In 2009 the Air Force conducted beta classes in which it trained officers who had not previously been pilots to be UAV operators. (It also created new “wings” for the RPA pilots and granted them flight pay.) Earlier this year, the first non-pilots graduated into the RQ-4 Global Hawk, a keyboard-operated UAV.
Now, the first non-prior pilots have graduated to become MQ-9 Reaper operators:
This marks the first time a student pilot Read more
Are Michael Weinstein’s predictions of a fundamentalist Christian coup in America coming to fruition?
Newly-promoted Chaplain (MajGen) Howard Stendahl was recently appointed Chief of Air Force Chaplains, making him the senior ranking chaplain in the US Air Force. His promotion was one of the first major acts for the Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen Mark Welsh: Read more
The Palm Center, an activist group that advocated for repeal of the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” has publicized a “study” (PDF) it conducted that purports to put to bed claims that open service by homosexuals in the US military will ever be anything other than a “non-event,” based on an analysis of the “one-year mark.”
The first academic study of the effects of repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) has found that the new policy of open service has had no overall negative impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, recruitment, retention or morale…
While the story is being repeated in a couple of places, it seems few have actually read the report. For example, the “academic study” is based on the following samples:
The recent remarks by Gen John Allen that Ramadan contributed to the rise in attacks by Afghan Soldiers on allied troops — despite the fact Ramadan has occurred yearly in the decade long war — inspired Andrew Boston, author of The Legacy of Jihad, to look a little deeper. Boston cited an unclassified report dated 12 May 2011 by a “red team” of American analysts.
In an odd twist, just yesterday the Stars and Stripes noted this very report was rejected by the military and its author, Jeffrey Bordin, was blacklisted — yet it is now being used to guide some parts of the American conduct in Afghanistan.
The report goes into a long investigation of the tension between US and Afghan military members, including multiple references to “near-fratricides” — in which Afghans (most often) or US troops (occasionally) threatened each other with loaded weapons: Read more
As has become tradition, President Obama declared this past weekend leading up to September 11th “days of prayer and remembrance:”
I ask that the people of the United States honor and remember the victims of September 11, 2001, and their loved ones through prayer, contemplation, memorial services, the visiting of memorials, the ringing of bells, evening candlelight remembrance vigils, and other appropriate ceremonies and activities.
He specifically noted military service following the Read more
Sometimes the headlines just write themselves.
American Atheists Condemn the Decision to Include God in the 2012 Democratic Platform
At least there’s no question as to how they feel about that.
While some question the stability — and the political alliances — of their government back home, a group of Iraqi pilots has become the first to begin training in US F-16s:
Two Iraqis have joined aspiring fighter pilots from the United States, Singapore, Poland, Denmark, Japan and the Netherlands at the U.S. Air Force’s international F-16 schoolhouse at Tucson International Airport.
A “senior delegation” recently visited to “assess their students’ progress.”
Iraq is reportedly expecting to receive F-16s in 2014.
Col Gregory Gross, the judge presiding over the murder trial of US Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan for the Fort Hood massacre, followed through on his threat and issued an order that Hasan must shave — or he will be shaved.
Gross…issued his order Thursday after a hearing to determine whether a federal religious freedom law applied to Hasan’s case. Soldiers may be granted permission to grow beards for religious reasons, and six soldiers have been allowed to do so: a rabbi, two Muslim doctors and three Sikhs, according to Army records.
Hasan said he is violating regulations not out of disrespect, but of religious requirement:
Hasan told the judge last week that he grew a beard because his Muslim faith requires it, not as a show of disrespect. Gross ruled Thursday that the defense didn’t prove Hasan is growing a beard for sincere religious reasons.
While the whole concept might sound a bit odd to outsiders, forced Read more