Thirteen airmen currently are living and working on the Pacific island of Palau, helping to build infrastructure and provide a favorable presence for the US military. An Air Force team sent to the island in 2004 began building a search and rescue station on one of Palau’s islands, and the new team completed it, reducing the time it takes to get injured people to medical care. Another project will build a rec center for the Palau Community College. The current airmen are only the second Air Force team to participate in the Palau humanitarian work since it began in the 1970s, reports MSgt. Orville F. Desjarlais Jr.
The Air Force’s Experimental Operations Unit hosted a change of command ceremony recently, another sign of how the CCA concept is maturing and becoming entrenched in the Air Force’s structure, to the point where exercises have generated multiple sorties in a single day to simulate high-tempo combat operations.