Free Republic

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....

DOVER, Del. - The Dover Air Force Base is on lockdown because of a suspicious person on base. Dover Air Force Base Public Affairs said the base went on lockdown around 11:00 a.m.

America’s gazillion-dollar Joint Strike Fighter is supposed to go virtually unseen when flying over enemy turf. But that’s not how things are working out. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter—the jet that the Pentagon is counting on to be the stealthy future of its tactical aircraft—is having all sorts of shortcomings. But the most serious may be that the JSF is not, in fact, stealthy in the eyes of a growing number of Russian and Chinese radars. Nor is it particularly good at jamming enemy radar. Which means the Defense Department is committing hundreds of billions of dollars to a fighter...

Late in the day on April 4th (just before AFPC closed its doors and unplugged its phones for the weekend), notices began going out to airmen retracting previously approved retirements, explaining that approval had been “erroneous.” They’d been given permission to retire, allowed to act on it for a few days, and then informed AFPC was “taking back” that approval. In some cases, this second notice came after the acceptance of a job offer or the hiring of a real estate agent. Spouses gave notice at work or accepted new jobs. In some cases, child care providers were given notice...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Air Force took the extraordinary step Thursday of firing nine midlevel nuclear commanders and announcing it will discipline dozens of junior officers at a nuclear missile base, responding firmly to an exam-cheating scandal that spanned a far longer period than originally reported. A 10th commander, the senior officer at the base, resigned and will retire from the Air Force. Air Force officials called the discipline unprecedented in the history of America's intercontinental ballistic missile force. The Associated Press last year revealed a series of security and other problems in the ICBM force, including a failed safety...

Lt. General Thomas McInerney USAF (ret) is a man to be reckoned with, and he has gone out on a limb citing sources he cannot reveal for his assertion that Malaysia Airlines 370 was taken by a criminal act, that the United States government knows more than it is revealing, and that the airplane could well be on the ground on Pakistan.

Robert Farley, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky, wants to ground the U.S. Air Force, for good. In his book, Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the US Air Force, Farley argues the United States does not need an independent Air Force in order to effectively wield military air power. Farley, an assistant professor at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, came to his conclusion after studying the conflict between the Army and the Air Force over which military branch was primarily responsible for winning the first Gulf War. “I slowly became more aware that these...

For more than a decade new military recruits at Maxwell Air Force Base – Gunter Annex in Alabama have received a Bible from Gideons International volunteers. But that tradition has come to an end after volunteers said they were told by the military that they would no longer be allowed to personally distribute the pocket-sized Bibles to recruits. “They kicked us out,” Gideon’s volunteer Michael Fredenburg told me in a telephone interview from his home in Montgomery, Ala. “They told us, ‘get your Bibles out.’” Gaylan Johnson, is a public affairs officer for the Military Entrance Processing Command. He told...

OPELIKA, AL (WTVM) - News Leader 9's Elizabeth White spoke with the father of the 20-year-old Airman who was shot in the stomach March 6 by an Opelika police officer. It was the first on-camera interview Billy Davidson has done since the incident. He met with us in a parking lot just across the street from East Alabama Medical Center, where his son is still recovering with serious injuries to his stomach. Billy tells us his son is and has always been a good kid who is dedicated to his Air Force career. He is well-loved by his friends, family...

The Air Force Academy removed a Bible verse posted on a cadet's whiteboard after it determined the posting had offended other cadets, a spokesman for the academy said. The cadet wrote the passage on the whiteboard posted outside his room. "I have been crucified with Christ therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," the verse from Galatians read. Mikey Weinstein, director of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me 29 cadets and four faculty and staff members contacted his organization to complain about the Christian passage. "Had it been in his room - not a problem," Weinstein...

The Air Force Academy removed a Bible verse posted on a cadet's whiteboard after it determined the posting had offended other cadets, a spokesman for the academy said. The cadet wrote the passage on the whiteboard posted outside his room. "I have been crucified with Christ therefore I no longer live, but Christ lives in me," the verse from Galatians read. Mikey Weinstein, director of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told me 29 cadets and four faculty and staff members contacted his organization to complain about the Christian passage. "Had it been in his room - not a problem," Weinstein...

One of the many pressing stories that remains to be told from the Snowden archive is how western intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. It’s time to tell a chunk of that story, complete with the relevant documents. Over the last several weeks, I worked with NBC News to publish a series of articles about “dirty trick” tactics used by GCHQ’s previously secret unit, JTRIG (Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group). These were based on four classified GCHQ documents presented to the NSA and the other three partners in...

KIGALI, Rwanda (AFNS) -- Two U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft operating at the request of the French government and African Union authorities continued airlifting a Rwandan mechanized battalion Jan. 19. The joint operation with personnel from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force is in support of an African Union effort to confront destabilizing forces and violence within Central African Republic. "The African Union has decided to stand up a mission in the Central African Republic to decrease the violence that has been occurring over the last several months," Lt. Col. Allen Pepper, senior officer in Central African...

A worrisome culture of fear that made launch officers believe they had to get perfect test scores to be promoted fueled a widening cheating scandal within the military's nuclear missile corps, according to Air Force officials. (snip) Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the scandal hasn't affected the safety or reliability of the military's nuclear mission. (snip) All 92 officers — nearly 17 percent of the force — have been decertified and taken off the job while the scandal is being investigated. That means other launch officers and staff must fill in, performing 10 24-hour shifts per month, instead...

One of the hardest-working competitors to hit the field at the Super Bowl this weekend isn’t a football player — she’s a stunning Seahawks cheerleader who is also a first lieutenant in the US Air Force. Rookie “Sea Gal” Alicia Quaco, 25, works long days as a contract manager for the Air Force before rushing to evening cheerleading practice, where she trades camouflage fatigues for tiny shorts, glittery makeup and pompoms. “It’s a lot of costume changes. I don’t get to wear normal clothes very often. And I have hardly any free time,” she said.

Developed at the end of the 1960s to be the best air superiority fighter in the world, the F-15 proved to be a real MiG Killer during the Operation Desert Storm scoring most of the allied aerial victories. During the Air War over Iraq the mighty Eagle proved also to be a very robust airframe, bringing back its pilots also after suffering serious damages. After the first ten days of the first Gulf Air War, to avoid the destruction of their air force, Iraqis flew their aircraft to Iran and to prevent this “exodus” the U.S. Air Force was forced...

More than 12 years after launching development, a now-familiar scenario for the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme is playing out again: a team of outside government evaluators predict a major new delay for entry into operational service, while programme insiders insist that no such thing will happen. Only time will tell which side’s predictions prove most accurate, but the history of the F-35's thrice-delayed operational debut favours the Federal team. The latest debate focuses on the newly-released annual assessment by the office of Michael Gilmore, director of the office of test and evaluation (DOT&E). Last July, Gilmore told Congress that he...

For nearly a decade, an awkward debate has raged about the U.S. military's nuclear force: Did top Air Force officials really choose "00000000" as a code that could enable the launch of a nuclear missile? Ten years later, in a document obtained by Foreign Policy, the U.S. military told Congress that it never happened. But is the Pentagon telling the truth? Bruce Blair, a nuclear security expert and former launch officer , says no. Blair, now a scholar and author at Princeton University, first raised the idea in a piece published in 2004. He accused the Air Force of circumventing...

The senior enlisted airman at Offutt Air Force Base's 55th Wing was removed from his position earlier this week, base officials acknowledged Friday. Chief Master Sgt. William Thomaston Jr. was relieved Monday after the wing commander, Col. Greg Guillot, "determined that (Thomaston) couldn't effectively perform his duties," said Delanie Stafford, a 55th Wing spokesman. Thomaston had been Guillot's principal enlisted adviser, responsible for the military readiness and well-being of more than 5,000 enlisted airmen at Offutt. Stafford described the decision as "sudden" but said he couldn't discuss details because of privacy laws.

On May 1, 1960, the Soviet Union shot down a CIA U-2 spy plane and captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. It was an international crisis for America’s intelligence agencies. A planned summit between Pres. Dwight Eisenhower and Premier Nikita Khrushchev was scuttled, much to Eisenhower’s embarrassment and to the fury of the Pakistanis, from whose territory the flight had been launched. First flown in 1957, the 63-foot-long, jet-powered U-2—capable of flying as high as 70,000 feet—is still used by the U.S. Air Force. But after the Powers incident, basing the plane in foreign countries became problematic. Their mere presence...