Gates Recommends Donley, Schwartz to Take Over USAF

Gates Recommends Donley, Schwartz to Take Over USAF: Defense Secretary Robert Gates earlier today recommended that President Bush nominate Michael Donley to be the next Secretary of the Air Force and Gen. Norton Schwartz to serve as the next Chief of Staff. Donley is presently director of administration and management for the Department of Defense and Schwartz currently heads US Transportation Command. Gates said in a release he also recommended that President Bush designate Donley as Acting Secretary effective June 21 to minimize the disruption caused by the resignations of Michael Wynne and Gen. Michael Moseley last week. Gates also put forth two additional leadership changes: He recommends moving Gen. Duncan McNabb, the current vice chief of staff, to fill Schwartz’s vacancy at TRANSCOM, and Lt. Gen. William Fraser to take over McNabb’s No. 2 role on the Air Staff. Prior to becoming vice chief, McNabb led Air Mobility Command. Fraser is currently the assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

6/9/2008

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.