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Last month, a group of retired senior-ranking officers argued before a packed audience at the Capitol Hill Club that despite the near certainty of shrinking military budgets, there are ways to trim the Defense Department's spending without leaving the armed forces less-than-ready for combat. Their plan, they contend, could reduce the overall size of the military while actually increasing its combat power. And in doing so, it will support Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's call to revamp the military so that it remains sufficiently strong "under a cloud of budget restraints and uncertainty."

State police hope to entice active military personnel, veterans and full-time cops to join its ranks by allowing them to replace college credits with work experience. Gov. Tom Corbett announced on Wednesday that, effective immediately, state police cadets can get a waiver on some, or all, of required college credits if they served in the military or law enforcement for a certain amount of time.

Evaluation and feedback forms now include promoting a healthy organizational climate as a performance factor. The Air Force defines "organizational climate" as the way airmen in a unit perceive and characterize their environment. In other words, you'll be graded on how well you do at setting the tone around you. Promoting a healthy organizational climate is listed as a leadership skill under the performance factors section of the new officer performance reports. It is listed as a primary duty on the enlisted performance reports. "We'd like every airmen to go look at the rewrite of the Air Force Instruction so you know how you're expected to perform and be rated," Grosso said. "If you have any questions, talk to your military personnel section."

A revamped Navy facility is making waves to see how ships fare in the unpredictable conditions out on the ocean. Officials unveiled the new maneuvering and seakeeping, or MASK, facility at Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock, Md., on Dec. 19, which simulates the kinds of waves sailors might encounter underway and tests how ships would handle them. "The engineers in this facility for the past 50 years have evaluated the maneuverability, stability and control of virtually all of our surface ships and submarines in the fleet today," NSWC Carderock division commander Capt. Rich Blank said at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

The new year will bring new challenges and new approaches to solving old ones, everything from advancements in unmanned aircraft to a fleetwide program to reduce red tape. Here are a few things you need to know as 2014 begins.

All commanders, starting at company level, are ordered to assess the command climate in their units within six months. The Army wants specific emphasis on handling sexual assaults. Army Directive 2013-29, issued Dec. 23, tells commanders to conduct command climate assessments using the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute Organizational Climate Survey. The DEOCS survey measures organizational, equal opportunity, equal employment opportunity and sexual harassment/assault response and prevention issues.