Air Force Space Command will be deploying civilian logistician Michele Kantak—at her request—to Southwest Asia in January to serve as a base-level planner. It’s not the first time AFSPC has sent a civilian volunteer—David King served 133 days in SWA earlier this year—but sending a civilian is not entirely up to the civilian. Each unit has to be able to fund overtime pay for a minimum of 32 hours per week. “Right now, most units can’t fund the [civilian] request because it’s just too large of a bill,” says Kantak.
After a long period in which munitions were almost an afterthought and sacrificed to pay for other priorities, the Air Force needs to focus on them in order to have the right “package” of capabilities for future conflicts, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. said June 7.