Daily Report

June 19, 2012

Air Commando Posthumously Awarded Silver Star

SrA. Mark Forester, an Air Force Special Operations Command combat controller, last week posthumously received the Silver Star medal for his gallantry in action in Afghanistan in 2010. An insurgent sniper’s bullet killed Forester, 29, on Sept. 29, 2010, while...

Fifth GPS IIF Satellite Completed

Boeing has finished fabrication of the fifth of 12 Global Positioning System IIF satellites, announced the company June 18. “Boeing, in close partnership with the US Air Force, is focused on execution and mission assurance,” said Craig Cooning, Boeing’s general...

Long-time Air Force Deserter Comes Forward

David Hemler, who deserted the Air Force in February 1984 and has lived secretly in Sweden since then, has come forward, revealing his identify and contacting his family back in the United States, according to press reports. Hemler was 21...

Interoperability Tested at Bold Quest

Representatives from the US military branches and their counterparts from 11 nations recently wrapped up Bold Quest 12-1 at Indiana’s Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center and other venues. The two-week Joint Staff-led exercise assessed how the approximately 440 participants...

Nordic Lightning Ordered

Norway’s defense ministry authorized the purchase of the country’s first two F-35 strike fighters, announced Norwegian defense minister Espen Barth Eide. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta approved Norway’s request to integrate the indigenously developed Joint Strike Missile into the F-35, paving...

New Reserve Building at Robins

The first of some 400 occupants last week began moving into Air Force Reserve Command’s newly constructed two-story administrative building at Robins AFB, Ga. The 93,000-square-foot building is part of an effort to consolidate seven off-base and on-base facilities into...

Lending a Paw in Afghanistan

To date, Russia has allowed more than 2,200 flights, 379,000 personnel, and more than 45,000 containers of cargo to transit its territory in support of NATO operations in Afghanistan, announced State Department officials June 18. Further, Russia continues to expand...

Jolly Green Partners

A Wyoming Air National Guard aeromedical evacuation crew recently mentored Tunisian doctors, nurses, and crews during a three-day mass-casualty exercise at Bizerte, Tunisia. “The Libyan crisis really woke up the Tunisians to the logistics of how to handle mass causalities,”...