An Air Force aircraft maintenance officer is one of USAF’s in-lieu-of-a-soldier airmen who are working in Southwest Asia outside his expertise—way out. First Lt. Jacob Sullivan, with the 319th Maintenance Group at Grand Forks, N.D., is running an Army Tactical Operations Center at a forward operating base in Afghanistan, reports SrA. Paul Croxon. Sullivan supervises 17 airmen who provide capabilities ranging from communications to personnel to medical care and intelligence. On at least one occasion, Sullivan has had to man the machine gun in a Humvee to help fight off enemy forces.
After years of describing to lawmakers and Pentagon leaders the nature of that threat and the key role spacepower plays in deterring conflict in the domain and enabling the rest of the joint force, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told reporters during AFA’s Warfare Symposium here that the message appears to…