Appearing before an Oct. 5 hearing of the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, commander of US European Command, explained that, on average, 4,500 reservists are working within his command every day. They perform a range of missions spanning airlift, air refueling, command and control, intelligence, force protection, and special operations. He said that reservists comprise more than 10 percent of his uniformed headquarters staff. Jones favors two prime initiatives to improve the usefulness of reservists within his command: one would establish a sole pay and personnel system for active and reserve forces; the second would slash the number of reserve component duty statuses to help achieve equality in pay and benefits with their active duty counterparts.
The crash of a T-38 trainer jet this May—which caused a weekslong pause in flights across the fleet—was caused by an improperly installed pin for one of the jet’s horizontal stabilizers, according to a new accident report released Oct. 30. When the pin disengaged midflight, it created the slightest amount…