Five Things to Know, July 31, 2023

1.   The Army’s recruitment numbers were so dire in the fall that country singer Craig Morgan turned to his friend, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and told her that he wanted to reenlist. There was one problem: At 58, the Army veteran was only a few years away from the military’s mandatory retirement age of 62. So Blackburn, then a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, decided to step in and help. She began working with the Defense Department and the Army, pressing them to allow Morgan to step back into uniform. It worked.

2.   Marine 1st Lt. Harvey “Barney” Barnum jumped to the ground when he came under fire during an ambush in Vietnam that killed his radio operator and commander. Collecting himself, Barnum realized he was now the highest-ranking officer of a rifle company he’d just joined. He called in artillery and, amid gunfire, dragged the commander to safety, where he died in Barnum’s arms. Then he proceeded to mount a counterattack, oversee evacuation of the wounded and lead the unit’s eventual break out to rejoin the battalion. The Medal of Honor recipient, now 83, watched Saturday as his wife smashed a bottle of sparkling wine against the bow to christen the future U.S. Navy destroyer that’ll bear the name Harvey C. Barnum Jr.

3.   U.S. and South Korean warships conducted an anti-submarine drill south of the Korean Peninsula over the weekend in response to North Korea’s “escalating” missile tests. The USS Annapolis, a Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine, joined South Korea’s Aegis-equipped Yulgok Yi destroyer and the Yi Sun-sin submarine south of Jeju Island to strengthen their response to the North Korean missiles and underwater threats, the ministry said in a news release Saturday.

4.   Russian missiles slammed into an apartment complex and a university building in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, killing four people and wounding dozens of others Monday as the blasts trapped residents beneath rubble, Ukraine’s interior minister said. One of the two missiles destroyed a section of the apartment building between the fourth and ninth floors, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Video showed black smoke billowing from corner units and burned out or damaged cars on a tree-lined street.

5.   The U.S. military on Okinawa is cleaning up, battening down and making ready for Typhoon Khanun’s expected arrival Wednesday morning. The storm, with the strength of a Category 4 hurricane, is expected to pass 64 miles southwest of Kadena Air Base around 5 a.m. Wednesday, the 18th Wing Weather Flight said by email Friday.