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<p>KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — An Air Force fighter jet has been shot down by an air-to-air missile fired from a Russian plane, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council said Thursday.</p> <p>Andrei Lysenko also said Ukrainian troops had been fired upon by missiles from a village just inside Russia.</p>

In a stunning display of callousness, the Defense Department has announced that thousands of soldiers — many serving as commanding officers in Afghanistan — will be notified in the coming weeks that their service to the country is no longer needed. Last week, more than 1,100 Army captains — the men and women who know best how to fight this enemy because they have experienced multiple deployments — were told they’ll be retired from the Army. The overall news is not unexpected. The Army has ended its major operations in Iraq and is winding down in Afghanistan. Budget cuts are...

The military on Thursday said it had grounded the entire fleet of Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets until completion of additional inspections of the warplane's single engine built by Pratt & Whitney. The Pentagon's F-35 program office, Air Force and Navy issued directives on Thursday ordering the suspension of all F-35 flights after a June 23 fire on an Air Force F-35A jet at a Florida air base, according to statements by the Pentagon and the F-35 program office. The Pentagon said U.S. and industry officials had not been able to pinpoint the cause of the fire, which occurred...

More than two-thirds of America's youth would fail to qualify for military service because of physical, behavioral or educational shortcomings, posing challenges to building the next generation of soldiers even as the U.S. draws down troops from conflict zones. The military deems many youngsters ineligible due to obesity, lack of a high-school diploma, felony convictions and prescription-drug use for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. But others are now also running afoul of standards for appearance amid the growing popularity of large-scale tattoos and devices called ear gauges that create large holes in earlobes.

Today is Statehood Day for the Commonwealth of Virginia, the 10th state to join the Union in 1788. Today is also the birthday of General Henry Arnold, the only man to hold the rank of five-star general in two different services - the Army and the Air Force. He was taught how to fly by the Wright Brothers, and eventually founded the RAND Corporation and was one of the founders of Pan Am.

A young illegal immigrant child from Central America was diagnosed with swine flu Friday after crossing the Texas-Mexico border, necessitating 2,000 vaccines be shipped to Lackland Air Force Base to treat people who may have been exposed, U.S. authorities confirmed to TheBlaze. The child was diagnosed after being transported from a border holding facility to the base, where he showed signs of illness and had to be hospitalized. It’s the first known case of the H1N1 virus to be diagnosed among the recent surge of unaccompanied immigrant children to arrive at the base, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said. “We are...

A newly-declassified report reveals that two nuclear bombs accidentally dropped in North Carolina were much closer to detonation than previously reported. On January 21, 1961 a B-52 bomber went into a tailspin, breaking apart mid-flight over Goldsboro, N.C. The plane was carrying two nuclear bombs, both of which were pushed into free-fall. The parachute for one of the bombs was safely deployed, but the other continued to plummet. It had been previously believed that, though nerve-racking, the incident was not nearly as dangerous as it sounded as neither bomb was armed. But documents released Thursday by the National Security Archive...

Reports of a suspicious person wearing a vest or backpack with wires coming out prompted the lockdown of the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo on Tuesday. No further details were available, according to the statement.

United Flight 1637 was returning off-duty Air Force Captain Mike Gongol, his family and 157 other souls from their Christmas vacation when disaster struck. The Boeing 737's pilot suffered a devastating heart attack at 30,000 feet on the way from Des Moines to Denver, forcing Gongol to rush to the cockpit and help guide the plane to an emergency landing. His heroic actions have gone unheralded until now, as Gongol recalls the dramatic moment he answered the chilling announcement on the December 30 flight, 'Does anyone know how to fly a plane?'

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Under a blazing sun, Vice President Joe Biden challenged graduating Air Force Academy cadets on Wednesday to help create a “new world order for the 21st century.”

A survey of basic-training instructors conducted during the worst sex scandal in Air Force history revealed a sharp distrust of senior commanders at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and a widespread fear of recruits. In occasionally bitter comments, some instructors lashed out at basic-training leaders. They talked of stressful working conditions and declining standards that had made training too easy, with recruits even saying they expected to have a harder time. The survey, done last year and obtained this week by the San Antonio Express-News, revealed basic training remains haunted by recruit abuse and misconduct, the same issues that prompted a...

Americans say the U.S. Army is the most important service branch to national defense, but the Marine Corps is still considered the most prestigious, said a Gallup poll released Friday. The annual poll​, timed to mark the start of the long Memorial Day weekend, showed that 26 percent of Americans say the Army is the most important military branch, followed closely by the Air Force at 23 percent. The Marine Corp was called the most important by 19 percent, the Navy by 17 percent and the Coast Guard by 3 percent, the poll found.

A blistering internal review has revealed that an Air Force security team botched a training exercise last summer that simulated an attack on a nuclear missile silo, prompting expanded training to prepare for the possibility of a real attack. A senior U.S. defense official confirmed the details of the report to Fox News. The report was first obtained by the Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request. The review said the security forces were unable to speedily regain control of the captured silo during the exercise at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana, calling the failure a "critical...

Since May 18, the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas has been home to 1,000 illegal immigrant children, according to a report by the San Antonio Express-News. The decision to utilize the base comes as an overwhelming number of young people have been caught crossing the Mexican/U.S. border during recent months. Children and teens brought to Lackland will be provided with education, foster care programs, and "behavioral treatment centers." The projected cost of such programs, as well as the cost of the housing, has not been disclosed to U.S. taxpayers. The federal government was forced to utilize Lackland...

Scientists have warned about climate change and its consequences for decades. Now, the military is taking a stand. “I think the days of isolation are over,” Donald Hoffman, a retired four-star general in the Air Force, said yesterday during a Columbus Metropolitan Club panel discussion. “We will be pulled into things ... because it’s the right thing to do and there’s no one else to do them.” Hoffman is one of 16 retired military leaders who contributed to a report on climate change and national security that was released this week. “The one thing we didn’t get right was the...

Senior Air Force leaders have drafted a budget-driven plan that would strip the three- and four-star generals who oversee major commands of their authority to manage their bases. A draft of the plan obtained by The Washington Times shows that the Air Force is aiming to consolidate support operations under the umbrella of a single center, known as the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center. The tricky endeavor would shuffle day-to-day base management issues — such as construction, maintenance and procurement of equipment and supplies — from under the authority of the senior generals who command the bases to...

We embrace heroes in America. Senior Airman Brian Kolfage defines hero: the triple-amputee veteran of the Iraqi War overcame insurmountable odds to survive his horrific injuries. Kolfage recently sent a powerful – and damning – letter to his commander-in-chief: I nearly died in a war that you and most of your colleagues supported overwhelmingly, including the two presidents who came before you. Many citizens may not agree with waging war in Iraq to free the oppressed Iraqi citizens, but it’s something that warriors like myself have zero control over. I joined to serve my country and to better my life....

The Air Force recently acknowledged that due to a “stigma” surrounding its drone program, many pilots at the controls of the deadly weapons are “less skilled” and officers overseeing them are “less competent” than their manned aircraft brethren, as alleged by the Government Accountability Office. “Let’s be honest, when people dream about flying… People in this generation didn’t grow up and say, ‘I want to fly an RPA [remotely piloted aircraft],’” Air Force spokesperson Jennifer Cassidy told ABC News last week. “They were the ones that watched re-runs of ‘Top Gun’ and said, ‘I want to be a fighter pilot.’…...

TEL AVIV — Israel has been preparing to produce the first components for the U.S.-origin Joint Strike Fighter. The state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries is working on production lines for the wing assembly of the F-35 fighter-jet. The wing assembly was awarded by Lockheed Martin as part of Israel’s order of 19 fifth-generation combat aircraft over the next four years. “This new and advanced production line represents an important milestone for IAI and ensures its involvement in the world’s most advanced fighter aircraft,” IAI president Joseph Weiss said.

A Columbus, Ohio, family said their children were traumatized after what was meant to be a fun trip to the National Museum of the United States Air Force ended with guns drawn on them. Alice Hill, 65, her daughter-in-law, Wendy, and two young grandchildren visited the museum on April 4 and, as they were leaving, were ordered to get out of their vehicle by military police. Hill said the officers pulled guns on the family and cuffed the adults in front of the children, according to an incident report. (snip) The family was detained for about 90 minutes as authorities...