The Air Force on Thursday confirmed that the eight US military personnel who died Wednesday in the shooting incident at Kabul International Airport were airmen. They were part of a NATO team training and advising the Afghan air force. “The entire Air Force family is saddened by this loss and our thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of these brave airmen,” said Air Force Secretary Michael Donley, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, and CMSAF James A. Roy in a joint release. They continued: “The Air Force stands ready to support the families as they recover from this tragedy. The pain the families feel is shared across the entire Air Force.” Service officials are withholding the airmen’s names until 24 hours after notification of next of kin. Already officials at JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, have announced that one of the airmen was assigned there (see below). According to press reports, a veteran Afghan air force officer got into an argument with the US advisors during a meeting and subsequently began firing at them. The Afghan shooter also killed one US civilian contractor. (See ABC News report and Boston Herald report)
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…