ARLINGTON, Va. — Officials at the Pentagon have expressed concerns that plunging morale among American service members may be affecting service member morale, sources revealed today.

“We at the Department of Defense are deeply worried that the growing apathy of America’s war fighters may have a negative impact on America’s ability to fight wars,” said Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Ed Marquand.

“Though we are at present unsure of the exact root of the growing malaise, our researchers suspect that it may have something to do with almost two decades of perpetual conflict, a gradual decline in America’s international prestige, or endemic inefficiency across the military industrial complex.”

While the Pentagon’s recognition of this growing problem strikes many Americans as a step in the right direction, it remains unclear what actions the Pentagon will take to rectify the issue.

“We are currently exploring a number of possible solutions to increase the job satisfaction of our soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen,” Marquand said. “Currently, we suspect that if we find a way to make living more bearable for our military personnel, they may actually begin to enjoy being alive. Experiments conducted on laboratory animals and members of the Coast Guard support this theory.”

However, despite the Pentagon’s announcement, there are some across the military who disagree with any attempt to improve the the happiness of military members.

“Morale is a crutch,” an anonymous colonel stated in a recent suicide letter.

Nevertheless, many service members remain skeptical that conditions will improve anytime soon.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Lance Cpl. Marcus Strudelmeier of 7th Marine Regiment. “If Maj. Whatshisnuts thinks a little press conference will keep me from doing cough syrup jello shots in a desperate attempt to shuffle off this mortal coil, stand the fuck by.”

As of press time, Pentagon researchers were attempting to link overwhelming depression among E-5s and below with poor barracks Wi-Fi.

AFGHANISTAN — Marking the beginning of fall and a pivot towards a more bountiful, festive campaign season, an Air Force F-16 fighter dropped a pumpkin spice Joint Direct Attack Munition on a Taliban fighting position, sources confirmed today.

“There’s nothing more lovely than when the leaves start to turn and all of our munitions are spiced with a savory hint of nutmeg and ginger,” said Capt. Mitch Lozano, the pilot. “You can almost taste the cool, damp leaves of autumn and the rich musk of freshly cut hay in the air after every attack.”

Sources say the squadron’s pilots were sitting around the fire drinking pumpkin spice lattes, reminiscing on the change of seasons and the fleeting nature of life, when they received reports of an Afghan unit in need of support. In accordance with procedure, they donned their chestnut brown flight sweaters, placed their cozy helmets over their flaxen manes, and took to the skies in a chilly autumn wind.

“Oh, how enchanting to bring in the harvest with a crisp cool breeze and the scent of cinnamon and clove around the charred remains of your enemy’s corpse,” said Lozano. “There’s not much that says ‘autumn’ more than the warm palette of sepia and ochre colored leaves as you and your best friends fly off into the sunset after an aggressive gun run.”

At press time, the Air Force announced it was developing peppermint mocha armor-piercing 30mm cannon ammunition and gingerbread cruise missiles to be ready in time for Christmas.

BEAUFORT, S.C. — The Pentagon is hailing the first successful crash of an F-35 fighter in South Carolina, sources confirmed today.

Though officials cautioned that they were still hoping for a successful crash under combat conditions, the downing of an F-35 out of Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort is yet another historic feat for the $115 million aircraft, officials said.

The pilot ejected and was being evaluated by medical personnel and the F-35 program office for insight into whether officials could credit the pilot or Lockheed Martin for the aircraft hitting its most recent milestone. The crash came just one day after a different F-35B conducted its first combat strike in Afghanistan against an important enemy weapons cache of AK-47’s and RPG’s, costing the Pentagon only about $150,000 in spent munitions and aircraft flight hours.

“Just as the F-35 secretly outperformed the A-10 in a close air support role in the past, this aircraft has shown it is far better suited at crashing than the F-16,” said Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson.

The crash was considered by the Marine Corps as a “total loss” of the aircraft. Military analysts have also used that language to describe the F-35 program’s budget.

The Pentagon intends to buy more than 2,400 of the jets at a cost of the military budgets of China and Russia combined, or $406 billion.

LONDON — Nearly 50 years after the release of his counterculture number one hit “War (What is it good for),” unearthed notes from singer Edwin Starr’s estate reveal that he actually believed war was “quite good” for boosting the economy and creating jobs, sources confirmed today.

Although the song, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1969, was one of the most popular anti-Vietnam War songs of the era, Starr admitted in his private notes that there were some technical inaccuracies in the lyrics.

“While there are certainly many aspects of war I don’t like, my initial assessment that it is good for ‘absolutely nothing’ was a bit misguided,” Starr, who died in 2003, wrote in his personal diary. “I now realize that, despite war’s shortcomings, it plays a vital role in the economics of our country.”

Starr’s diary went on to say that when he initially performed the song in 1970, statistical data about job creation in the defense industry was not yet available. Nowadays, he said, defense giants like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon provide stable, well-paying jobs to thousands of Americans across the country.

“I’m still totally against the whole ‘death and destruction’ part of war, but from a commercial point of view it kind of makes sense,” the diary went on. “I would never have had the success I had if it weren’t for war.”

His diary went on to reveal more verses to the song that expand upon the various fiscal benefits of war which did not make the final cut.

“It ain’t nothin’ but a heart breaker,” goes the second verse, “but it is quite effective at reducing the bottleneck in entry-level civilian employment, oh-oo-oh yeah.”

“Lord knows there’s got to be a better way, whoa-oo-whoa, ya’ll,” Starr sings at the end of the song. “But, for now, war seems to lead to technological innovation and a sense of national unity and community involvement unequalled during most other periods in our history, good Lord, yeah.”

Dirty contributed reporting.

NASHVILLE — The Seamons family wanted nothing more than their father to return from his one-year deployment to Bahrain, but in keeping with the ongoing trend of emotionally manipulating your children for social media gain, Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Bill Seamons delivered a coffin to the front door of his residence and hid inside it, sources confirmed today.

Seamons made his most recent homecoming his most surprising and fantastic yet, and the psychotic mother, Tara, was in on the whole thing. She recorded the kid’s reaction to opening the door and seeing coffin, which was draped with an American flag, laid silent at their doorstep with two airmen in service dress blues. The coffin had a letter attached to it that Bill wrote to his family in the event of his death, apologizing for dying and that he won’t be around any longer to watch them grow up.

“I am so proud of all of you and the people you have grown up to be,” the youngest in the family, Billy, read aloud, his voice quivering with grief. “I only request that you open my casket and give me one last kiss before I am buried with my brothers. I love you with all my heart and I miss you very much, Daddy,” he continued, as the family began to cry uncontrollably as he finished the letter.

The mother encouraged Billy to open the casket, and when he did, Seamons burst out and yelled, “SURPRISE!” When the family looked up, their father was standing in front of them, alive and well.

The family’s joyous reaction to seeing their dad after a whole year, and briefly believing that he had been killed in action, has brought many people to tears as they’ve watched the moment online, according to Military Homecoming Analytics, a firm that specializes in measuring social media reaction to videos of returning service members.

The Seamons family are used to their father’s antics. One time the father sent a fake beheading video posted to YouTube, only to be followed by Bill revealing himself as one of the terrorists and playing the Rick Roll song.

“I’m going to share this reaction video with the whole internet,” said Seamons of his latest video. “I’m sure we’ll be on Ellen, Jimmy Fallon, and James Cordon in a few weeks and then this whole thing will be worth the years of therapy my kids will have to endure.”

BEAVERTON, Ore. — Nike has issued a public apology to the military community after creating an advertisement featuring the text “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything,” over a picture of a football player who is not a military veteran, sources confirmed today.

“We completely forgot that the only sacrifice that means anything is that of our brave men and women in uniform,” Nike CEO Mark Parker wrote in a tweet on Thursday, days after a backlash erupted over an ad campaign that featured Colin Kaepernick.

“I failed to remember that until I saw a meme where conservatives appropriated the image of fallen warrior Pat Tillman’s face in our ad instead of Kaepernick’s. It highlighted how mutually exclusive their two sacrifices are and emphasized the military monopoly on sacrifice.”

When reached for further comment, Parker also cited the success of images and videos on social media protesting Nike’s ad by showing service members cutting the Nike swoosh logo off their apparel.

“It’s a well-known fact that companies can’t bear to watch customers disrespect their symbol,” he told reporters. “To put it into perspective, it’s almost as painful for us to witness as it is for others to see someone kneel during the national anthem.”

Parker followed up with another tweet after his original apology was well received.

“Thank you for leveraging the image of a deceased hero to remind Nike and its leadership of the only manifestation of bravery and expression of patriotism, which is service in the armed forces. I’m sure Corporal Tillman would appreciate you speaking up on his behalf in a hotly debated topic like this.”

HOLLYWOOD — “Ruff, ruff! What’s that girl? You’ll never be happy with an airframe that tries air to ground troop support that can also land on a carrier? Aww, girl. Thanks, Lassie!”

And so starts the recently discovered lost tape from the beloved 1950s-1970s television show Lassie, where 19-year-old Timmy Martin, now off the farm and a homesick newly enlisted airman stationed at Langley Air Force Base, sneaks his beloved dog Lassie into the barracks. True to form, Lassie patiently listens to Timmy’s complaints about the F-15 Eagle, gently nuzzling him back to settling down with incremental change and multiple platforms and away from over-designing the F-35.

That dog’s a hero!

The tape appears to be from 1970, but certain details show Lassie’s uncanny ability to see into the future and know that Timmy will someday become an engineer at Lockheed Martin, and with enough barking, jumping, and dancing around in a circle, she could stop Timmy from making the most expensive weapons system in history a total clusterf–k.

That good girl deserves $1.3 trillion dollars in milk bones!

Due to massive delays, Lassie never lived to see the final F-35 underperform against the F-16 in air-to-air trials, or go out to the force without its full airspeed.

After all, all those production delays added up to 386 dog years! The tape ends with Lassie causing a disruption by stealing the table cloth under the buffet at the enlisted club, which stops Timmy from sexually harassing a female airman. Lassie then alerts the PJs and parachutes in with them after Timmy falls down the base well.

Got a room or building filled with insurgents right in front of you and need to clear it? An Air Force combat controller knows the best way forward. As an elite special operations airman skilled in the art of call for fire and precision air strikes, here is step-by-step guide.

1. Identify the number of troops entering a room

It’s crucial to understand the size of the enemy element before determining the appropriate level of force to apply in any given situation.

A two-man observation post may simply call for a solid burst from the 30mm on a hovering AH-64, or perhaps a few marking “Willy Pete” rockets through the window to burn the defenders alive and really send a message to the rest of the compound that you’re not fucking around.

But if it’s a larger space, such as a multi room, multi-story complex, perhaps you want to choose something with a little more “oomph.” My personal favorite is a 500 lb GBU-38/B on one of the smaller structures. Once the survivors have clustered together in the remaining rooms, follow up with a nice 1,000 lb GBU-32(V)1/B to finish the job.

If your target is high value and positive identification is required, you may want to stick with multiple smaller yield payloads, which usually keeps the eyes and hands intact for the biometric analysis during the battlefield damage assessment.

2. Predict the shape of the room based on what it looks like from the outside

The exterior layout of a structure gives away a lot of information about what the inside might look like. If it’s a corner fed room, that leads dead space which may protect enemy personnel from the organ-liquefying overpressure of direct attack munitions, so be sure to place your ordnance “center of mass” on the structure, or risk leaving a few combatants alive and having to call in a 20mm gun-run, which takes time and unnecessary ammunition.

If you have a large compound or a multiple building layout with alternating room sizes, a CBU-105 over the entire area will seed dozens of bomblets, doing massive structural damage while inducing the remaining personnel to evacuate the area and expose themselves to small arms fire from the cordon element.

3. Consider the size of each step taken

When dropping ordnance or calling in aerial gunfire, the size of the munition is critical.

Yes it’s incredibly satisfying to watch a 2,000 pounder destroy five acres of poppy fields and 2/3rds of the adjacent village, but there may be a limited supply of those at the nearest airfield. Bombs are expensive after all. I prefer to just let the [A-10] hog drivers go to town and pick up the pieces afterwards.

Ever heard a GAU-8 tear apart a column of Toyota Hilux’s? That’s the sound of freedom.

4. Once you clear the first sector, move on but don’t flag your teammates

After raining death and destruction for an hour or so, it may be tempting to think an area is clear. However, you see some surprising things in combat. Just because the occupants of one house have been reduced to a fine pink goo doesn’t mean the grape-hut next to it isn’t filled with some really pissed off Taliban fighters waiting for the ringing in their ears to stop.

For more information on how to properly clear a room or reduce large numbers of human beings into unrecognizable chunks of meat, see your local Air Force recruiter.