Having barely transitioned back to their assigned home station at Peterson AFB, Colo., after a year’s deployment in Southwest Asia, several returning airmen with Air Force Reserve Command’s 302nd Airlift Wing joined other wing members to swing into fire-fighting mode, helping battle raging fires in the Pacific Northwest. The 302nd AW has sent 21 airmen and a fire-fighting equipped C-130 to southern Oregon to counter the worst fire there in 10 years, reports the Colorado Springs Gazette. The wing plans to rotate its crews in weeklong shifts through September.
House lawmakers unveiled a new reconciliation package July 15 with $60 billion for defense, $290 billion less than the Pentagon has been seeking, a day after a Senate vote to advance the annual defense policy bill failed—developments that show the perilous state of the Pentagon’s ambitious plans for fiscal 2027.