Tom Philpott has covered the military for more than 30 years. His syndicated column, Military Update, reaches 2 million readers and focuses on breaking news affecting pay, benefits, and the lifestyle of service people. He is a contributing editor with Military Officer, and his freelance articles have appeared in numerous magazines including The New Yorker, Washingtonian, Readers' Digest, and Kiplinger's. Philpott served a tour in the U.S. Coast Guard as an information officer.
NOAA's top officer has flown into close to 150 hurricanes. Now he's leading an organization that sends ships, airplanes, and officers to study important weather patterns.
TRICARE users filling prescriptions at test sites for MHS Genesis are likely the patient group most frustrated by the new, commercially designed electronic health record system, which will be phased in and adopted throughout the military health care system by 2022 in order to modernize the VA's record keeping process.
The House Veterans Affairs Committee voted unanimously to advance a bill that could qualify 90,000 vets for Agent Orange-related disability pay and health care.
A positive RAND report on the Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) might not comfort the 64,000 surviving spouses who continue to see their SBP cut or eliminated.
Congress ordered the PDBR established after evidence surfaced that service branches had been low-balling disability ratings, but so far only 19,000 veterans have applied from a pool of 71,000 known to be eligible for at least a disability rating review.