The head of the National Guard Bureau, Army Lt. Gen. Stephen Blum, says that the National Guard provides “real, critically needed skills and real capabilities, not just some PowerPoint slide promises.” Blum, who was speaking at the National Guard Association of the United States conference in New Mexico, said that 9/11 sparked a “no-notice transformation” of the Guard, citing, as one example, the phenomenal progress the Guard has made over the past five years in creating 45 weapons of mass destruction and civil support teams, 54 24-hour-a-day joint operations centers, and 54 reaction forces, among other capabilities. Blum said: “You name the theater, the Guard is there. You name the operation, the Guard is there.”
The crash of a T-38 trainer jet this May—which caused a weekslong pause in flights across the fleet—was caused by an improperly installed pin for one of the jet’s horizontal stabilizers, according to a new accident report released Oct. 30. When the pin disengaged midflight, it created the slightest amount…