More than 950 cadets in the U.S. Military Academy’s Class of 2016 receive their Bachelor of Science degrees at Michie Stadium in West Point, N.Y., May 21, 2016.  Staff Sgt. Vito T. Bryant/Army | Military Times >> 

Today’s Top Stories 

A new survey of post-9/11 veterans finds an increase over a previous study in the number who contemplated suicide since joining the service and a belief among this group that the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments aren’t doing enough to address the problem. | Military Times >>

Just as America’s veterans organization are coming together to demand better government protection against deceptive and abusive practices by for-profit colleges, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) seems to want to move in the opposite direction. | Huffington Post >>

A Florida congressman says the Veterans Administration cut off the benefits of more 4,200 people nationwide after they were wrongly declared dead. | Associated Press >>

Iraq & Afghanistan

Kirkuk Gov. Najmaldin Karim swept to office on the promise of oil-fueled prosperity for residents of the Kurdish-majority province in northern Iraq. But, with oil exports at a record low, it’s a pledge that the former Washington-based neurosurgeon has failed to keep. | International Business Times >>

Four days after their leader was killed in an American drone strike, the Taliban broke their silence early Wednesday to announce that a lesser-known deputy, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, would take over and continue the group’s war against the Afghan government. | New York Times >>

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is preventing people from fleeing Fallujah amid a military operation to recapture the city west of Baghdad, a local Iraqi official and aid groups said on Wednesday. | CBS News >>

Military Affairs

A convoy of U.S. Army vehicles will cruise along Interstate 69 in Lapeer and St. Clair counties as part of an initial testing of driverless military vehicle equipment on public roadways. | The Washington Times >>

The Navy is in the early stages of building its own variant of the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft to perform its critical Carrier-Onboard-Delivery mission to delivery forces, supplies and weapons to forward-stationed ships at sea. | The National Interest >>

As the US Air Force prepares to declare its F-35A jets operational in just a few short months, the service is still working through software glitches that cause the jets systems to fail and need to be rebooted — sometimes mid-flight. | Defense News >>

#VETSRISING 

An Army veteran who lost his leg to a roadside bomb in Iraq reached the summit of Mount Everest on Tuesday, becoming the second combat amputee to climb the mountain in six days, according to a veterans group that sponsored the expedition. | USA Today >>

Marks, 25, has stolen away from the Olympic Training Center to savor this steaming cup of black coffee at a hipster café before going to “therapy,” or what she calls it when she gets work done on a tattoo that covers much of her right leg, which was severely injured when she deployed to Iraq as a combat medic. | ESPN >>

In Kansas City, hundreds of military veterans live without a house, apartment or even a permanent shelter to call home. Many have mental scars that make living in normal society difficult. | KCUR >>