Free Republic

The military has more than enough large transport planes, and the appropriation of any more in the next budget year will force some into premature retirement, Defense Department officials told a congressional panel today. “We have enough C-17s,” Mike McCord, principal deputy undersecretary of defense (comptroller), said. “Money spent on things we don’t need takes away from those we do need.” Along with McCord, Air Force Maj. Gen. Susan Y. Desjardins, director of strategic plans for Air Mobility Command, and Alan Estevez, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for logistical and materiel readiness, repeated Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’ position...

WASHINGTON, July 21, 2006 – Air Force C-17 Globemaster III crews assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron operating in Southwest Asia have added another mission to their resume, providing humanitarian civil assistance to the effort to evacuate Americans from Lebanon. Airlift operations have responded quickly to the urgent needs in the Middle East, supporting U.S. citizens evacuating from Lebanon to Cyprus, U.S. Central Command Air Forces officials said. The 816th EAS is flying water and meals, as well as essential personnel and equipment, to Royal Air Force Base Akrotiri on the island of Cyprus. In the first four...

3/27/2006 - MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan (AFPN) -- In a dusty tent in the middle of maintenance town, computers are humming and a lone radio squawks the status of an incoming C-17 Globemaster III. The only sign that anybody works here is a row of desert camouflage blouses hung neatly near the door. A few of them belong to crew chiefs. The rest were shed by jet engine specialists, hydraulics specialists, navigation and avionics specialists, and fuel cell specialists as the calls came in for one jet landing after another. “We’re all crew chiefs here,” said Staff Sgt. Jason Wells,...