Hours before an aircrew from the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron left for an after-midnight flight into Hurricane Alex, the storm had just been upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane. By the time the crew returned from more than seven hours inside the storm, the data they gathered showed signs the storm was growing stronger even as it approached landfall.
The powerful storm, the strongest June hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. since 1966, came ashore late in the evening of June 29 on an unpopulated stretch of coast in northern Mexico about 110 miles south of Brownsville, Texas.
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The Air Force chief of staff announced his latest reading recommendations July 1, all from the CSAF reading list.
"Defining events across the globe continue to shape our service in very consequential ways," Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said. "Rising regional tensions, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and worldwide economic challenges are just a few of the multi-dimensional challenges impacting global security and stability.
"Today's military thinker must appreciate the many dimensions -- political, environmental, economic, informational and others -- that comprise international security," General Schwartz continued.
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Alaska Air National Guard officials responded to an 11th Rescue Coordination Center request to perform a search and rescue mission of a severely injured hiker June 29 near Chena Hot Springs.
The call for National Guard support came in after Alaska State Troopers were unable to safely reach the injured hiker, who'd fallen from a cliff near Angel Rocks. She sustained a severe compound fracture of the ankle and required hoist capability to get her to medical support.
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Labor Department officials are awarding more than $5 million in grants to help homeless female veterans and veterans with families find jobs and work toward a "bright future," the secretary of labor announced June 30.
"Millions of hard-working, responsible families are at risk of losing their homes as a result of job losses, reductions in working hours and lower wages," Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said. "And probably no other segment of our population is more vulnerable to homelessness than our veterans, and more recently and importantly, female veterans."
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Throughout the air mobility world aerial porters continue to play a vital role in operations.
Aerial porters are deployed throughout the world and are responsible for expediting the movement of critical assets.
at a non-disclosed base in Southwest Asia, said air transportation Airmen are vital to operations everywhere.
"It's well-documented that one of the great strengths of our Air Force is its ability to project forces globally in minimal time," said Master Sgt. Robert Weatherly, the air terminal operations center superintendent in the 380th Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron. "Aerial porters play an important role in that force projection. We (help keep) tankers flying, which refuel our fighters and transports that, in turn, either bring in reinforcements and supplies or provide vital air cover for our ground forces."
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Air Force officials have replaced a conveyor belt system in the 86th Logistics Readiness Squadron warehouse with the United States Air Forces in Europe Command first laser automated guided vehicle system, saving time and money.
Today, according to Larry Head, that conveyor system has been replaced by the Air Force's first of its kind laser Automated Guided Vehicle System.
Five, E & K Automation, robotic vehicles are now patrolling up and down the warehouse stopping at designated points, picking up parcels and moving them to designated locations more than a quarter mile away before dropping them off and moving to the next location.
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About 2,500 members of the Texas National Guard are on standby in anticipation of Tropical Storm Alex, which is expected to become a hurricane and hit the lower Texas coast late July 1 or early July 2.
The deployment of troops and the locations where they will go depends on future weather predictions and where landfall occurs, Texas National Guard officials said.
Texas Guard officials may employ eight UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters and crews and three C-130 Hercules aircraft and crews that can assist with air evacuations if needed.
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In an effort to curtail government travel card abuse and delinquency, Air Force officials are piloting an unprecedented controlled spend account concept through Sept. 3 with an expected service-wide rollout of fall 2010.
The most significant CSA concept bases spending limits on approved travel authorizations and provides just enough funds to perform the mission, GTC officials said.
"We're building automated processes into the program so that personnel managing their unit's travel card program can go back to being focused on mission-enhancing rather mission support duties," said Mike Bilbrey, the Air Force banking officer.
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I met an amazing military family the other day who opened their hearts and home to three children.
Master Sgt. Kipp M. Bourgeois and his wife, Christina, adopted their children, thanks in part to financial assistance from the Defense Department's adoption reimbursement program. The couple had been trying to conceive for more than a decade, but Christina's battle with endometriosis served as a barrier to their attempts.
They moved to Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., in 2000, and saw a fertility specialist who told the couple their only hope was in vitro fertilization. But at $15,000 a try and only a 30-percent success rate, as the doctor told them, the family just couldn't swing the cost.
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Airmen from the California Air National Guard's 129th Rescue Squadron load a .50-caliber machine gun on an HH-60G Pave Hawk during a firing mission here June 25.
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