Missile Wings, Badges Return

Missile Wings, Badges Return: Gen. Michael Moseley, Chief of Staff, announced June 6 the return of the missile badge with operations designator for ICBM crews. Further, USAF’s three Minuteman III ballistic missile wings, which were redesignated as space wings in 1997, will revert to missile wings, Moseley said during the dedication ceremony for the Peacekeeper missile at the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. "The re-establishment of the operations badge to missile professionals speaks to the absolute importance of the strategic nuclear mission," he said. "We are committed to the ICBM mission and to re-enforcing excellence in the Air Force nuclear community." Air Force Space Command, which oversees the ICBM units, curtailed use of the “Pocket Rocket,” replacing it with a single all-encompassing Space Badge in 2005. At the time, AFSPC leaders likened the change to one badge for all space professionals as similar to the wings worn by pilots, whether they fly fighters, bombers, or mobility aircraft. It was criticism levied at the Air Force leadership by Defense Secretary Robert Gates for allowing stewardship of the nuclear mission to lapse that prompted, in large part, last week’s resignations by Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne. (Wright-Patterson report by Ed White)

6/9/2008

Verbatim

To Be Clear
“Just like in my business, the issues that go badly get all of the attention. I think, to be clear with you, there are many things that are managed well every day in the Air Force.”
—John Young, Pentagon acquisition executive, speaking to defense reporters on the state of Air Force acquisition, Washington, D.C., Nov. 20, 2008.

Verbatim

F-22 Options
“They have two choices. On January 21st, they can obligate the $90 million and decide there's some chance ... that they will buy the airplanes and they'd rather preserve the option to buy [them] at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Or, they could chose not to obligate the $90 million and accept that they still have a decision to be made between then and March 1st. But that decision may cost the taxpayer more money.”
—DOD acquisition czar John Young on how releasing only $50 million of the $140 million authorized by Congress to keep the F-22 production line active until March 2009 still preserves options for the new Administration, Capitol Hill, Nov. 19, 2008.