Various sites reported that two US Air Force A-10s crashed in the ranges near Nellis AFB, Nevada, last Wednesday.
The pilots of both planes ejected safely and were being evaluated Thursday at a military hospital…
The Air Force will investigate and Read more
The Associated Press tried to update the story from February in which Brigham Young University’s Air Force ROTC program was reportedly in peril because the new commander declined to accept BYU’s restrictions on his caffeine intake at his house.
Col. Timothy Hogan balked and BYU wouldn’t waive the requirements.
Apparently, there’s no story: Read more
The US military apparently conducted a leaflet drop in Afghanistan recently that offended just about everyone:
The leaflets dropped Monday night, which encouraged Afghans to cooperate with security forces, included an image of a dog carrying the Taliban flag, said Shah Wali Shahid, the deputy governor of Parwan province.
The problem, such that it is, is the Islamic verses of the Quran are venerated in Islam — and there are Islamic verses on the Taliban flag. Dogs are viewed as filthy.
So, despite the evil the Taliban represents, seeing a Taliban flag in the mouth of a dog is worse.
The Taliban subsequently Read more
An Iraqi pilot conducting flight training out of Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, AZ, was killed in a crash on Tuesday.
Maj. Noor Faleh Rassan Al-Khazali was killed when he crashed an F-16 he was piloting Tuesday afternoon in Arizona, the Iraqi military said in a statement.
The aircraft was reportedly owned by Read more
The Stars and Stripes published an AP story about Catherine Corpening receiving, after a 75-year absence, the World War II Bible her father had been issued:
When [her father] Ira Royster enlisted in the Army in September 1942, he received this book, a pocket-sized New Testament with an introduction by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Royster wrote his name in the Bible and, as did many other soldiers, probably placed it in his shirt pocket, where it offered a shield of protection for his heart should a bullet or a piece of shrapnel come flying his way.
It’s a poignant story for the 76-year old Corpening who barely knew her father.
What’s sad, though, is people Read more
Secretary of Defense and former US Marine Corps General James Mattis has been characterized recently as taking efforts to resist or otherwise slow-roll President Trump and his agenda. In one case, he was caught on camera telling US troops they were a model of unity for the country:
“You’re a great example for our country right now that’s got some problems – you know it and I know it…It’s got problems that we don’t have in the military, and you just hold the line my fine young soldiers, sailors, airmen [and] Marines. Just hold the line until our country gets back to understanding and respecting each other and showing it.”
The media portrayed that as a rebuke of President Trump. More recently, multiple media outlets and organizations have said Secretary Mattis “froze” President Trump’s planned ban on transgenders, an apparent rebuke of his boss. But that isn’t what happened at all.
President Trump ordered Read more
Last Friday President Trump issued a formal directive for the Department of Defense to reverse the decision by former President Obama to allow transgenders to serve in the US military. Noting that transgenders had been banned from serving up until just last summer, the reasoning was fairly benign:
The previous Administration failed to identify a sufficient basis to conclude that terminating the Departments’ longstanding policy and practice would not hinder military effectiveness and lethality, disrupt unit cohesion, or tax military resources, and there remain meaningful concerns that further study is needed to ensure that continued implementation of last year’s policy change would not have those negative effects.
The outcry from sexual activists was swift, with Ashley Broadway-Mack — the activist “devout Christian” homosexual milspouse — calling on “Congress or the courts” or just about anybody to “take action to reverse Trump’s policy.”
Of course, it isn’t “Trump’s policy”, as the President’s memorandum notes, and gender-based activists are flailing for a course of action because they likely realize there isn’t really anything they can do. President Obama Read more
The local Colorado Springs Gazette (repeated at the Stars and Stripes) profiled new US Air Force Academy Superintendent LtGen Jay Silveria last week [emphasis added]:
Silveria has flown combat missions over Iraq and the Balkans at the controls of the F-15E Strike Eagle, arguably the Air Force’s most effective bomber.
Zing!
While the F-15E is classified as a Read more