Cross Training at Melrose

Cross Training at Melrose: While AFSOC’s 27th Special Operations Wing would have priority access to the open training space on Melrose (see above), the air commandos won’t be alone according to Lt. Col. Toby Corey, ops boss for the 27th Special Operations Support Squadron. In addition to hosting special tactics training from AFSOC units based at Hurlburt Field, Fla., the 27th SOW will be able to work closely with the nearby 58th Special Operations Wing at Kirtland AFB, N.M. The 58th SOW, an Air Education and Training Command unit, is the schoolhouse for AFSOC’s helicopter and MC-130 crews and has picked up the training role for the new CV-22. “They are familiar with the environment and the terrain and it will a benefit to have them nearby,” Corey said. The short distance for both the Kirtland and Cannon SOF units to the training range also means shorter missions—meaning both the schoolhouse and the wing will get more chances to train.

12/11/2007

Verbatim

Preemptive Action
"Since the [Defense] Department's acceptance of the independent estimates last fall, we've been, in just about every respect, acting as if the program were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach. ... We've been taking all of the mitigating and corrective action that we would take as if there were a Nunn-McCurdy breach."
—Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, discussing with reporters the restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program announced in February 2010 and the probability that the program will soon exceed Nunn-McCurdy cost-monitoring thresholds that would necessitate, per US law, a program review and corrective steps, Washington, D.C., March 2, 2010.

Verbatim

Message for Grandma
"She has working for her as a citizen in the United States an Air Force Reserve that has some very talented, capable, patriotic, and willing individuals doing the business to keep this nation free. Just like her generation—the 'Greatest Generation'—was, I am very proud of the folks that we have got. If not the second greatest, then they are an extension of the greatest generation and they are ready, willing, and able to do the things that she would want them to do to make sure we keep our freedoms."
—Lt. Gen. Charles Stenner, Air Force Reserve chief, responding to a reporter's question on what the reporter should tell his 85-year-old grandmother to convey to her the importance of Air Force Reservists to the nation's security, Orlando, Fla., Feb. 19, 2010.