When asked at the Tuesday Pentagon press briefing (see above) if the boxed Minuteman ICBM nose cones and helicopter batteries were “similar in physical appearance,” Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne replied, “Once you set them side by side, no.” The dimensions of a nose cone cylindrical shipping container are 32.5 inches x 18.5 inches, compared to the battery’s rectangular shipping container at 14 inches x 9.5 inches x five inches. One intrepid reporter actually asked why the Air Force was at the briefing and not the Defense Logistics Agency which had stored and shipped the missile parts to Taiwan, but Pentagon policy chief Ryan Henry deflected that by saying the ongoing investigation would assign accountability. Later in the briefing, Wynne noted that DLA had placed the classified missile components in unclassified storage, adding: “They should have gone to the classified storage. There is a classified storage there.” However, he then stated that “what happened between arrival and departure” at the DLA facility in Utah “is for Admiral Donald to surmise.”
Gene Smith, Former POW and AFA Chair, Dies at 91
Jan. 19, 2026
Lt. Col. Richard “Gene” Smith, who overcame five and a half years as a prisoner of war in the notorious Hanoi Hilton from 1967 until 1973, died Jan. 16. He was one day short of his 91st birthday.
