Tag Archives: air force

UAV Pilots in Nevada to Receive Combat Time

The Air Force has decided that operators of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, also known as Remotely Piloted Aircraft, RPAs) can log time in combat — even if they never leave the desert of Nevada:

Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III authorized RPA aircrews to log combat time when flying an aircraft within designated hostile airspace, regardless of the aircrew’s physical location.

What is unclear is whether those same operators will now be entitled to Imminent Danger Pay (Combat Pay) and the Combat Zone Tax Exclusion (CZTE).

Allowing those operators to claim “combat” time while physically Read more

US Military Celebrates Jesus Christ’s Resurrection in Baghdad, 2016

How many people thought after the US invaded Iraq in 2003 that we’d still be celebrating Easter in Baghdad in 2016?

In Iraq, chaplains and their support teams used air and ground support to provide Easter services for troops throughout the country, including the location formerly known as Fire Base Bell — the small outpost attacked a little more than a week prior.

The Easter sunrise service was just one of five religious services held at Union III and one of many services across the CJFLCC-OIR area of operations in celebration of the holiday.

A few official news sources have begun to document this year’s other celebrations of Easter by US military forces around the world.

Aboard the USS Nitze:  Read more

Retired Airman Thrown Out of Ceremony Because of Religion

oscarIn a drama that can only be described as tragic and embarrassing, US Air Force NCOs physically tossed retired Senior Master Sergeant Oscar Rodriguez out of a Travis AFB retirement ceremony (and the building in which it was being conducted) — even after the retiree, Chuck Roberson, had invited him to narrate his retirement flag ceremony. The video, made public first at John Q. Public and since repeated at FoxNews, is at once disturbing and enraging.

Retired LtCol Tony Carr does a decent job of hammering the shameful and inappropriate mistreatment of the retired SMSgt. What was interesting, though, was the Air Force’s official response. As quoted Read more

Book Review: Pulling Gs: Fighter Pilot Perspectives on Faith

pullinggsHugh Vest
CrossLink Publishing, 2014

Pulling Gs is a unique take on the application of the fighter pilot perspective to the Christian faith. Author Hugh “Huge” Vest is a retired USAF F-16 pilot who deftly takes stories from his vast experience in the fighter pilot world and relates them to similar experiences, joys, and struggles as a Christian.

In each chapter, Huge tells the tale of a significant fighter pilot event — some factual, some fun, some tragic — and then applies it as an analogy to living life and the Christian faith. Each chapter ends with thought-provoking “debrief” questions that encourage introspection and personal challenge.

For example, he describes the concepts and experiences of the eponymous “pulling Gs,” and then describes how people can assess the G-stresses in their own life. At the end of the chapter, Huge asks the reader to consider the stresses in their lives, their sources, and how they cope with them — and to consider if the Christian’s tools of hope and faith can increase their “g-tolerance.”

Huge’s analogies and his interconnection Read more

Chaplains, the Constitution, and Spiritual Backgrounds

An Air Force article about a shortage of chaplains at Creech Air Force base opened with an important statement:

With every airman having a different faith, each has something unique to add to the mission.

Implicit in that statement is something often forgotten:  The Air Force recognizes (or should recognize) virtue in the fact its Airmen have religious beliefs.

Another interesting Air Force article about military chaplains from Ramstein, Germany, explained what chaplains do and where they come from:  Read more

Air Force Again Recognizes Fundamentalist Christian Fighter Pilot

Michael “Mikey” Weinstein reserved special vitriol for US Air Force Major Christina “Thumper” Hopper when he accused her of being

the literal Poster Child [sic] of American fundamentalist Christian military Crusaderism.

Her high crime and misdemeanor? She had the gall to be quoted saying this in an Air Force personal story article:

The reason and the purpose behind everything I do is to glorify God and to make his name known.

For that reason only, Mikey Weinstein — “defender” of religious freedom — accused Hopper of Read more

New Air Force Bomber, Old Bomber Design

At the end of February the US Air Force revealed a concept drawing of its proposed Long Range Strike Bomber. The new bomber looks strikingly like the Air Force’s old bomber:

b21The as-yet unnamed bomber has been designated the B-21. (The similarity in appearance to the B-2 already has some re-designating it the “B-2.1”.) While that number would Read more

Air Force Replaces POW Bible with “Book of Faith”

Update: Follow-ups by US Air Force Chaplain and Congressman Doug Collins, Christian Today, and the Christian News Network.

powtable1Last Thursday Michael “Mikey” Weinstein’s MRFF trumpeted his influence in getting a VA clinic to remove a Bible and Bible verse from a POW/MIA table. The story was essentially ignored until FoxNews’ Todd Starnes reported on it yesterday [emphasis added]:

A Bible and Bible verse were removed from a POW/MIA display inside an Ohio Veteran’s Administration clinic after the notorious Military Religious Freedom Foundation complained.

The religious artifacts were part of a “Missing Man Table” recently erected by volunteers at an outpatient clinic in Akron.

Weinstein called the presence of Bible a “violation of the US Constitution.” While the VA didn’t necessarily agree, in an ill-fated attempt to avoid offending someone, they kowtowed.

Starnes accurately reported that official military and government Read more

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