The Department of Defense has identified the two airmen who were killed on Jan. 22 in an IED attack on their convoy near Taji, Iraq—TSgt. Jason L. Norton, 32, of Miami, Okla., and SSgt. Brian McElroy, 28, of San Antonio. Both were deployed to Southwest Asia from the 3rd Security Forces Squadron at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska.
The Air Force will begin its 71st annual Operation Christmas Drop on Dec. 4. The weeklong exercise is a yearly tradition that delivers supplies such as food, fishing equipment, school books, and clothes to remote islands in the Pacific. It is the longest-running Department of Defense humanitarian mission.