Free Republic

The Islamic State has claimed on social media that it is utilizing captured Syrian pilots to learn how to fly stolen jets, according to a CNN Arabic report over the weekend. The Syrian pilots, which are part of the Syrian Armed Forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad, had been captured after the Islamic State seized Tabqa airbase in Raqqa, Syria. The Islamic State took Tabqa airbase after a four-day battle with the Syrian military. Tabqa is home to a plethora of fighter jets, helicopters, artillery, and large caches of ammunition. It still remains unclear how much quantity of the munitions...

WASHINGTON — President Obama has authorized surveillance flights over Syria, a precursor to potential airstrikes there, but a mounting concern for the White House is how to target the Sunni extremists without helping President Bashar al-Assad. Defense officials said Monday evening that the Pentagon was sending in manned and unmanned reconnaissance flights over Syria, using a combination of aircraft, including drones and possibly U2 spy planes. Mr. Obama approved the flights over the weekend, a senior administration official said. The flights are a significant step toward direct American military action in Syria, an intervention that could alter the battlefield in...

Deaf and severely hearing impaired individuals could soon serve in the Air Force if legislation introduced in July by a California lawmaker is passed. An Air Force captain convinced U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, D-California, to introduce a bill that would allow deaf and hearing impaired people to serve in the Air Force as part of a pilot or demonstration program. Current Defense Department hearing requirements bar the deaf from serving, as well as individuals who currently require or previously used a hearing aid, or have a cochlear ear implant.

U.S. Air Force Academy cadet athletes flouted the sacred honor code by committing sexual assaults, taking drugs, cheating and engaging in other misconduct at wild parties while the service academy focused on winning bowl games and attracting money from alumni and private sources in recent years, a Gazette investigation has found. The findings are egregious enough that academy Superintendent Lt. Gen. Michelle Johnson told The Gazette that she has called for an Inspector General's investigation of the athletic department.

One thing that you can say for ISIS, the Middle-East terrorist army, is that it doesn’t have a recruitment problem. Young men are streaming to Syria and Iraq from all over the world to join the cause. And they come not just from the Muslim world, but also from England, France, Sweden, Australia, and the U.S.Perhaps hoping to put a dent in the appeal of ISIS, some Western newspapers have made much of the expensive stolen watch visible on the wrist of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi during his first public appearance at the Grand Mosque in Mosul. According to...

The White House has picked the first female general to head the Air Force in the Pacific, which will make her the first non-pilot to command air power in such a large theater of operation. The Pentagon announced this week that Air ForceLt. Gen. Lori J. Robinson has been nominated for promotion to four-star general and as commander of Pacific Air Forces, the Air Force component of U.S. Pacific Command. It is a major combatant command whose air, ground and naval forces have broad responsibility for security in the Asia-Pacific region. Her nomination was sent to the Senate for confirmation.

<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...