U.S. Army

The U.S. Army Chaplain Corps marks its 248th anniversary July 29th. The celebration includes a ceremony renaming an auditorium for Chaplain Major General Matthew Augustus Zimmerman, Jr.

Last August, Daysia Holiday decided to try one more time to join the Army. She'd taken the academic test and failed three times. So, when she was offered a slot in a new Army prep course to improve her scores and qualify for basic training, she jumped at it. She is now a graduate of Army basic training and just finished her advanced instruction at Fort Lee, Virginia. She's one of about 5,400 soldiers who have graduated from the Army course, which gives lower-performing recruits a chance to meet military standards. The Army is using the course to fill the ranks after falling short of its recruitment goals last year.

There's a new Army program that gives lower-performing recruits up to 90 days of academic or fitness instruction to help them meet military standards. The program is one way the Army is hoping to fill the ranks as it struggles with recruiting efforts that are expected to fall dramatically short of the goals this year. According to estimates, just 23% of young people age 17 to 24 are physically, mentally and morally qualified to serve without receiving some type of waiver. Moral behavior issues include drug use, gang ties or a criminal record. It's the military's academic and physical fitness requirements that the prep course will address.

The military says that remains exhumed from a U.S. Army base in Pennsylvania do not belong to the Native American teenager recorded to have been buried there more than a century ago. The Army is disinterring the remains of eight Native American children who died at the government-run Carlisle Indian Industrial School, and plans to transfer custody to the children's closest living relatives. On Saturday, the Army exhumed a grave thought to belong to Wade Ayres of the Catawba Indian Nation of South Carolina. The Army says the remains were not a match. The unidentified remains have been reinterred in the same grave and marked unknown.

A white non-commissioned Army officer depicted in a viral video accosting and shoving a Black man in a South Carolina neighborhood has been charged with third-degree assault.

It’s an historic anniversary for the Corps of Engineers marked by a woman who’s made corps history.“I am the 88th district commander,” says Lieutenant Colonel Rachel Honderd. “I am the first female.”