Brig. Gen. Allison Hickey, director of Total Force Integration, told reporters at the Pentagon Wednesday that the Total Force Integration initiative list—some 140 items, will be released within the “next couple of weeks.” She said the list includes all of the BRAC-directed activities and looks “beyond just the BRAC … to extend this integration effort and transformation effort into where the Air Force is going.” She went on to explain that the Air Force wants to ensure mission opportunities are accorded to the Guard and Reserve. “We don’t want to have a separation of capability,” she said. Service officials have been working this Total Force package since 1997 to address both active and reserve recapitalization, recognizing that funding is getting scarcer. Hickey said the feeling was that “If we don’t do something now, to address this issue, we will find ourselves broken in the 2010 and beyond timeframe.”
The Air Force kicked off one of its biggest exercises this week with the latest edition of Bamboo Eagle, featuring combined virtual and live training scenarios focused on test the command-and-control “nervous system” leaders need to operate on a complex joint battlefield spread over vast distances.
