Training for USAF’s joint terminal attack controllers is never ending, as attested to recently by some JTACs currently deployed to Southwest Asia. Whether here in the States or overseas, these battlefield airmen train and train again. JTACs stationed in Germany traveled to Kansas recently to train on the Smoky Hill Air National Guard Range. Why? MSgt. Scott Loescher says that it is one of the few ranges that is “not pilot-centric; it’s JTAC-centric.” Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a JTAC assigned to South Korea is helping train pilots at Misawa AB, Japan, who will soon deploy to SWA. JTAC SSgt. Krystoffer Bowman says, “It’s all about accuracy,” making sure the bomb dropped from the fighter or bomber “hits the right place at the right time.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth this week released strategies meant to focus the Pentagon’s “alphabet soup” of innovation organizations and proliferate artificial intelligence—moves that experts say could provide the structure needed to make the military’s efforts to integrate and field new technology more effective.
