Free Republic

Welcome to 2016 when male soldiers train in pregnancy simulators, tactical lactation stations dot the battlefield, women are fraudulently passed through Ranger School and US Navy sailors willingly surrender their boats and equipment to Iranian thugs without so much as firing a flare. It’s the era of breast milk in the field and Liberace joins Delta Force… A perfect storm, a Category Five hurricane of doom and destruction is sweeping over the US military with the deadly accuracy of the Angel of Death on Passover. We have a President who is intent on destroying the military through insane social engineering....

Local news reporting a Thunderbird crashed and the pilot safely ejected.

A Russian fighter jet flew dangerously close to a U.S. RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft on Thursday in the latest military provocation by Moscow over the Baltic Sea, the U.S. European Command said Saturday. “On April 14, a U.S. Air Force RC-135 aircraft flying a routine route in international airspace over the Baltic Sea was intercepted by a Russian Su-27 in an unsafe and unprofessional manner,” said Navy Capt. Danny Hernandez. “This intercept comes shortly after the unsafe Russian encounters with USS Donald Cook,” he added. “There have been repeated incidents over the last year where Russian military aircraft have come close...

When a veteran or member of the armed forces dies, he or she is entitled to a ceremony that includes the presentation of a U.S. flag to a family member and a bugler blowing Taps. Most of the time, there is a three-volley rifle salute if requested by family members. But now, if the deceased served in the Air Force, the three-volley salute is not an option because the Air Force can no longer support riflemen for funeral services for veteran retirees. [....] “To me, without the 21-gun salute, it just does not make it complete a proper military burial,”...

LAS VEGAS - Private land overlooking the secret base at Area 51 has officially been taken from the owners and transferred to the United States Air Force. Last month, the U.S. Air Force condemned the Groom Mine property when the family who owns it rejected a government buyout they felt was unjust. The I-Team broke the story of the family's fight with the government. The Sheahan family, which until now owned the mine, knew they faced an uphill fight. They also expected the government would probably take the land through eminent domain even though the Sheahan's owned it since Abe...

Twelve U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt aircraft arrived Monday at an Estonian air force base as part of an operation to deter Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, according to a U.S. Air Force report. The aircraft landed in the Baltic country after flying from Germany and are expected to spend the next six months training with NATO allies and other European partners. The aircraft are originally from the 23rd Wing at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, and are being used to augment the U.S. military's attempts to bring security and stability to Europe, according to the statement. The exercise,...

Finding Islamic State militants to kill is not easy, the top U.S. commander overseeing the air war in Iraq and Syria said. Air Force Lt. Gen. John Hesterman says U.S. pilots are hitting as many targets as they can find, and to suggest otherwise is simply wrong. "The thought that we are observing large numbers of Daesh terrorist and not killing them anywhere is fiction," Hesterman said Friday in a rare briefing for Pentagon reporters from his headquarters in Qatar. "That is patently false," said Hesterman, the commander for U.S. Air Forces Central Command.

US Air Force The Air Force will announce Thursday that it will offer more protections for its transgender service members against potential discharge. Troops diagnosed with gender dysphoria or who identified as transgender were typically discharged in the past on medical grounds, according to USA Today. Doctors and unit commanders were previously in charge of those diagnoses, it reported. The Air Force’s new measures will require such judgments to receive review from high-level officials at the military branch’s headquarters. “Though the Air Force policy regarding involuntary separation of gender dysphoric Airmen has not changed, the elevation of decision authority...

A US Air Force refuelling aircraft disappeared off the radar over the English Channel last night. The Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker left Amiens in northern France at 0.05am local time (11.05pm BST) and was last reported on a flight tracking website between Dover and Calais 15 minutes later. It is not yet known why the plane - flying under the code QID72 and based at Mildenhall in Suffolk - fell off the radar at 0.20am. The US Air Force was unavailable for comment.

An Air Force veteran was hauled away in handcuffs and detained by campus security at Valdosta State University in Georgia after she stopped protesters from desecrating an American flag. Michelle Manhart admits that she snatched Old Glory from a group of demonstrators who put the flag on the ground and were walking on it. One member of the unnamed group told the Valdosta Daily Times they were desecrating the flag as “a symbol of our protest.” “When a slave understands his situation and understands he doesn’t want to be in slavery, he does not respect or revere anything his slave...

n outspoken wounded veteran from Tucson has caused a stir on social media over his objection to a flag he calls an affront to the American flag. Instead of red and white stripes, the flag flying recently at a home on Tucson's Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has stripes of rainbow colors -- traditionally used to show gay pride. Former Senior Airman Brian Kolfage, who lost two legs and an arm in an attack in Iraq, says the flag parodies the American flag. Kolfage says it's illegal and had no business flying on a military base. "I was cutting across base...

Linky only per FR Rules. Sheesh...

Months after staving off a trip to the boneyard, the embattled A-10 Thunderbolt II is headed to the Middle East where it could be used to fight Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria. An Indiana Air National Guard unit that flies the Cold War-era gunships, known as Warthogs, is planning to deploy about 300 airmen and an unknown number of its aircraft to the U.S. Central Command region early next month, says a Sept. 17 news release from the unit. The 122nd Fighter Wing, located at Fort Wayne Air National Guard Base, Ind., has 21 aircraft, though it’s uncertain how...

  So help me, me. In a victory for the tombstone-dancing Military Religious Freedom Foundation (whose name implies the opposite of what they actually believe), the Air Force reversed its 2013 legal opinion requiring recruits to recite the entire Oath of Office when enlisting or receiving a commission in the U.S. Air Force.  By entire oath I mean including the part where “So help me God” is said at the end. The issue was originally raised back in 2013 when the MRFF found that the Air Force was enforcing the Federal laws requiring the entire oath as written.  I never...

After an airman was unable to complete his reenlistment because he omitted the part of a required oath that states “so help me God,” the Air Force changed its instructions for the oath. Following a review of the policy by the Department of Defense General Counsel, the Air Force will now permit airmen to omit the phrase, should they so choose. That change is effective immediately, according to an Air Force statement. “We take any instance in which Airmen report concerns regarding religious freedom seriously,” Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James said in the statement. “We are making...

On September 11, 2001, Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney had one harrowing mission: bring down United 93. She took off from Andrews Air Force Base, but without weapons. No missiles, machine guns, etc.; she would have to ram into the commercial airliner to save American lives. “I would essentially be a kamikaze pilot,” she said. The 13th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks has come and gone; we will always remember those who have died. But this story of a fighter pilot who was willing to sacrifice herself to save others is surely worth the read. For years, she never gave...

US Air Force pens A-10 maintenance deal with Korean Air By: Dan Parsons Washington DC Source: Flightglobal.com This story is sourced from Flightglobal.com With top officers still calling for the aircraft’s retirement as a cost-saving measure, the US Air Force has announced a major potential investment in depot maintenance for the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt.The air force on 9 September announced a $46 million contract award to Korean Air Lines Co. (KAL) for depot-level maintenance and repair of A-10s, commonly called Warthogs, stationed Osan Air Base, South Korea. The work will be performed at KAL’s facility in Seoul with an expected...

Troops based at the Kadena Air Base in Japan know how to party. On Saturday, six gay and straight service members applied some of their finest makeup and lip synced to "I Wanna Dance with Somebody" in what is believed to be first drag queen and king show on an American military base. The show was thrown in support for the base's recently formed OutServe-SLDN chapter, a nonprofit advocacy group for the army's LGBT community.

Boston Globe must be excerped only(copyright)

If and when the U.S. attack on Syria takes place, it will be different in some ways from any previous intervention. But it will have one thing in common with every war the United States has fought in the past 50 years: B-52s will be available for the fight. This bomber is the combat aircraft that will not die. In 1977, when Congress was debating whether to build a replacement called the B-1, the complaint was that the B-52 was older than the pilots flying it. This fact was supposed to capture its obsolete character and sagging decrepitude. The...