Lt. Gen. Kevin Sullivan, the Air Staff’s top loggie, said there were two issues that drove the service leadership’s decision last month to cancel the restructure of aircraft maintenance units. There was consensus that maintenance personnel would be better able to sustain and hone their core competencies if they are led by maintenance professionals, he said in a USAF release Sept. 4. There was also the desire “to reduce the amount of turmoil and change” within the service at this time, he said. Then Chief of Staff, now retired Gen. Michael Moseley, approved the realignment in May, and implementation of the plan was set to begin in July. But Acting Air Force Secretary Michael Donley put a hold on those plans on July 1. At the service’s senior leader summit Aug. 27, the leadership decided to axe the idea. Although maintenance and flying squadrons will remain separate, Sullivan said the service will still offer the training planned under the restructure as a means of improving the ties between maintenance and ops. “We’re also looking at other ways to strengthen that ops-maintenance bond within the existing wing structure,” he said.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Sept. 5 to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War, a move that has heightened the ongoing debate over the White House’s legal authorities and the role of the military in the world and at home.
