Lt. Gen. Robert Elder Jr., who has led 8th Air Force, headquartered at Barksdale AFB, La., since June 2006, plans to retire, effective July 1, according to his official biography. The Shreveport Times reports that Elder will leave his post on June 1. According to an April 24 Pentagon release, the Air Force already has tapped Maj. Gen. Floyd Carpenter, currently Elder’s vice commander, to take charge of the NAF. Elder, who entered the Air Force in 1976, also was instrumental in USAF efforts to establish a new cyber force as well as working to rejuvenate the service’s nuclear enterprise, a process that will include the shift of 8th Air Force from Air Combat Command to the new Air Force Global Strike Command.
The top Air Force commander on on the Japanese island of Okinawa has clamped down alcohol and issued a curfew for junior enlisted Airmen and Guardians at Kadena Air Base for the next month. The order came roughly two weeks after a U.S. Marine was arrested for allegedly robbing and…