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.”
Trainees in Basic Military Training and technical school no longer have the option to try alternate PT drills if they fail an initial assessment, according to a policy change the Air Force made in April. The move is part of a larger shift out of the classroom and into hands-on,…