The Air Force plans to hold a selective early retirement board—SERB—targeting lieutenant colonels and colonels beginning on Jan. 8. In July, the service said it must shed in Fiscal 2007 some 8,000 officers, including hundreds of twice-deferred 0-5s and 0-6s not already selected for promotion to brigadier general. It wants to get volunteers to leave the service by Sept. 1, 2007 (not Sept. 30, as we reported earlier), but, if not, the SERB will identify the officers that must go.
Air Force depots are not typically meant for quick repair jobs, but during Operation Epic Fury, the service moved some of its stateside heavy maintenance capability forward to fix battle-damaged aircraft closer to the fight.
