Air Force Reserve Command plans to change the way its groups Reserve colonels to meet promotion selection boards, beginning Oct. 16. It will merge selected reserve and participating individual ready reserve lieutenant colonels being considered for colonel. The head of the Air Force Reserve, Lt. Gen. John Bradley calls the change “especially prudent” considering the strategic shift to an operational reserve, greater Total Force integration, the effects of BRAC 2005 and the Air Force’s impending personnel drawdown. He added that the decision to form one competitive category was not done in a “vacuum.” Bradley said, this decision represents “the best recommendation” from a general officer-led promotions working group, chartered in July, to address problems such as promoting more lieutenant colonels than AFRC’s number of colonel positions.
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.