Air Force Global Strike Command already has a staff of about 160 personnel in its headquarters at Barksdale AFB, La., and continues to build the HQ toward its full strength of about 900 airmen by next summer, Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, the new command’s boss, said Friday. Speaking at a National Defense University Foundation-sponsored breakfast on Capitol Hill, Klotz said another 100 airmen destined for the HQ are scheduled to arrive in the next several weeks. On top of that, about 70 officers and noncommissioned officers are temporarily assigned to Barksdale to assist with the HQ build-up he said. The Air Force activated Global Strike Command on Aug. 7 to oversee its nuclear and global strike forces. “We are establishing this new command, I hope, in a very systematic and step-by-step approach,” said Klotz.
The Air Force’s study of possible links to elevated rates of cancer among personnel who worked on intercontinental continental ballistic missiles has begun, the commander in charge of the U.S. ICBM fleet confirmed March 28. The initial phase of that study will mine cancer registries for information and compile a…