Category: US Air Force

Here is the latest show of force towards North Korea:

The United States flew nuclear-capable bombers to the Korean Peninsula on Friday in its latest show of force against North Korea, days after the North staged massive anti-U.S. rallies in its capital.

The long-range B-52 bombers took part in joint aerial drills with other U.S. and South Korean fighter jets over the peninsula, South Korea’s Defense Ministry said in a statement. The bombers’ flyover is the latest in a series of temporary U.S. deployments of strategic assets in South Korea in response to North Korea’s push to expand its nuclear arsenal.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Flying bomber jets with South Korean fighters is one of the typical U.S. responses to North Korean provocations. What makes this one different is that the Japanese joined in to make it a trilateral deterrence drill:

U.S. B-52 bombers flew with Japanese and South Korean fighter jets Friday in separate exercises as a show of unity intended to deter would-be adversaries, the Defense Department said Friday.

The joint aerial training comes amid elevated tensions with North Korea and China.

North Korea has stepped up its pace of missile testing, including the launch Thursday of what it called a “new type” of solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The new frontline on the war on woke has not shifted to the U.S. Air Force Academy:

Academy officials say such diversity training is long overdue and will build better leaders, while critics worry about what appears to be a changing culture and focus in the military and its institutions that will be to the detriment of the nation’s defenses.

One slide presented as part of the training program bore language that encouraged cadets to “recognize diverse family formation” by using broad terminology that avoided gendered references. The academy said the slide was taken out of context; cadets aren’t prohibited from using the terms “mom” and “dad,” as some news reports claimed, and the information presented as part of the training was “not intended to stand alone.”

But the academy’s response has only served to fuel ongoing controversy about so-called wokeism in the military, a debate that was re-stirred after images of the AFA training slides were shared beyond the campus north of Colorado Springs last month, reported on by Fox News Digital and then a slew of other outlets.

The slides , visual aids used in a moderated presentation at the academy — and the only elements of the presentation subsequently leaked to the media — made their points in a series of bullet points. One slide encouraged cadets to use “person-centered” and “inclusive language” that doesn’t imply presumptions about others’ situations, preferred pronouns or family life.

So, “parents/caregivers/guardians” instead of “mom and dad.”

And “ya’ll/team/squaddies/everyone/folks,” instead of “you guys.”

It also discouraged cadets from using terms such as “colorblind.”

A second slide explained that diversity and inclusion are key to developing warfighters who are prepared to lead the Air Force and Space Force “with character.”

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but the Academy is pretty much just producing the standard diversity training that is going on in most colleges in the U.S.

This feeds right into the narrative critics have launched for years that the military would be forced for political reasons to drop standards to allow more females into combat arms and special operations career fields:

The Air Force Special Operations Command’s handling of news that a female special warfare candidate received preferential treatment in the training pipeline has sparked a fierce backlash and proven accurate the warnings of a 2016 report that called for transparency in the military’s integration of women into special operations forces.

Last week, a letter written by an anonymous special tactics airman emerged detailing how a female special tactics officer candidate quit the challenging selection process and training pipeline multiple times, only to be reinstated by the leadership of AFSOC and the 24th Special Operations Wing. (……..)

Since then, details have emerged that cast more doubt on AFSOC’s handling of the situation. On Thursday, Air Force Times reported that the trainee herself protested the training standards being lowered for her.

Task and Purpose

You can read more at the link, but I am all for women in special forces, but it shouldn’t be because of special treatment. This just devalues the accomplishments of the women who do eventually make the cut.

Airmen have a few more weeks to get their new uniforms:

The Air Force has delayed its switch to new color schemes for uniform boots, under garments and flag patches until September, citing “unnecessary stress” on its service members due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Airmen, including Space Force service members, by Sept. 1 must wear coyote brown boots and T-shirts and spice brown U.S. flag patches with their two-piece flight uniforms and utility uniforms in the operational camouflage pattern, better known as OCPs, according to a notice on the Air Force website. The original deadline was June 1.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

I wonder if all these accommodations has led to any increased recruitment from people of these faiths?:

Airmen will be allowed to wear up to 2-inch beards under a new Air Force guidance that outlines grooming standards for religious accommodations.

The updated grooming policy, published Friday, also allows members of the Sikh faith to wear turbans and Muslim women to wear hijabs.

Airmen must have religious or medical exemptions to grow beards, the policy says.

The guidance for beards grown under a shaving waiver remains unchanged: Such whiskers must not be trimmed to give a sculpted appearance and cannot exceed a quarter-inch in length, the updated policy states.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

The Korean media has been making a big deal about surveillance flights around North Korea and the PACAF commander says these flights are nothing new:

The commander of U.S. Pacific Air Forces said Friday that recent surveillance flights around the Korean Peninsula were part of regular operations, refusing to confirm any connection to possible North Korean provocations.

In a telephone briefing from Hawaii, Gen. Charles Brown, Jr. said there has been an increasing number of North Korean missile tests and heightened rhetoric ahead of the end-of-year deadline Pyongyang has imposed for Washington to show flexibility in their denuclearization negotiations.

“I also believe as we get here towards the end of the year and the increase in rhetoric, it’s something we are actually really paying close attention to, not only for this month but into 2020 as well,” Brown told reporters.

“We’re pretty much flying the same way that we’ve been flying for the past year or so, so there’s no real change,” he said when asked if the surveillance flights implied there could be North Korean provocations.

“Our job is to provide some situational awareness and domain awareness to not only our military leadership, but also to our political leadership so they have an understanding of the dynamics of what’s going on within the region, whether it be around the peninsula or any other part of the region,” Brown added. “So, our tempo really hasn’t changed in the course of the past year.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

This is just bizarre and creepy that a four star general would do something like this if true:

U.S. Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten’s chances of being confirmed as the military’s second-highest officer may come down to one thing next week: whether senators believe an Army colonel’s charges that he sexually assaulted her while she was under his command — accusations he denies.

Col. Kathryn Spletstoser has accused Hyten, who is currently responsible for the country’s nuclear arsenal as the head of U.S. Strategic Command, of making unwanted sexual contact with her on several occasions in 2017 while the two were traveling for work.

Both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee maintain that her account is plausible, but some members have also said they are wary of taking her uncorroborated word over the categorical denials of a decorated four-star Air Force general endorsed by high-ranking colleagues. (…………..)

Spletstoser’s public remarks would probably mirror much of what she has told the panel in private and alleged in a Washington Post interview: that Hyten had taken a liking to her when he took over U.S. Strategic Command in November 2016, picking her to be his “point person,” but that two months in, he started making overt and unwelcome advances during official overnight trips.

The first time was in January 2017, she alleges, when Hyten grabbed her left hand as she was exiting a work meeting in his hotel room in Palo Alto, California, pulling it in toward his groin so she could feel his erection before she moved her hand away. In June 2017, Spletstoser said that Hyten interrupted another work meeting in his Washington, D.C., hotel room to fondle her breasts and kiss her — and that she pushed him away and admonished him. That prompted Hyten to panic, she said, and ask her through tears: “Are you going to tell on me?” Though she felt he had clearly “crossed a line,” she assured him she would not, she said.

Yet it was during the Reagan National Defense Forum in December 2017 that Spletstoser said Hyten made his most aggressive move, arriving uninvited at her hotel room in workout clothes carrying a binder, and claiming he wanted to discuss work matters. Within minutes, Spletstoser said, Hyten had pinned her against him and begun “grinding on me hard, like he wants to take my clothes off and have sex . . . and then I realize, he’s ejaculating.”

Washington Post

You can read more at the link, but what complicates this issue is that Col. Spletstoser was given a letter of reprimand from investigators for toxic leadership behavior. She was also given a negative officer evaluation report from General Hyten which she was appealing when he was nominated for the Vice Chairman job and she then made the complaint against him.

Interestingly no one else has come forward to say they saw anything inappropriate. This turns this into a he said, she said situation and it will be interesting to see what happens because in this #metoo environment those accused of sexual misconduct are guilty until proven innocent.

ROK Heads may remember the story about the Air Force NCO who was demoted after making comments about black female service members. Well she has now been separated from the Air Force:

An Air Force noncommissioned officer who made headlines last year for a racist rant that she posted to social media is no longer in the service, personnel officials confirmed.

Geraldine Lovely, who last served as a staff sergeant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, was separated from the Air Force on April 5, according to information provided by the Air Force Personnel Center. The reason for her separation and the nature of her discharge were not provided due to privacy restrictions, the Air Force said.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.

Welcome to modern day U.S. Air Force training:

A safety brief analyzing security concerns at one military installation offered up an eccentric example of a potential hazard when instructors warned airmen in attendance of the growing threat of incels, or involuntary celibates.

The online-based community of introverted, sexless individuals that may have started decades ago as an innocuous attempt at achieving a sense of belonging has, in recent years, become a label for a more aggressive sect of repugnant men who cast the entirety of the blame for their coitus-free existence onto women.

This scorn has manifested in the form of heinous misogyny shared over online message boards, and in a handful of cases, escalated into deadly violence.

In the wake of learning Army veteran and Dallas courthouse shooter, Brian Isaack Clyde, was an active participant in the incel subculture, at least one base — Maryland’s Joint Base Andrews — is now taking measures to educate service members on the warning signs — including the use of a popular meme Clyde shared on his social media — of potential violence carried out by the incel community.

In the time leading up to the shooting, Clyde shared a version of the incel meme known as “Virgin vs. Chad,” in which the characteristics of an incel man are stacked up against his antithesis. In Clyde’s case, the meme contrasted the ways in which the Virgin and Chad would carry out a mass shooting, according to the Dallas Morning News.

Air Force Times

You can read more at the link, but I believe this less about being a so called “incel” then people suffering from mental disorders that use not getting a date as an excuse for violence.