It’s June 4, which marks the 500th day of President Donald Trump’s second term. Here at The War Horse, we’ve tracked every twist and turn related to the military and veterans since the president returned to office through Operation Timeline, an interactive tool covering everything from the president’s first executive orders to the United States’ ongoing war with Iran.

Since Jan. 20, 2025, The War Horse has logged more than 1,500 entries to Operation Timeline, providing readers an impartial view of military and veteran-related events, including Truth Social posts from the president, news articles, and press releases from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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A few highlights:

  • We’ve seen high-profile firings, resignations and retirements in the top military ranks. There has been unprecedented turnover among top brass, starting with the firing of Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Lee Fagan in Jan. 2025, and continuing with the departures of nearly two dozen top military officials since then, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown, Navy Secretary John Phelan, and the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. More recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth forced out three Army generals in a single day, including the service’s top officer, amid the war with Iran.
  • The Pentagon has carried out dozens of lethal strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats, killing roughly 200 people since Sept. 2025. After moving to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in Jan. 2025, the Trump administration shifted from the Coast Guard seizing drugs and detaining alleged traffickers to launching deadly strikes on boats suspected of carrying narcotics. The attacks in the Caribbean and the Pacific, which many legal experts criticize as extrajudicial killings, have driven a wedge between the U.S. and some allies.
  • The Department of Veterans Affairs has cut staff, closed offices, and canceled numerous contracts. Under the leadership of former Georgia Congressman Doug Collins, who was confirmed as VA Secretary in February 2025, cuts at the VA have included efforts to gut diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The agency initially planned to cut 80,000 jobs in total, but scaled back its target to 30,000 amid an outcry from veterans organizations. VA said it had already succeeded in shrinking its workforce thanks to a hiring freeze, retirements, resignations and other attrition. Some plans to cancel contracts were similarly reversed under pressure from veterans.
  • The Pentagon’s budget hit $1 trillion and could soar even higher. Previewing a historic budget for defense in April 2025, Hegseth promised to “spend every taxpayer dollar wisely—on lethality and readiness.” Meanwhile, the official estimated cost of the Iran war has reached $29 billion; the Pentagon is now asking Congress for a record-setting budget of $1.5 trillion, representing almost 5% of GDP.

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There’s so much more to explore on the Operation Timeline page, which you can filter by topic, military branch, or event type. We know it’s tough to keep up with the news. So hopefully, this project makes it a little easier.

Got an idea about how to make Operation Timeline better? Write to us at contactus@thewarhorse.org.

Amy DiPierro is an investigative data reporter at The War Horse. She was previously a reporter at EdSource and a data reporter for the Center for Public Integrity. She is a graduate of Swarthmore College and Stanford University, where she was a Knight-Hennessy Scholar and contributed to projects at Big Local News. She can be reached at amy.dipierro@thewarhorse.org and via Proton Mail at amy.dipierro@proton.me.