The Marine Corps graduated its last scout sniper class in December 2023. Now it’s paying Marines to reenlist in the job that replaced it.

 (MARADMIN 429/26) adds reenlistment bonuses for the new Scout job (MOS 0315). Payments will range from $7,500 to $18,630, depending on rank and contract.

As of Oct. 21, 200 active-duty Marines qualify to transfer into the job right away, said Capt. Steven J. Keenan, a Marine Corps spokesperson. But only 65 reenlistment spots are available to newly converted Scouts this fiscal year.

What the Scout Bonus Pays and Who Qualifies

The exact amount depends on your rank and years of active service. Zone A covers Marines with 17 months to six years. Zone B covers six to 10 years.

In Zone A, Scouts get $7,500 as an E-3, $8,000 as an E-4, and $10,000 as an E-5. In Zone B, E-5s get $18,630. E-6s and above are not eligible for a Scout bonus.

To get the entire amount, you must reenlist for at least 48 more months. The Corps then pays it in the fiscal year your current contract ends, not when you sign.

First-term sergeants and below can also add an FMF Infantry Kicker. Reenlist for 60 months and agree to stay in an assigned infantry unit for the first 24 months, and you get an additional $7,000. Agree to 36 months, and you get $30,000. You’re only allowed one kicker.

The bonus is for active-duty Marines whose contracts end between Oct. 1, 2026 and Sept. 30, 2027. It doesn’t apply to the Marine Corps Reserve.

Marines E-5 and under can convert now if they’re a rifleman (MOS 0311), machine gunner (0331), mortarman (0341), antitank missile gunner (0352), or already a Scout (0315). They also must have graduated the Basic Scout Course or hold the old scout sniper job (0317) as an additional MOS.

As of Oct. 21, 200 active-duty Marines were eligible to convert to Scout because they had already completed the Basic Scout Course or held the 0317 job, Keenan said. Another 20 Reserve Marines were also eligible to convert, though the bonus doesn’t cover the Reserve.

The Corps set aside 65 reenlistment spots for newly converted Scouts this fiscal year, Keenan said. Thirty-five are in the first-term alignment plan, the Corps’ reenlistment quota for Marines finishing their first contract. The other 30 are in the next-term alignment plan, for Marines who have reenlisted before.

That’s about one spot for every three eligible active-duty Marines. Once the spots fill, extra reenlistments receive a bonus only if Marine Corps headquarters approves it.

In 2023, the Marine Corps disclosed it would 

 platoons in its infantry battalions with new scout platoons. The last scout sniper class graduated that December.

The shift was a result of Force Design 2030, a modernization initiative aimed at preparing the Marine Corps for future conflicts against peer adversaries.

"In accordance with Force Design 2030, the Commandant of the Marine Corps has approved the establishment of a 26-Marine Scout Platoon, resident in the Headquarters and Service Company of the infantry battalion," the Corps announced in a March 2023 press release regarding the transition.

For nearly three years, scout work didn’t have its own job code. That all changed with a June 2026 

 (MARADMIN 296/26), which made Scout a primary MOS starting Oct. 1. Each infantry battalion now gets a 26-Marine scout platoon.

Because this is a new job that needs Marines to fill it, the Sept. 22 bonus is how the Corps plans to keep skilled Marines in those platoons instead of losing them when their contracts end.

Staff sergeants and above can’t get the Scout bonus, and it’s not a mistake.

“Staff Sergeants and above are not currently eligible for the 0315 PMOS, as these grades fall under 0369 MOS,” Keenan said. 

That’s the infantry unit leader job. Those Marines have a bonus of their own. Under the FY27 program, staff sergeants and above in Zone B with MOS 0369 can get $23,500.

Former scout snipers who switch won’t lose credit for their training.

“Marines who convert from 0317 to 0315 will retain 0317 as an AMOS, and completion of the 0317 course will remain reflected on their MBS,” Keenan said.

In other words, their record will still show they were a scout sniper and finished the course.

First, check your record. You need to be an E-3 to E-5 with PMOS 0311, 0315, 0331, 0341, or 0352. You also need to have graduated from the Basic Scout Course or hold AMOS 0317. Your ECC has to fall between Oct. 1, 2026 and Sept. 30, 2027.

Then talk to your career counselor. Units have to send their conversion lists to headquarters no later than Nov. 1.

Before you sign, read the Statement of Understanding. Your bonus amount is set when you reenlist, but you get paid in the fiscal year your contract ends. If you aren’t paid by then, you can ask to leave the Corps within 90 days after that fiscal year ends.

Don’t wait. There are only 65 spots, and the Corps can end the program early if the money runs out or its needs change. It ended 

 program early, on Oct. 28, 2025, after meeting its retention goals.

The Marine Corps Is Paying up to $18,630 to Fill Its New Scout Platoons

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants states to compete for the Next Great American Base. In a 

, Hegseth ordered a nationwide competition to pick the site. The memo asks for a “highly hardened joint military installation within the Homeland,” meaning a base shared by more than one branch of the military. In a 

, Virginia, that same day, Hegseth said the base would hold 15,000 to 25,000 troops.

The memo gave Pentagon officials 14 days to draft a plan for picking the site. That deadline passed Oct. 14, and the plan hasn’t been made public. The memo also doesn’t specify where the base will go, how much it will cost, or when it will open.

It doesn’t say where the troops will come from, either. But Hegseth might have already hinted at the answer.

“When we bring the troops home, we won’t just reshuffle troops onto legacy posts. We are going to build them beautiful new bases from the ground up.”

Three days later in Colorado Springs, he got more specific. Some capabilities leaving Europe could go “back home to the big, beautiful base that we’re going to build that we announced a couple of days ago,” Hegseth told reporters, 

. Other troops could shift to Central and South America, where the military is focused on drug cartels.

If you’re stationed in Europe, the cuts have already started. About 80,000 U.S. troops serve there, NBC News 

. The Trump administration has announced plans to pull out at least 9,000 troops since October 2025, and possibly up to 13,000, according to a July report from the 

More could follow. In June, Hegseth announced a six-month review of troop levels in Europe. Officials are evaluating cuts of 25,000 to 40,000 troops, NBC reported. Germany, Italy and Spain could see the biggest changes.

The Pentagon did not answer two requests for comment on how many of the new base’s troops would come from Europe.

Either way, a new base is years in the making.

You may be wondering how many years it will take. Military construction can take five to seven years or more, according to the 

Congress can also slow big cuts in Europe. Under Section 1249 of the 

, the Pentagon can’t use funds to keep troop levels in Europe under 76,000 for more than 45 days without certifying the move to Congress.

About 80,000 troops serve in Europe. A cut of 25,000 or more would fall well below that line.

So you have time. But when a new base grows, the town around it feels it first.

“Housing is typically the first and most immediate challenge, particularly in communities where affordable housing is already limited,” said Matt Borron, executive director of the 

Borron said housing, child care, schools, and health care are all connected, so military leaders and local communities should start planning together early.

The strain doesn’t end with new arrivals.

“These impacts aren’t limited to newly arriving families; military families already stationed there, as well as civilian residents, can find themselves competing for the same limited resources,” he said.

Planned well, that growth can also bring economic opportunity to a town, Borron said.

He also advised the Pentagon to bring defense communities into planning from the start. And instead of one massive base, he said the department “may want to consider building a few smaller, more geographically dispersed installations,” depending on what the mission requires.

For troops and families, the work starts before orders do.

If a move to the Next Great American Base is even a possibility, don’t wait.

“Start researching housing availability and connecting with installation family support services as soon as a potential assignment becomes known, rather than waiting until orders are finalized,” Borron said.

And don’t count on the community to be ready.

“Don’t assume that because a military installation is growing, the surrounding community already has the capacity to accommodate that growth,” he said.

There are two things to watch for next. The first is the Pentagon’s plan for picking the base site, which was due Oct. 14 and still isn’t public. The second is the final result of the six-month Europe review that began in June. Those will show which troops could move, and where.

Until those two updates come out, your orders stay the same.

The Race is On: States Compete to Host Hegseth’s ‘Next Great American Base’

Starting Oct. 1, Marines deployed to dangerous parts of the world will see their first danger pay increase in more than two decades. 

Hostile Fire Pay will double from $225 to $450 a month

, and Imminent Danger Pay will rise from $225 to $275, or $9.16 a day, the Marine Corps announced. No other branch has followed yet, and the Pentagon told MyBaseGuide it has "nothing to announce at this time" for the others.

The news came in an official Marine Corps message, 

, dated Sept. 21. It points to a July 14 memo from the Department of Defense, and covers all Marines, including reservists.

Federal law caps Hostile Fire Pay at $450 a month and Imminent Danger Pay at $275. So Marines are now getting the most Congress allows.

It's been a long wait. The $225 rate hasn't moved in more than two decades. The last real change came in 2012, and it didn't raise anyone's pay. It just switched Imminent Danger Pay to a daily rate, so you only get paid for the days you're actually there.

Hostile Fire vs. Imminent Danger: What's the Difference?

People mix these two up all the time, but the difference is simple. One is about what happens to you, and the other is about where you are.

Hostile Fire Pay kicks in when something actually happens. According to the 

 (DFAS), you qualify if you're shot at, an enemy explosive goes off near you, you're wounded in action, or you're close enough to an attack to face the same danger as the troops who were hit. Once your commander certifies it, you get the full $450 for that month. It doesn't matter if it happened on day one or day 30.

Imminent Danger Pay is about location. If your orders put you in an area the Pentagon has flagged as dangerous, you earn $9.16 for each day you're there, up to $275 a month. Nothing has to happen to you personally.

One catch: you can't collect both in the same month. Right now, 

58 locations are on the DFAS list for Imminent Danger Pay,

 including 18 added in February when the conflict with Iran began.

There's also a bonus that makes the raise worth more than it looks. If you're serving in a designated combat zone, this pay is tax-free, so you get the whole thing.

So what about the other branches? For now, nobody's saying.

The Marine Corps is the first service to announce the raise. When we asked the Pentagon whether the other branches would follow, the answer was short, 

"At this time, no decision has been made to increase the current rates for hostile fire events or imminent danger pay."

For now, the Army's official benefits page still shows the old $225 rate, and so does DFAS's own danger pay page.

The Marine Corps says the process isn't changing, just the paycheck. The rules for who qualifies are the same as before. Only the dollar amounts have gone up.

Still, it's smart to check your pay statement after Oct. 1 to make sure the new rate shows up. 

If you were only in a danger area for part of the month, look for $9.16 per day instead of the full $275. But if you aren't a Marine, experts warn against factoring this money into your household budget.

"What is not settled is everyone else," noted Guilherme Correia, an active-duty Airman and military finance analyst for 

"If you are a Soldier, Sailor, Airman, or Guardian, do not budget on $275 or $450 until your service or DFAS publishes the new rates. Your finance office is the authority."

The next few weeks will show whether the Marines are alone. The 

, sent to Congress this spring, has some clues. The Air Force pointed to Oct. 1 for danger pay at the legal maximum. The Army mentioned danger pay of up to $450 a month but didn't give a date. The Navy didn't mention it at all, but neither did the Marine Corps, and it moved first anyway.

The list of places where you can earn this pay could change, too. Last year's defense bill ordered a review of the locations that qualify for Imminent Danger Pay, with new reviews every five years starting in 2031.

If you're a Marine, your danger pay goes up Oct. 1. For everyone else, keep watching your pay statement and your service's announcements.

Marine Corps Doubles Hostile Fire Pay in First Danger Pay Hike in Over 20 Years

Ten-month deployments were never supposed to be the norm. But in a year filled with extended combat operations and maintenance backlogs, long deployments have become a reality. As a matter of fact, in 2026, two carriers spent over 300 days at sea, highlighting the endurance of the crews and the strain placed on fleets.

To understand just how rare these extensions are, we are taking a look at the longest U.S. Navy aircraft carrier deployments since the Vietnam War.

What Are the Longest Navy Carrier Deployments?

During the height of the Vietnam War, the 

’s air wing flew many combat missions during Operation Linebacker, earning a Presidential Unit Citation.

The Navy’s newest and most advanced carrier, the 

, recently set the post-Vietnam record. Originally dispatched for a standard deployment, the 

 was continually extended due to escalating crises in the Middle East. 

By the time the carrier returned to Norfolk, Virginia, it had been deployed for 326 days, coming within a week of matching the 

 is currently executing a massive deployment. As of late September, the 

 reached 307 days deployed. After spending months operating in the Middle East and the South China Sea, the ship recently made a brief port call in Guam. 

It is currently steaming across the Pacific toward its homeport in San Diego. When it finally comes home, the 

 will be one of the top three longest deployments.

The Quarantine Exception: USS Nimitz (341 days away) 

 also spent nearly a year away from home. The carrier was away for 341 days between 2020 and 2021. 

However, the Navy required the crew to undergo an extended, pier-side quarantine prior to departure to prevent a COVID-19 outbreak at sea. While the total time away from family exceeded the 

, its actual operational time at sea was significantly shorter.

The Navy is required by law to maintain a fleet of at least 11 aircraft carriers. However, that number represents a shipbuilding target, not the reality of what is ready to deploy.

"The statutory requirement is intended to ensure that the Navy maintains a program of record to keep 11 CVNs in service," said Dr. Bradley Martin, a retired Navy captain and senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation. 

"It's to a degree a means of ensuring a steady workload for shipbuilders, which is not a bad goal, but it does not particularly serve to ensure that the force is ready."

At any given time, multiple carriers are tied up in complex overhauls and extended maintenance. Martin noted that one carrier is typically tied up in a years-long complex overhaul, while four more are in various stages of extended maintenance. If an immediate crisis were to unfold, he estimated the real number of available carriers to be roughly three, rising to about five over a longer period.

When crises erupt, the Navy relies heavily on the few carriers that are available, creating a cycle of wear and tear.

"The longer a carrier stays out, the more maintenance gets pushed back," Martin noted. 

"Eventually those repairs take longer than planned, and the next carrier has to stay out at sea longer to make up the difference. With every cycle, the deferred maintenance backlog becomes more difficult to get past. None of this is recent. However, getting past it will take significant resources and potentially restraint of demand."

What It Costs the People Waiting at Home 

Keeping a carrier on station longer solves an operational problem. It creates a different one for the families waiting at home.

"Deployments of any kind put a strain on families," said Kathy Roth-Douquet, CEO of Blue Star Families. 

"It's that much more of a strain during combat operations, when family life gets put on hold even longer, and folks worry about their loved one's well-being." 

She also noted the timing compounds the problem further: this year's extended deployments overlapped with the peak summer PCS season, stacking two of the hardest parts of military life on top of each other for the same families.

"We can't shorten the deployments or resolve the hostilities, but we can help the community wrap their arms around these families to give them comfort and support," she said.

"When families are supported, service members are better positioned to focus on their mission."

Neither the fleet math nor the family strain will resolve by itself. Martin pointed to one option the Navy hasn't seriously pursued yet: building carriers with smaller and less capable air wings. This could expand the total available force for lower-intensity missions.

On the family side, Roth-Douquet explained that

"We're calling on Everyday Americans to Do Your Part to support military families." 

She pointed to free resources for checking in on a military neighbor, offering childcare, or sharing a meal.

By the time the USS Abraham Lincoln docks in San Diego, 2026 will become the year the Navy normalized the 10-month deployment. Whether that timeline becomes the new standard, or whether the next crisis extends that, depends on military decision-making.

A Look at the Longest U.S. Navy Carrier Deployments in History

On August 19th, the acting Navy secretary ordered Sailors, Marines, and even their families to scrub all military ties from social media platforms. Five weeks earlier, the Army shut down hundreds of unit-level recruiting pages.

Both orders are due to security concerns tied to the U.S. war against Iran. But they both go against a strategy the Pentagon has spent years building: recruiting Gen Z through authentic social media posts from active military members.

Here's what each directive actually needs, why it's happening now, and where the legal limits sit, especially now that families are being pulled into the equation too.

The Pentagon's Recruiting Strategy Relies on Soldiers' Own Social Media Posts

Survey research on Gen Z's viewpoints toward the armed forces has found that young people learn about military life through social media, even before recruiters, paid advertising, or family members with service-related backgrounds, as noted by the

Short-form videos, found on virtually every social media app, are the dominant format. More specifically, platforms like TikTok and YouTube outperform traditional recruiting ads you find on everyday TV commercial breaks.

, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks attributed "influencers in uniform" as one of the department's most effective recruiting efforts, noting that content posted by service members on their own accounts resonated with young viewers because it read as unscripted and authentic.

On a similar note, Army Recruiting Command leadership has said the same thing for years: to reach enlistment goals, the service has to "

," which means using platforms Gen Z already lives on every day.

Two Separate Orders, Same Result, Less Military Presence Online

Acting Secretary of the Navy, Hung Cao, issued the department-wide notice as part of the initiative, "Epic Vigilance," ordering Sailors, Marines, and their families to review social media accounts and remove anything that reveals a connection to the Department of the Navy or exposes routines, what the memo calls "patterns of life."

The notice mentions a "coordinated, multi-domain campaign" against personnel and families since the start of Operation Epic Fury, the U.S.-Israel campaign against Iran that began February 28. An important detail that matters is that the order doesn't just ask a Sailor to lock down their own account; it asks them to police their spouse's and children's, too.

The Army followed with something a little bit different, but still philosophically related. 

Army Directive 2026-17, "Optimizing Digital Media,

" signed by Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll on June 30 and made public July 8, orders the shutdown of hundreds, possibly thousands, of unit-level official social media accounts across the force.

"Effective immediately, only the Army organizations listed in enclosure 2 are authorized to operate official social media accounts. All other organizations must close and archive their accounts pursuant to Army records management policy."

The Army says this doesn't touch personal accounts. The directive's own language confirms that it applies to official

organizational accounts, not the personal accounts of Soldiers. The unit pages being shut down were often the accounts actually producing the "authentic, unscripted" content the Pentagon has credited with recruiting success.

The Open Legal Question: Where Does a Command's Authority End?

Both directives raise a question neither one fully answers: how far can a command actually go into a service member's personal, off-duty online presence, and into a spouse's account.

The answer, according to Cody Harnish, a military defense attorney and former Army JAG officer, is slimmer than the ALNAV's language might suggest.

"A command has no authority to order a civilian spouse to do anything at all, social media included," Harnish said. 

"Spouses aren't subject to the UCMJ, so a commander who issued that order would be issuing a completely unlawful one — it has no force of law on the civilian spouse, and it can't be enforced against the service member either."

 itself for the threshold: an order "may not, without a valid military purpose, interfere with private rights or personal affairs."

Ordering a Sailor to police a spouse's Instagram, in his view, crosses that line. 

"The command can ask, brief, and educate their service members, but that's it; it is not an order," he said. 

"The only order a commander can lawfully give here runs to the service member's own account, and even that one has to serve a real military purpose like OPSEC rather than reach into private affairs."

Looking closely, the Navy's notice supports that threshold rather than contradicts it. The document asks Sailors to review "all social media accounts (including those of family members)," a request addressed to service members and civilians in the same breath, with no punitive clause attached.

"That is the most the Secretary of the Navy can do: tell a Sailor to look, and to ask," Harnish said. "If a commander wants something enforceable, he has to issue his own order, and that order stops at the Sailor's own account."

The distinction matters more than it might sound. A department-wide notice framed as a directive can read like a punitive command, the kind of thing you have to comply with without asking whether it's enforceable. Harnish's read indicates a gap between what the Navy is asking and what it can actually require.

The Military Has Silenced Itself Before: On Paper, Not Online

This isn't the first time an American war has required the government to control what its own service members say publicly about themselves and their affairs. It's just the first time it's happened to an all-volunteer force that was also being told to build a personal brand.

, whose surviving files are held by the National Archives as Record Group 216, ran a mail and communications review program covering letters, cables, and radio traffic in and out of the country.

Service members' mail was censored line by line for exactly what the Navy is now asking Sailors to scrub from Instagram: unit locations, troop strength, equipment details, and anything that could reveal morale.

No photographs of a military character, no descriptions of casualties ahead of official notification, no diaries kept and mailed home. It was, in effect, an entire force going dark by government order, one envelope at a time.

The 2026 version asks each individual Sailor, Marine, and Soldier to be their own censor, in real time, across an unlimited number of platforms, for content that used to be exactly what their own service wanted them to make. That's a much harder problem to solve with a single memo, and it's one no previous generation of service members has had to manage entirely of their own accord.

Neither directive says what replaces the recruiting content it's displacing. Army officials have stated the consolidated, higher-level accounts will "elevate" Soldier stories rather than remove them, but a centralized page run by a major command is a lot different than a company-level account posting three times a week about the everyday people in that unit, and it's the specific, authentic version that Pentagon research says moves the needle with Gen Z.

Whether centralized, secured messaging can replicate what grassroots soldier content did for recruiting, and whether a generation of service members who grew up online can be asked to scrub their own digital footprint without scrubbing away the exact content that made them effective recruiters in the first place.

For families navigating this now, the best move isn't waiting for the policy to resolve. It's assuming both directives are permanent; that means fewer official unit accounts to follow for information, and a personal account that now needs the same 

. Commands that want to keep any benefit of the old strategy will need to say, explicitly, what version of "authentic" content is even allowed to look like, because right now, the honest answer is that no one has fully defined it.

The Pentagon Wants Troops Offline, But Its Recruiting Strategy Depends on the Opposite

 will kick off a nine-day celebration starting August 22nd to mark its 110th birthday and commemorate the 250th anniversary of American independence. The nationwide event spans hundreds of parks and features a special free day for all U.S. residents, alongside ongoing free admission for current U.S. military members, Veterans, and Gold Star families.

, signed by President Donald J. Trump, the federal government moved this year's National Park Week schedule to include both the 110th birthday of the National Park Service and the 

250th anniversary of American Independence

. This shift moves the traditional spring celebration to late August, changing it directly to the agency's official August 25th birthday.

This year's theme for the week is to "Celebrate America's Story." Nothing has shaped America more than our troops. Spanning all 433 national sites, there will be plenty of patriotic programs, family activities, and historical tours. 

For the general public, entry fees will be waived on Tuesday, August 25th, 

allowing all U.S. residents to experience iconic landmarks, revolutionary battlefields, and natural landscapes without spending a dime on admission.

While everyday citizens can enjoy a single day free of charge, our nation's troops receive a permanent military national park pass. 

Current US military members, Veterans, and Gold Star families are entitled to free daily 

 and federal recreational sites every day of the year. However, the specific privileges vary slightly based on your military status:

 Eligible for an Annual Military Pass, which must be renewed each year at an entrance station.

: Eligible for a Lifetime Military Pass, which never expires and remains valid for the rest of your life.

It is important to note that these passes cover standard entrance fees. The pass waives vehicle and per-person entrance costs for the pass holder and all accompanying passengers in a single vehicle. 

 does not cover expanded amenity fees such as camping, parking, special tours, special permits, or ferries.

Securing your pass is simple as long as you have the right documentation ready before you arrive at the gate. Navigating the administrative requirements only becomes difficult when travelers assume verbal confirmation is enough. Park rangers are bound by strict legal guidelines; they cannot accept your word, military uniforms, or smartphone photos as valid proof of eligibility.

According to official guidance from the National Park Service Office of Public Affairs, Veterans typically run into two major logistical points of confusion at the gate:

"One common question concerns identification requirements... When using the pass, the pass holder must present valid identification that matches the name on the pass."

 at an entrance gate, the Office of Public Affairs states you must present a valid photo ID (like a state driver's license) along with one of these specific military credentials:

Department of Defense identification card (DD Form 2, DD Form 2765, or Next Generation USID)

Veterans Health Identification Card (VHIC)

An official Veteran Designation stamp on a U.S. state- or territory-issued driver's license

The second barrier is a misunderstanding regarding what the pass actually discounts. The Office of Public Affairs clarified:

"Another common question is whether the Military Lifetime Pass provides discounts on camping or other fees. The Military Lifetime Pass does not provide a discount on camping or other expanded amenity fees."

If you are a Veteran seeking broader discounts for lodging, some individuals may also qualify for alternative federal programs like the Senior Pass (for citizens age 62 and older) or the Access Pass (for citizens with a permanent disability), both of which do provide discounts on campsites and expanded amenity fees.

 If you want to bypass gate paperwork entirely, you can order your pass online ahead of time through the USGS Store. The pass itself is entirely free, but the online portal charges a non-refundable $10 processing and shipping fee to mail the physical plastic card to your home address.

Now that your physical pass is verified and in your wallet, you can confidently celebrate National Park Week. If you aren't sure where to map your road trip, these top national parks offer a blend of natural wonder and American heritage:

Glacier National Park, often referred to as the “Crown of the Continent,” is home to over one million acres of rugged hikes, valleys, and spectacular lakes. 

Trek through the pristine wilderness of the Logan Pass or witness the brilliance of the Grinnell Glacier. If you feel like taking a cruise, navigate the 50-mile Going-to-the-Sun Road, an engineering marvel that crosses the Continental Divide.

Yellowstone is the world’s first national park and is home to half of the world’s active geysers, including the iconic Old Faithful. The park features the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, where the river carves through Yellowstone cliffs and creates breathtaking waterfalls. 

Michael Madrid

Military News & Gear Specialist

Expertise

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Latest by Michael Madrid

The Marine Corps Is Paying up to $18,630 to Fill Its New Scout Platoons

The Race is On: States Compete to Host Hegseth’s ‘Next Great American Base’

Marine Corps Doubles Hostile Fire Pay in First Danger Pay Hike in Over 20 Years

A Look at the Longest U.S. Navy Carrier Deployments in History

The Pentagon Wants Troops Offline, But Its Recruiting Strategy Depends on the Opposite

The Marine Corps Is Paying up to $18,630 to Fill Its New Scout Platoons

The Race is On: States Compete to Host Hegseth’s ‘Next Great American Base’

Marine Corps Doubles Hostile Fire Pay in First Danger Pay Hike in Over 20 Years

A Look at the Longest U.S. Navy Carrier Deployments in History

The Pentagon Wants Troops Offline, But Its Recruiting Strategy Depends on the Opposite

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