Missouri Congressman Ike Skelton, ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, paid a visit recently to the Norfolk, Va., headquarters of US Joint Forces Command to see just what the command leading the Pentagon’s transformation effort is doing. Skelton got the complete dog and pony round of briefings and demonstrations. He marveled at the “new age in warfare,” saying “futurist information-type thinking” must receive “additional attention and additional resources.” The veteran lawmaker said, “We don’t get much of this advanced jointness in our hearings back in Washington.”
The B-52H Stratofortress that crashed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on June 15 was helping test a new advanced radar that is key to a sweeping modernization of the six-decade old bomber.