SANTA’S WORKSHOP — The North Pole is in the midst of a readiness crisis as it struggles to fill its pilot ranks with qualified reindeer, who are leaving the service in record numbers to work at commercial sleighlines, sources confirmed today.

Santa Claus claims he has only 75 percent of the deerpower he needs to deliver presents this year, especially in crucial heavy lift squadrons.

“This is truly alarming. There is no way I’ll be able to deliver presents to all the good girls and boys, let alone coal to all the naughty ones,” said Claus. “The reindeer we do have are being worked to the antler, flying three or four gumdrop sorties a day.”

Santa is offering hefty incentive bonuses to keep reindeer from leaving for more lucrative jobs at commercial sleighlines like Hoofthansa. But even offers of triple helpings of moss and herbs are not enough to keep them in the service. Unless he can fix the retention problem soon, Santa says he might have to cancel Christmas across large swaths of North and South America.

“We’re trying to do more with less, but the fact is that’s impossible,” said Lt. Col. Rudolph, commander of Red Squadron. “With this Op Tempo, my guys already refuse to fly over Detroit and Chicago. It’s just too dangerous.”

The average reindeer costs about $1 million and takes 3 years to train, according to North Pole figures. The North Pole needs to keep those ruminants in its ranks past their initial commitment to maximize return on its investment.

“Not only are large numbers of reindeer getting out, our best reindeer are getting out,” said Rudolph. “Donner and Blitzen dropped papers last week, and Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen all took private jobs at Doeing testing unmanned sleighs.”

While Claus increasingly has been filling the ranks with unmanned aerial sleighs (UASs), turnover among the elves who pilot them has also been an issue.

“These UAS pilots are always on the clock, delivering presents to hundreds of houses an hour from thousands of miles away,” he said. “Nobody can handle that much Christmas cheer. Nobody.”

Two months ago, President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new branch of military service within the Department of Defense, the U.S. Space Force. A recently released Pentagon report revealed that, almost immediately after the President’s announcement, a Pentagon official named Mr. James Fortran deployed to various locations within the U.S. in an attempt to find an answer to the question that what was cited as “the Space Force’s most significant hurdle in its long road to activation:”

“What will the uniforms look like?”

The report details that Fortran was first sent to California to meet with interested uniform suppliers. Bored by extraordinarily simple suggestions like “let’s make human exosuits with built-in jetpacks” or cost-effective, nonsensical ideas such as “just keep the same design as the rest of the military, you idiot,” Fortran decided to head to the San Francisco Comic Con event for inspiration.

The images featured above represent a portion of Fortran’s portfolio, which he submitted to the Pentagon at the conclusion of his trip. Published transcripts from his presentation cite him as commenting that “they’re perfect… look at how eccentric, robust, and forward-thinking these designs are! When Americans think of space marines, this is what they will picture in their minds.”

Fortran’s portfolio also mentions a meeting with Bungie, the creators of the Halo gaming universe. Details from this meeting were unfortunately classified, but Fortran was cited as stating that the meeting went “very, very well” and that the ensuing discussion was “very, very promising” in the presentation’s transcripts.

Fortran has returned to the Pentagon, where a series of meetings are currently underway to evaluate his findings. The Pentagon declined to comment on any specifics relating to the consideration of Fortran’s uniform findings. However, inside sources revealed that Captain Charles Bunkley of the United States Navy, who led the introduction of the blue type 1 working uniform made to have sailors blend in with the ocean, suggested a black uniform imprinted with various constellations, nebulas, and galaxies. It appears as if this idea is also being seriously considered.

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is getting one extra F-35 this year, thanks to the Department of Veterans Affairs screwing thousands of veterans out of GI Bill benefits.

Lord pounced on the lost funds after VA officials told Congressional staffers that underpaid benefits would not be reconciled. Fixing the payment issue would require the VA to audit potentially millions of past claims, which is just too much work. For now, it seems the VA will simply uphold the time-honored tradition of fucking veterans while publicly promising to stop fucking veterans.

“Lethality is the Department’s top priority,” said Ellen M. Lord, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment. “We are one step closer to achieving it thanks to all you soon-to-be homeless and degree-less student vets. Thank you for service and your housing allowance.”

The withheld money was slated for repurposing to the Booz Allen Hamilton IT contract responsible for implementing the glitch-filled payment system, but Lord managed to re-appropriate it to Lockheed Martin instead.

When asked about the impact to current veterans, Lord demurred.

“It’s a terrible situation, for sure, but we’re in the business of creating veterans, not sending them to Columbia University,” she said. “And just look at all those F-35 capabilities. It even has pockets!”

Unfortunately, just enough student veterans received at least partial payment, so the Pentagon can only afford an F-35 Lightning I½. A spokeswoman for Lockheed Martin confirmed that the purchase still counted toward Lord’s loyalty rewards punch card. The Pentagon needs to purchase 94 more Joint Strike Fighters before the defense contracting behemoth throws in free cockpit cup holders.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie shocked his department with a promise that every last dime would be repaid — no easy task as the Pentagon already cashed the check.

“Good luck with that, Bob,” said Lord, “but for now, mama’s gettin’ her F-35.”

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense is granting a $3 billion contract to Green Beans Coffee to complete the construction of 2,000 locations along the border.

The move, which was announced today by Secretary of Defense James Mattis, may signal that U.S. troops will remain at the border longer than originally anticipated. Troop conditions along the border have widely been reported as sub-standard.

“This is way worse than Iraq, at least there we had a Pizza Hut and got a ribbon,” said Cpl. James O’Flannigan who is deployed along the border in Texas.

Mattis cast the move as an employment opportunity for the migrant caravan rapidly approaching the border.

“These folks need jobs,” he said. “What better way to help these young men and women achieve the American dream then to employ them in a coffee shop that serves America’s finest.”

When asked how much the migrants could be expected to earn as Green Beans employees, Mattis whispered, “Their freedom.”

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a senior official at the Pentagon offered another explanation for the contract.

“These coffee shops aren’t near the wall, they are the wall,” the official said. “It was the only way to get Congress to fund the construction.”

Other Defense Department officials speculated that the Green Beans contract was awarded for reasons of expediency.

“Anyone who is deployed knows Green Beans are essentially plywood shacks. They can probably have them all built in a week,” said one staffer with direct knowledge of the move.

Green Beans’ official press release praised the move.

“We at Green Beans are thrilled to expand our business in peacetime. Usually, we have to lobby Congress to start needless foreign wars in order to increase revenue. This peacetime expansion offers a great opportunity to sell terrible and overpriced coffee to America’s heroes,” the statement read.

Green Beans has already started production of a new line of t-shirts, mugs, and sweatshirts that read “I served with honor near Mexico.”

WASHINGTON — Despite failing the first audit in its over 70 year history, the Pentagon is being promoted to the rank of hexagon in a move that surprised few but angers many, sources confirmed today.

The promotion comes after the completion of a year-long audit where the Department of Defense passed only five of 21 assessed areas, with an overall failure for the DoD. The audit identified significant issues with information security and inventory management.

Such a high profile failure sometimes ends careers, but some question why the Pentagon is not being held accountable for its poor performance.

“How the hell did it fail?” asked Staff Sgt. Alan Hickman, a member of the Army Staff. “What, seven decades wasn’t enough time to prepare? Haven’t we been managing inventories since like 1776 or something? Any moron who tanks an audit with that much lead time should get shit canned, forget a promotion. This is fuck up and move up.”

Air Force Capt. Charles “Butthurt” Butarski seemed to agree, telling reporters, “This is obviously favoritism because nobody is questioning why we failed on information security. Seriously — three years ago a bunch of hackers stole files on 22 million people from the OPM server and the Pentagon is still fixing shit at about the pace of a three-toed sloth.”

Still, some senior-ranking personnel offered differing viewpoints.

“This promotion is completely normal and well deserved,” said a military flag officer who asked to not be named. “The audit failure is certainly serious, but it shouldn’t tarnish the Pentagon’s otherwise stellar career, at least not any more than failures affect senior officers who then miraculously survive misconduct investigations with apparent impunity.”

Kathryn Gillerson, a Department of the Navy Civilian, said she wasn’t surprised the Pentagon was finally making Hexagon.

“It’s part of the old boy network. If I failed that audit they’d send me to run a shoppette on Kwajalein Atoll. They’ll probably hold a promotion party and yuk it up about the good old days of Fat Leonard bashes.”

Sources said that to address the audit issues, immediately after promotion the Pentagon will require all employees to re-take the DoD Cyber Awareness Challenge and will improve inventory management through new contracted support. Several Chinese and Russian companies are reportedly competing for the effort.

WASHINGTON – Legislators, members of the press, and hearing attendees were stunned today when a general’s jaw fell apart during testimony in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee after a career of talking out of both sides of his mouth.

The fracture came on the heels of the general saying, “We remain an agile fighting force ready to fight and win the nation’s wars,” moments after remarking that “the force is under-resourced, over-deployed, and suffering from low morale.”

Sources close to the general suggest that this injury is not the result of an isolated moment but rather a career of wear and tear.

“He’s been a people pleaser as long as I have known him,” remarked one former aide-de-camp.

The general was only a few minutes into his prepared remarks when the injury occurred. Among the topics not yet addressed was the recent embarrassment of numerous service members involved in a nude photo phishing scam run by prison inmates.

“It’s actually lucky his jaw fell apart when it did,” remarked the general’s current aide. “He was about to say, ‘I continue to be nothing but inspired by the intelligence and integrity of our young soldiers every day,’ right before announcing that he was mandating an Army-wide safety stand down to learn about the dangers of sexting.”

The general expressed regret over the years of self-service that lead to his injury.

“I am ashamed of my years of pandering to whatever audience is in front of me and like a good soldier, I will fade away,” the general said in a press release after the incident. “I plan to distance myself from my embarrassing past by posting weekly nonsensical leadership platitudes to LinkedIn.”

PENTAGON – Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson announced today that the Air Force would limit future rotations to Afghanistan to a three-hour tour with free lunch.

“These exotic tours should hit peak efficiency by limiting Air Force personnel to groups of five or so. The limited duration will keep burnout low and enthusiasm high.” said Wilson. “We’ll put America’s Airmen on expertly skippered three-hour tours.”

“A three-hour tour,” echoed Wilson’s aide.

The shortened tours are expected to increase the likelihood of Air Force Reserve personnel with unique civilian skill sets – such as professors, movie stars, millionaires, and millionaires’ wives – to volunteer for deployments.

“We used to require lengthy pre-deployment training,” Wilson added. “Today’s airmen don’t even need to pack. They’ll be on the ground for three hours.”

Wilson, who also introduced the new C-130M Minnow, emphasized how easy it was to get out of Afghanistan efficiently before concluding the press conference.

WASHINGTON — A light drizzle in Kandahar has prompted the president to cancel the war in Afghanistan, according to a white house press conference.

Weather forecasts were optimistic at first, saying that the rain was going to pass within a few hours, but it soon became clear that the inclement weather wasn’t going anywhere.

“At first, we thought about just postponing it,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters. “But ultimately, we got together and decided that you really can’t predict the weather, so we felt it was best to just cancel the whole thing.”

“Nobody was going to show up anyway,” Sanders continued. “Most people didn’t even know it was going on in the first place. Hell, Ezra Klein didn’t even know we were at war five days ago.”

A redeployment effort began immediately, with members of the Army striking tents at all forward operating bases and organizing airlift back to U.S. and European bases. Air Force bases throughout the middle east have already set their Nest thermostats to “vacation” mode to save energy. Approximately 8,000 U.S. troops have already begun packing their bags, though even that has been difficult due to the rain.

“I’ve got all these first edition comic books that I brought with me, and I’m really scared about what all this moisture is going to do to them,” said 2nd Lt. Michael Skewski. “First edition, man.”

Although the decision has drawn criticism from many who say that the Taliban will exploit this opportunity to regain power in most of war-torn Afghanistan, members of the enemy forces have shown equal reluctance to fight in such dreary conditions.

“We’re in agreement with the decision to cancel the Afghanistan war,” said Salah bin Sadiqi, representative of the Taliban. “Have you ever tried to plant an IED in wet ground? You just keep digging, and the mud keeps flowing back into the hole. It takes, like, infinite time. Total mess.”

“Trouble is,” said Khalid al Akhtar, a suicide bomber, “I had already pressed the button when I got word that the war was cancelled. Now I’ll have to keep my finger on this trigger right here for the rest of my life if I don’t want to blow up. Seriously though, who wants to die in the rain?”

President Donald Trump has declared that the war is to be canceled immediately and has been looking at weather reports for the last several days. Some gathering clouds over Seoul, South Korea, have sparked talks about closing all U.S. bases in southeast Asia.

Dirty contributed to this post.