USAF has put lawmakers in the “dilemma” of having to make a decision about the service’s request to retire 30 older C-5 airlifters and purchase 30 additional new C-17s in their stead based on “imperfect information,” admitted Lt. Gen. Donald Hoffman, USAF’s military acquisition chief. Hoffman told lawmakers on the Senate Armed Service’s air-land panel April 26 that the service simply won’t know how much program cost growth it will have on the C-5 reliability enhancement and re-engining program until “later this summer.” Unfortunately, a Congressional decision cannot be put off, he declared, “because, if no decision is made, that, in fact, is a decision, and the C-17 factory will start to shut down.”
The Pentagon fulfilled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's promise to slash the number of Religious Affiliation Codes used by the military to track the volume of members adhering to different religions and to shape the chaplain corps to support them. The change reduces the number of religions counted for such purposes…