Loh to USAF: Ellsworth Move “Irresponsible”: Retired Air Force Gen. Mike Loh is making one last effort to help save Ellsworth AFB, S.D., from the BRAC axe. The former Air Force vice chief of staff provided videotaped testimony against the Pentagon plan to shutter Ellsworth and shift its B-1B bombers to Dyess AFB, Tex., when BRAC commissioners traveled to South Dakota in June. Loh has now written a letter to the commission because he is “more convinced now than I was in June that the Pentagon is wrong,” he tells the Rapid City Journal. In his letter, Loh claims the Pentagon decision to downsize to a single B-1B base is “irresponsible.”
The Air Force displayed all the firepower it has amassed on Okinawa in an unusually diverse show of force this week. IIn a May 6 “Elephant Walk,” Kadena Air Base showcased 24 F-35A Lightning II stealth fighters, eight F-15E Strike Eagles; two U.S. Army Patriot anti-missile batteries near the runway; and…