New website a one-stop shop for all things Air Force housing
April 16th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Markeshia Ricks
It’s that time of the year where airmen and their families prepare to bid adieu to their current duty stations and start that all consuming process of moving to the next.
In an effort to minimize that stress, the Air Force has unveiled a new housing Website that features links to the housing pages of every Air Force installation around the world.
The new site features maps of each base, information on housing options and support services, links to other important moving related websites and a list of FAQs, according to a press release. The new site also includes information about local communities, schools and even the weather.
But the site apparently isn’t just for airmen with families. It also has information for single airmen who need to know more about the dorms, according to the press release.
Visit www.housing.af.mil for information about permanent change of station moves and base housing and off-base housing.
War on smokers, CMSAF Roy tells NCOs to stop whining and lead — this week’s Air Force Times
April 16th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
If you smoke, dip or take a hit from the hookah, you’re SOL because the Air Force has severely curtailed where airmen can light up or chew tobacco.
An Air Force Instruction issued in March prohibits airmen from using any tobacco products in parking lots, playgrounds and anywhere near Air Force hospitals or clinics.
Nearly one-quarter of airmen smoke, and that’s higher than the national average. Still, some airmen questioned the wisdom behind the Air Force’s banzai charge against tobacco use.
“Now I have to go to the smoke pit and [be] forced to inhale secondhand smoke if I want to enjoy a snus now and again,” wrote Staff Sgt. Adam Miller in an email to Air Force Times.
In other matters, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Roy sent out an email recently admonishing senior enlisted leaders for peppering him with questions such as why is there no limit to the number of airmen who can get a 5 on their enlisted performance reports.
“Our supervisors need to be reminded that there is no shortcut to developing tomorrow’s leaders,” Roy wrote in the email. “We cannot create a set of pre-defined courses of action that will adequately meet the needs of every situation.”
The email drew angry reactions from noncommissioned officers, including one who told Air Force Times that Roy wasn’t living up to his responsibilities as the Air Force’s top enlisted leader.
“The Air Force does need leadership, but that leadership is lacking starting at the top,” said the technical sergeant, who asked not to be named for fear of putting his job in jeopardy.
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Events to mark first anniversary of Kabul shootings
April 13th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Kristin Davis
On April 26, nine teams of four will begin a trek from the World Trade Center site to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., in remembrance of the nine men and women killed in the mass shooting at Kabul International Airport last April.
Each team will carry a brick with the name of one of the fallen, which will be placed in a memorial now underway at the base, said Col. Olaf Holm, the Air Advisor Academy commandant who is spearheading the event.
The teams are set to arrive April 27, the one-year anniversary of the deadliest attack by an Afghan serviceman on coalition troops in the decade-long war.
Killed that day were Maj. Jeffrey Ausborn, Capt. Charles Ransom, Tech. Sgt. Tara Brown, Maj. Philip Ambard, Maj. Raymond Estelle II, Capt. Nathan Nylander, Maj. David Brodeur and Lt. Col. Frank Bryant and contractor James McLaughlin.
The walk is just one event of many scheduled around the world, Holm said. Memorial runs are planned at Langley Air Force Base, Va., Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. and Rota Naval Station, Spain. A run will also be held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, he said.
A memorial tribute also will be held at 10 a.m. April 27 at the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Orlando, Fla.
The money raised will help fund the Air Advisor Memorial, which Holm said will be dedicated to all air advisors killed in the line of duty.
To learn more about the memorial and the events or to donate, visit www.airadvisormemorial.org.
Schwartz wades into budget battle, blasts Rep. Ryan’s budget criticism
April 9th, 2012 | Air Force Politics | Posted by Brian Everstine
Air Force photo
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, speaking to a group of think tankers at the Atlantic Council on Monday in Washington, responded to criticism of the Pentagon’s support for the president’s budget proposal with some strong words.
Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., now famously criticized the military’s support of the budget to Capitol Hill, saying that he could not believe the generals could support the president’s proposal. Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., also said that there is a debate within the Pentagon about the budget.
Ryan has since said he misspoke in his criticism.
When asked about the criticism, Schwartz said that the Pentagon acted in response to the Budget Control Act to craft a tight budget, and although he wishes “it could be Christmas every day,” the military found cuts that it could sustain.
“The adults did this,” Schwartz said. “I’m not sure to whom (they) are talking about, but I can tell you with certainty it isn’t the Joint Chiefs.”
Bronze Star Backlash, Ordeal at Dover — this week’s Air Force Times
April 9th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
Two female airmen have come under fierce and personal criticism online after the Air Force posted stories on their being awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service in Afghanistan.
Many of the people leaving comments said the airmen didn’t deserve the award, prompting the Air Force to take one of the stories offline because, “No one deserves that level of criticism for meritorious service in a combat zone,” said David Smith, a spokesman for Air Education and Training Command.
By far, most of the Bronze Stars awarded by the Air Force and Army are for meritorious service, not combat valor.
Doug Sterner, a Vietnam veteran who maintains the Military Times Hall of Valor database of military awards, called criticism of the two airmen “small-minded.”
“I certainly wouldn’t want to go back to any of these half a million Vietnam War veterans who got meritorious Bronze Stars and start questioning them,” he said.
Also, Mary Ellen Spera is one of the whistle-blowers whom the Air Force retaliated against for letting investigators know about the mistreatment of fallen troops’ remains at the Dover Air Force Base port mortuary.
An Office of Special Counsel investigation vindicated her and the other whistle-blowers, but Spera still has one nagging thought.
“That some soldier out there says, ‘Oh my God, if I get killed, I’ve got go to go to Dover,’ is the sickening thing to me,” she said. “Just let the American public and especially the American military know that we’re taking care of them. We always have and we always will, regardless of what may be happening in the background. They are the reason we do what we do.”
The issue is on newsstands now. To read it immediately, subscribe to our digital edition.
Langley uses creative photo illustration for story about airman sentenced for using cocaine
April 4th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
The late singer Rick James once said cocaine is a “hell of a drug.”
Apparently, so is coffee creamer.
A recent news story from Langley Air Force Base about an airman court-martialed for using cocaine was accompanied by a photo illustration showing an airman in the shadows cutting up white powder that looks like cocaine.
The photo was not a portrait of the airman who was sentenced to six months’ confinement for using cocaine; rather it was of a “generic airman,” said Monica Miller Rodgers, a spokeswoman for the 633rd Air Base Wing.
“We encourage creativity in our photographers, and the photo was made by using powdered coffee creamer in our studio with the use of shadow technique for a secluded effect,” she said in an email. “The photo illustration was made to support the story through powerful imagery.”
College fund established for children of pilot killed in crash
April 3rd, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
A college fund has been established for the children of an F-15 pilot killed on March 28 when his plane crashed in southwest Asia
Air Force Capt. Francis D. Imlay, 31, was with the 366th Fighter Wing out of Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho. Another crew member, who has not been identified, was injured in the crash.
The Red River Valley Fighter Pilots Association and the Air Warrior Courage Foundation have established the college fund for each of Imlay’s two children.
Contributions can be sent to the Air Warrior Courage Foundation, P.O. Box 877, Silver Spring, MD 20918. Please indicate in a note that the contribution is for the Imlay children.
To make a contribution online, go to the Air Warrior Courage Foundation home page, and click the “donate” button. Then click the “give direct” button, which will allow you to fill out an online form. Please indicate in the “comments” section that the donation is for the Imlay family fund.
What are you doing for ‘Sexual Awareness Month?’
April 2nd, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
In case you are wondering, April is not “Sexual Awareness Month.”
A sign at Joint Base Langley-Eustis in Virginia was supposed to let airmen know that April is “Sexual Assault Awareness Month,” but someone left out a key word, said base spokesman Harry Lundy.
“It was a typographical mistake that was corrected first thing this morning,” Lundy said in an email Monday afternoon. “In all, the error was displayed for less than 24 hours and does not take away from the seriousness of sexual assault awareness.”
The base plans a series of events this month to raise awareness about sexual assault including personal safety classes, a fundraiser for sexual assault victims and a “Take Back the Night” march to support victims of sexual assault, Lundy said.
“The Joint Base Langley-Eustis community takes this matter very seriously and does not see this error as a means to take it lightly,” he said.
Fixing the Pilot Shortage — this week’s Air Force Times
April 2nd, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Jeff Schogol
The Air Force is facing a projected shortfall of fighter pilots that could leave the service without enough pilots to fill its cockpits, let alone other jobs such as liaison officers, test pilots and staff positions.
The problem stems from a decade of war, during which the Air Force has been forced to cut flying hours and taken away instructors needed to push pilots through the pipeline, according to Lt. Gen. Hawk Carlisle, Air Force deputy chief of operations, plans and requirements.
“In years past, we couldn’t execute all our peacetime training flying hours that was a requirement because we were deployed too much,” Carlisle said. “We are trying to get that balance right. As things draw down, and hopefully to some extent the downrange flying decreases, we’ll increase homestation flying hours and concentrate on that.”
But because it takes so long to get a pilot through training and to an operational squadron, personnel decisions made today won’t be felt for years later. In the interim, the Air Force is offering up to $125,000 to entice manned aircraft as well as drone pilots to stay in the service a bit longer.
Please don’t pet the moose
March 29th, 2012 | Flightlines | Posted by Karen Small
A moose forages for food in the parking lot of the Army Alaska Headquarters building on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson early Sunday. Record snowfalls have forced moose to look for food in more urban areas this winter. (Justin Connaher/Air Force)
Petting a moose is not a good idea under any circumstances, the experts say, but at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, officials are warning airmen and their families to be especially careful about any encounters with moose this year.
The unusually heavy snow this winter has reduced moose food supplies, making them especially cranky, Herman Griese, a civilian wildlife specialist at the base, said in a release Tuesday. Griese also said that with the snow still 3 feet deep in the area, the animals are more likely to be found on a sidewalk, driveway or bike path, especially if you’ve been kind enough to shovel it for them.
All of which brings us to Air Force spouse Chantelle Hernandez. She got really close to a moose recently and couldn’t resist petting it. And a neighbor caught the encounter on video, which has become a hit on the Internet. Read more about it here: