally troubled government prosecution in one of the deadliest attacks on the United States.

The plea agreements would spare Mohammed and two co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the risk of the death penalty in exchange for the guilty pleas.

Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defense attorneys under government auspices, and the top official for the military commission at the Guantanamo Bay naval base had approved the agreements.

The plea deals in the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people spurred immediate political blowback by Republican lawmakers and others after they were made public this summer.

Within days, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a brief order saying he was nullifying them. Plea bargains in possible death penalty cases tied to one of the gravest crimes ever carried out on U.S. soil were a momentous step that should only be decided by the defense secretary, Austin said at the time.

The agreements, and Austin's attempt to reverse them, have made for one of the most fraught episodes in a U.S. prosecution marked by delays and legal difficulties. That includes years of ongoing pretrial hearings to determine the admissibility of statements by the defendants given their years of torture in CIA custody.

The Pentagon is reviewing the judge's decision and had no immediate further comment, said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary.

Lawdragon, a legal news site that long has covered the courtroom proceedings from Guantanamo, and The New York Times first reported the ruling.

Military officials have yet to post the judge's decision on the Guantanamo military commission's online site. But Lawdragon said McCall's 29-page ruling concludes that Austin lacked the legal authority to toss out the plea deals, and acted too late, after Guantanamo's top official already had approved the deals.

Abiding by Austin’s order would give defense secretaries “absolute veto power” over any act they disagree with, which would be contrary to the independence of the presiding official over the Guantanamo trials, the law blog quotes McCall as saying in the ruling.

While families of some of the victims and others are adamant that the 9/11 prosecutions continue until trial and possible death sentences, legal experts say it's not clear that could ever happen. If the 9/11 cases ever clear the hurdles of trial, verdicts and sentencings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would likely hear many of the issues in the course of any death penalty appeals.

The issues include the CIA destruction of videos of interrogations, whether Austin’s plea deal reversal constituted unlawful interference and whether the torture of the men tainted subsequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not involve violence.

AP writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this report.

Related: Defense Secretary Overrides Plea Agreement for Accused 9/11 Mastermind and 2 Other Defendants^[2]