The Kaiserslautern Military Community Center project, overseen by the 435th Civil Engineer Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, recently had a 15-ton dome lowered into place, completing one more segment of the 840,000 square feet of hotel, shops, base exchange, restaurants, and movie theater, scheduled to open in January 2007. The 350-bed hotel actually plans take its first guest in June 2006. Brig. Gen. Danny Gardner, US Air Forces in Europe Mission Support director, calls it a “little piece of the United States” to improve quality of life, but he adds that it is not intended to replace the benefit of exploring new places and trying native foods and services.
In the face of Chinese war plans to disrupt U.S. command-and-control networks in the event of a conflict, the Air Force needs to focus less on its “connect everything” efforts and prepare its combat aviators to fight without a constant connection to higher-ups, according to a new report from AFA’s…