More than 60 Airmen from across the Air Force are preparing to board a C-130J Hercules on May 30 to participate in the second iteration of "Operation Southern Partner" in seven Caribbean and Latin American nations. The Twelfth Air Force (Air Forces Southern)-led event is aimed at providing intensive, periodic subject matter exchanges with partner nation air forces in the U.S. Southern Command area of focus.
Operation Southern Partner-Caribbean will include exchanges covering dozens of Air Force career specialties interfacing with host nation counterparts in Guyana, Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica and Belize. In addition to subject matter exchanges, training sorties will be conducted aboard the transport aircraft. A California Air National Guard C-130J from the 146th Airlift Wing at the Channel Islands, Calif., will fly several search and rescue sorties, including an over-water rescue jump by a Guardian Angel weapons system.
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If you haven't seen the Air Education and Training Command headquarters building, you're missing out. It is a grand, historic building that was built in the 1930s, nestled under age-old oak trees.
Although initially used as an academic hall for new Air Force aviators, the building has had many uses over the years. Today it, along with sister buildings of the same era, houses members of the headquarters Air Education and Training Command staff. For those in the main building, standing on the red-tiled sidewalk that leads to the front doors every morning is Carmen.
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Approximately 280 Langley Air Force Base Airmen and 12 F-22 Raptors from the 94th Fighter Squadron depart this week for an air and space expeditionary force deployment to demonstrate the continued U.S. commitment to fulfill its security responsibilities throughout the Western Pacific.
The 94th FS Airmen, along with members of the Virginia Air National Guard's 192nd Fighter Wing, are deploying to Kadena Air Base, Japan, as part of a theater security package.
"This deployment is an excellent avenue to ensure that all facets of our unique brand of air power are able to perform at a moment's notice," said Lt. Col. Adrian Spain, the 94th FS commander. "Many of our pilots and maintainers have not experienced this type of deployment with the Raptor, so it will be an opportunity to prove our ability to respond anywhere, anytime."
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Maj. (Dr.) Chad Hivnor, chief of pediatric dermatology at Wilford Hall Medical Center here, is using a new fractional laser to treat battle scars on troops injured in operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom.
"The laser softens the texture of the scars," said Doctor Hivnor. "We are following the results achieved and functional improvements."
Initially, Doctor Hivnor used this state-of-the-art fractional laser technology to treat small scars on children. This gave him familiarity and experience with the laser for larger scars often seen on wounded warriors.
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As the plane flying him to a security conference in Singapore travels into a storm of regional unrest stirred up by this week's North Korean nuclear tests, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates May 29 downplayed the swirling rhetoric and said he sees no need to adjust U.S. military forces levels in the region.
"I don't believe that anybody in the administration thinks there is a crisis," Secretary Gates told reporters traveling with him to this weekend's "Shangri-La Dialogue" Asia security summit.
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The Altus Fraternal Order of Police honored two Airmen for saving a local police officer from certain death during a ceremony at the City Park May 22 .
Staff Sgt. Matthew Treadwell, 97th Security Forces Squadron Combat Arms noncommissioned officer in charge, and Special Agent Ross Bergstresser, Air Force Office of Special Investigations Detachment 422 at Luke AFB, Ariz., administered life-saving procedures after Kevin Walker, a Jackson County Sheriff's Office deputy, experienced a massive heart attack during a national police week hootout competition here May 14.
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Up, over, over, over and down. Drivers who find speed bumps annoying shouldn't pass through security checkpoint gates here; however, speed-mitigation efforts may be viewed as less of a hassle if they are perceived as a measure that may thwart possible terrorist threats.
After 506th Air Expeditionary Group antiterrorism/force protection Airmen identified a vulnerability in base security, 506th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron Airmen tackled the problem by installing speed bumps at base gates here May 22.
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While deployed to support the Theater Security Package and the continuous bomber presence here, three units educated one another on each of their jobs to better integrate with one another.
Members assigned to the 13th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, 506th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron and 509th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Unit had the opportunity to see another point of view of their mission.
Airmen from the 13th EBS and 509th EAMXU took an incentive flight on a KC-135 Stratotanker to see the aerial refueling aircraft provide fuel to one of their B-2 Spirit aircraft.
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President Barack Obama's decisions to grow the military, broaden the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and focus on 21st century threats are making America "increasingly safer," the president's national security advisor said May 27.
"I firmly believe that the United States is not only safe, but it will be more secure, and the American people are increasingly safer because of the president's leadership that he's displayed consistently over the last four months, both at home and abroad," James L. Jones Jr. said in a speech at an Atlantic Council event here.
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Wounded, ill and injured Airmen entering into the Disability Evaluation System here are now enrolled in a new pilot evaluation process.
This new joint Department of Defense-Veterans Affairs effort is designed to streamline and expedite disability recovery and processing to create improved treatment, evaluation and delivery of compensation and benefits.
In November 2007, the pilot was introduced to the greater Washington, D.C., area and will eventually expand to 22 locations across the country by the summer of 2009. The project was implemented April 30 at Elmendorf Air Force Base. It ensures a seamless transition for the wounded, ill or injured from the care, benefits and services of DOD to the VA system.
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