The U.S. Air Force has fielded several Lockheed Martin-built F-35A Lightning II aircraft in England for the first time to carry out training exercises with NATO member countries, the Defense Department said Saturday.

The F-35A fighter jets from the 419th and 388th fighter wings at Hill Air Force Base in Utah arrived Saturday at England-based Royal Air Force Lakenheath and will stay for several weeks in Europe to train with allied countries as part of the European Reassurance Initiative.

The deployment seeks to help the Air Force demonstrate the fighter jet’s operational capabilities and streamline the requirements for positioning the aircraft in Europe as the continent prepares to get F-35As by early 2020s, DoD said in a separate news release published Friday.

The service branch’s Air Mobility Command supported the F-35A deployment in Europe and several refueling planes from four various military bases offered at least 400,000 pounds of fuel during the “tanker bridge” operation between the U.S. and Europe.

The military branch used C-5 Galaxy and C-17 Globemaster III aircraft to fly staff and maintenance equipment to England.

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pennsylvania) has introduced a bill that seeks to prevent the U.S. Army from phasing out a variant of the Patriot missile system used to intercept ballistic missiles.

The Patriot Inventory Protection Act would keep the MIM-104 Patriot Guidance Enhanced Missile TBM in the Army’s inventory in an effort to mitigate a potential shortage of Patriot missiles and bring work to the Letterkenny Army Depot, Shuster’s office said April 6.

Letterkenny primarily serves as the Army’s missile depot and GEM-T is a major driver of the depot’s workload.

Shuster’s office noted it would cost approximately $359,000 to recertify each GEM-T while the price of a new missile system could amount to $5 million.

The Army decided not to recertify the system in fiscal 2013 due to spending challenges that the military branch attributed to the implementation of the Budget Control Act, Defense News reported Thursday.

Jen Judson writes a congressional staffer said the service branch wants to retain the GEM-T variant if funds become available.

The proposed legislation would require the Army to evaluate its capacity to meet requirements and operational needs if GEM-Ts were taken out of the inventory, Judson reported.

The U.S. Navy has evaluated the launch-and-recovery functions of a Northrop Grumman-built MQ-8C Fire Scout helicopter and its interoperability with a littoral combat ship as part of an interface test.

The Navy said Tuesday its MQ-8C unmanned autonomous helicopter has returned from the USS Montgomery after the helicopter completed more than 37 recovery missions over a seven-day period to assess the helicopter’s capacity for continued operations in environments with electromagnetic interference, pitch, roll and wind challenges.

Fire Scout functions alongside the Sikorsky-built MH-60 manned helicopter to help extend the range and endurance of ship-based operations as well as provide situational awareness and precision target data to the service branch.

Richard Gorman, Fire Scout lead assistant program manager for test and evaluation, said the test will help establish the flight envelope for the execution of MQ-8C deployments aboard littoral combat ships.

Capt. Jeff Dodge, Fire Scout program manager, said the evaluation also helped the service branch verify the helicopter’s capacity to serve as a Navy maritime platform.

Adm. Paul Zukunft, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, has said a lack of full-year appropriations would harm the service branch’s readiness programs, DoD News reported Wednesday.

Lisa Ferdinando writes Zukunft told reporters Wednesday that a continuing resolution would “sideline” military branches including the Coast Guard and that his biggest concern is to achieve budget certainty.

A continuing resolution that currently funds government operations is set to expire April 28.

The report said the Coast Guard aims to grow its fleet of 58 fast-response cutters; add a ninth national security cutter; and expand its fleet of six icebreakers for missions in the polar regions.

Zukunft added the branch faces an increasing backlog of shore maintenance works.

The U.S. Army wants to establish a facility in San Antonio, Texas, that will offer housing, healthcare and employment assistance to military veterans as they transition back into civilian life, Fox San Antonio reported Wednesday.

Emily Baucum writes the service branch aims to open the military transition support center near Fort Sam Houston next year.

Kevin Wolff, Bexar County commissioner, said the local government will be in contact with active-duty military units before they transition out of service in an effort to help them identify housing, physical and mental healthcare and job opportunities, according to the report.

The report noted that the service branch might apply the concept nationwide if the San Antonio facility produces positive results.

Defense Secretary James Mattis has said that Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government is responsible for the April 4 chemical weapons attack on its citizens and called the U.S.-led missile strike on April 6 against the Middle Eastern country’s Shayrat air base a “measured military response,” DoD News reported Tuesday.

Terri Moon Cronk and Lisa Ferdinando write Mattis said Tuesday during a joint press conference at the Pentagon with Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, that the regime’s attack is a violation of the international law.

“In response to the attack, our government began a deliberate process, led by the National Security Council, to recommend diplomatic and military options to the president,” Mattis told reporters.

Mattis said in a statement released Monday that the measured response seeks to deter Assad’s regime from using chemical weapons in future attacks.

He added that the missile strike at Shayrat airfield led to the destruction of 20 percent of Syria’s aircraft, air defense systems as well as ammunition and fuel sites.