WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of War closed out 2025 and opened 2026 with a rapid-fire series of updates that ranged from firefighter survival training at one of the Air Force’s biggest installations to a new Marine Corps attack-drone pipeline, a joint readiness exercise in East Africa, and a high-risk domestic security mission in the nation’s capital — culminating in President Donald Trump’s announcement Saturday that U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in Caracas.
In Oklahoma, firefighters at Tinker Air Force Base recently completed an intensive training course built around rapid intervention, advanced search techniques, and fire ground survival skills intended for the base’s unique operational environment. The 10-day orientation was designed for new military and civilian firefighters, including recent fire academy graduates assigned to the 137th Air Refueling Wing at Will Rogers Air National Guard Base.
Officials described Tinker as a demanding assignment, with large warehouses, aircraft hangars, and extensive confined spaces where crews may have to work in low-visibility, high-risk conditions. Trainees used blackout masks to simulate zero-visibility environments while practicing how to search large structures quickly. The course emphasized communication, accountability, and decision-making under stress, and included rapid intervention team drills built to locate and rescue firefighters trapped inside burning structures.
Firefighters also conducted flashover training to help them recognize early warning signs of rapidly changing fire behavior, along with aircraft and wing simulations to practice moving around airframes and operating in tight spaces common to an installation supporting aircraft maintenance, depot operations, and flightline activity.
More than 27,000 military and civilian personnel are protected by Tinker Air Force Base Fire and Emergency Services, which also supports civilian emergency services when needed. The department said it achieved a first in the Air Force by earning the International Organization for Standardization’s Class 1 distinction.
In Washington, guardsmen from multiple states have been conducting visible patrols in high-traffic locations since August as part of what the department described as a multistate effort supporting public safety and domestic resilience under the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force and Joint Task Force District of Columbia mission.
Army Sgt. 1st Class Zachary Metz, assigned to the 289th Engineering Vertical Construction Company, was described patrolling near the Smithsonian Metro station alongside Air Force Tech. Sgt. Richard Kramer, a security forces airman assigned to the 172nd Airlift Wing. Both are members of the Mississippi National Guard.
“We’re trying to reduce crime and maintain a visible presence,” Kramer said.
Metz said the deployment has also become a real-world training ground for newer service members. “Some of these soldiers have only been in the Army one or two years,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for them to grow in uniform and learn what professionalism looks like in a real-world environment.”
The risks of the mission were brought into sharp focus after an ambush near Farragut Square on Wednesday, November 26, when two West Virginia National Guard members were shot in what officials described as a targeted attack. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died the next day. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, survived and continues recovering.
“You have to stay professional and alert at all times,” Kramer said. “You’re a soldier first, and you have to keep your head on a swivel.”
The department’s year-end updates also highlighted service beyond the battlefield, pointing to Dorner Carmichael, a Vietnam-era Red Cross volunteer known as a “Donut Dolly,” who continues working with the organization in Powidz, Poland.
Carmichael described volunteering for Vietnam after learning about the Red Cross women who supported troops, a role that began in World War II with club mobiles offering comfort and connection. In Vietnam, she said the job meant traveling by helicopter and jeep to remote firebases, bringing meals and running recreation programs meant to give young soldiers a brief break from the war.
Her memories, she said, are marked as much by faces and human connection as by combat. She recalled arriving on a firebase shortly after a soldier had been killed and watching silence give way to conversation as the men began talking about their home states, families, and life after the war. Decades later, she agreed to participate in a documentary about the 627 women who served as Donut Dollies in Vietnam, describing the process as difficult but necessary because the stories are rarely told.
Today, the department said, her Red Cross work in Poland includes delivering emergency messages between service members and families, supporting resiliency efforts, and helping create spaces for rest and connection. “You don’t have to travel far to serve,” she said. “You just have to start.”
On Wednesday, December 31, the Marine Corps announced a new training program aimed at rapidly increasing the number of small unmanned aircraft system operators for commercial off-the-shelf first-person-view attack drones, including a system known as the Neros Archer.
The Marine Corps said the program, detailed in an administrative message, establishes six pilot courses and eight certifications to create a standardized framework for operators, payload specialists, and instructors as the service scales attack-drone capabilities across the force.
“We are fielding these courses as pilot programs to move quickly while maintaining our commitment to quality training and safety,” said Lt. Gen. Benjamin T. Watson, commanding general of Training and Education Command. He said the approach is intended to validate prerequisites, instruction, resourcing, and certification standards before the curriculum becomes a long-term training framework.
Seven organizations were designated as regional training hubs authorized to begin conducting pilot courses immediately. Weapons Training Battalion at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia will serve as the interim central hub responsible for standardization, certification, and safety.
The department said the training framework was shaped by recent competitions and certifications that produced a small cohort of trained operators and instructors, with a plan to certify hundreds more Marines in the coming months. By May 2026, the Marine Corps said all infantry, reconnaissance battalions, and littoral combat teams across the service will be equipped to employ FPV attack-drone capabilities.
Overseas, the department reported that Airmen assigned to the 449th Air Expeditionary Group, alongside Army, Marine Corps, and Navy partners, conducted readiness training at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti during Exercise Pale Serpent from Friday, December 26, through Monday, December 29, 2025.
The joint exercise tested how units would respond to real-world contingencies in East Africa, including mass-casualty scenarios and aeromedical evacuation.
At Chabelley Airfield, Air Force medical personnel treated simulated casualties inside the medical treatment facility while practicing triage, stabilization, and coordination under constraints of space, equipment, and staffing.
“Triage took place outside, and then we were assigning casualties into the appropriate rooms,” said Tech. Sgt. Gracie Livengood, an aerospace medical service technician. “The most immediate patients came into the trauma bay, and we treated them while delayed and minimal patients were handled in the other bays.”
“This training helps us get prepared if an actual emergency happens,” she said.
At Camp Lemonnier, aeromedical evacuation teams practiced moving patients from the expeditionary medical facility to higher levels of care, employing a critical care air transport team alongside flight nurses and aeromedical technicians.
“Having aeromedical evacuation capabilities in this region is important so we can quickly move patients to a higher echelon of care,” said Maj. Christina Newby-Martinez, commander of the 10th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Flight. She said the training tested response speed, pushed teams outside normal crew structures, and highlighted the need to improve communication in multi-service environments.
The department’s latest and most dramatic update came Saturday, January 3, when Trump announced what he called an “extraordinary” overnight joint military operation in Caracas that resulted in the capture of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro.
Trump said Maduro will face criminal court proceedings tied to a 2020 U.S. indictment on federal charges including narco-terrorism and drug trafficking. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the mission followed months of planning and involved coordinated air, ground, space, and maritime operations. He said more than 150 aircraft launched across the Western Hemisphere to provide cover for the ground force in Caracas, and officials said there were no U.S. casualties.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth described the raid as “flawlessly executed” and framed it as a security operation aimed at protecting Americans. Trump said the U.S. would oversee Venezuela until a transition to a new leader is established, adding that he understood Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez had been sworn in following Maduro’s removal and was in contact with U.S. officials.
Taken together, the department’s updates painted a picture of a force simultaneously preparing for high-risk contingencies, expanding new weapons training, supporting domestic missions under public scrutiny, and spotlighting enduring forms of service — while signaling that major operations in the Western Hemisphere are now at the center of the administration’s national security agenda.
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