Free Republic

U.S. Space Force may not yet have its own boot camp, but the service's very first direct enlistees are about to head to entry-level training nonetheless. Chief Master Sgt. Roger Towberman, senior enlisted leader of the Space Force, said seven new recruits will head to basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where they'll train alongside Air Force recruits -- albeit with a few distinctions. "They needed to know they were different; that's important to us," Towberman told Military.com in an interview Thursday. In addition to their Occupational Camouflage Pattern uniforms with service-specific blue-stitched name tapes, the recruits...

Tens of thousands of children unaccompanied by parents or relatives are flooding across the southern U.S. border illegally, forcing the Obama administration and Congress to grapple with both a humanitarian crisis and a budget dilemma. An estimated 60,000 such children will pour into the United States this year, according to the administration, up from about 6,000 in 2011. Now, Washington is trying to figure out how to pay for their food, housing and transportation once they are taken into custody. The flow is expected to grow. The number of unaccompanied, undocumented immigrants who are under 18 will likely double in...

Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio has been diagnosed with swine flu. The San Antonio Metro Health District confirmed the H1N1 virus case with WOAI-TV. Online media outlet The Blaze first reported the case of H1N1 at the base, quoting Rep. Louie Gohmert as saying the child was "feverish for several days." The Blaze reported that 2,000 swine flu vaccines are being sent to Lackland to treat anyone who may have been exposed to the child. A spokeswoman for San Antonio Metro Health told WOAI-TV that the military reported the case to the health agency.

Lackland AFB will become a temporary home to 100 children who have been stopped recently by the U.S. Border Patrol, officials said Monday. Details were sketchy, including when and where the children were found, and when they would come to San Antonio. Brent Boller, a spokesman for Joint Base San Antonio, referred most questions about the incident to the Department of Health and Human Services, which said the oldest is 17 and that only 17 percent are below 14. Boys make up 77 percent of the group, said Marrianne McMullen, director of public affairs for HHS' Administration for Children and...

The 17 reported AWOL Afghan pilots at Lackland AFB's English Language Institute has now ballooned to 46. A network known as "Big Mexican Women," or BMW's are believed to have helped the men escape to Canada or taught them how to live under-the-radar in the U.S. One Big Mexican Woman is in custody. The odd thing is, there is little reporting on this story, with the exception of Fox New.

With spring in full bloom, “boot camp flu” is back with a vengeance. A mysterious and virulent strain of the virus linked to last weekend's death of a Security Forces airman on Lackland AFB, it has sickened 237 recruits and technical school students at the base since Jan. 1. Only three of them landed in the base hospital, but all contracted adenovirus serotype 14. Things have been worse at Lackland, which in the past two years has seen two airmen die after contracting adeno 14, as well as hundreds of flu-like cases that have put thousands out of training and...

7/26/2006 - SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- Seth and Stephanie Parker held each other's hands and waited. As the plane touched down at 12:05 a.m. July 22 at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, they smiled at each other and looked at their son. Four-day-old Stuart lay across from his parents on a medical cart surrounded by doctors, nurses and medical technicians. He was the newest patient for the Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, or ECMO, team that was double- and triple-checking everything to ensure he was ready for the next leg of his journey. Shortly after his birth, doctors told the Parkers that...

The nation's airlines, temporarily unable to provide commercial service to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans, have been putting aside their financial troubles to fly supplies to and bring evacuees out from devastated areas. Relief flights arrived at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at a rate of about four an hour Friday. The flights started a day after Delta Air Lines executives piloted a plane that dropped off supplies at New Orleans' main airport and returned with 140 refugees on board. United Airlines, meanwhile, flew 24,000 pounds of food and water and 30 medical technicians from Chicago to New Orleans and returned...

The nation's airlines have been mobilized to fly up to 25,000 refugees out of New Orleans beginning today, under an emergency plan put into effect for the first time by the Department of Homeland Security. Under the department's national response plan, 15 airlines, including 10 major commercial carriers, will transport up to 25,000 refugees from Louis Armstrong Airport outside New Orleans to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, airlines taking part in the plan said this morning. The airlines are volunteering their aircraft and crew for the program, which is scheduled to begin at noon and run until this...

<p>The Defense Department is looking for a few good homes in the San Antonio area to volunteer to care for potential military working dogs in their homes.</p> <p>The program is designed for volunteers to help raise Belgian Malinois puppies that have been bred at Lackland AFB. As adults, the dogs will serve in the forefront of the war on terrorism.</p>

WASHINGTON, May 13, 2005 – Defense officials have used the base realignment and closure process to transform the way military medicine operates. Medical facilities will become more joint, they will consolidate where patients reside and they will become state-of-the-art. "We want to rival Johns Hopkins or the Mayo Clinics," said Dr. William Winkenwerder Jr., assistant defense secretary for health affairs. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld delivered his recommendations for base realignment and closure to the BRAC Commission today. The medical recommendations are part of this process. The recommendations mean changes to military medicine in the nation's capital and San Antonio,...