The Guam Initial Response Readiness Exercise, an island-wide program that teams Pacific Air Force’s 36th Wing at Andersen AFB, Guam, with Naval Base Guam, kicked off in 2005 to coordinate training on war plan deployments and joint disaster response efforts. Starting next week, this year’s installment (now planned for every quarter) will be an expanded effort featuring Guam Army and Air National Guard along with Guam’s Civil Defense and Homeland Security joint team, as well as the formation of Joint Task Force Homeland Defense-Guam.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…