Lt. Col. Craig Hall, deputy commander of the 325th Maintenance Group, Tyndall AFB, Fla., was awarded the Bronze Star medal. Hall served as commander of the 379th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron in Southwest Asia where he helped set up an organizational structure and buildings to sustain operations at a bare base. Overall his team directed the generation of more than 21,000 combat sorties and 75,000 flying hours with six different weapon systems in both Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.
U.S. Southern Command recently announced its first lethal strike on a suspected narco-trafficking vessel in two months, and the first under a newly formed permanent counter-cartel task force. The U.S. is also reportedly planning to transfer MQ-9 drones to Colombia to bolster its counter-cartel efforts.