The New York Times reports that Defense Secretary Bob Gates wants his staff to return to wearing service dress uniforms rather than battle dress uniforms as has been the custom for many military members assigned to the Pentagon since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell, Gates “understands and appreciates” the impetus to switch to combat dress after 9/11, but he said, “more than eight years later, it’s more important to him that people—both civilian and military—are dressed in a way consistent with the fact that this building is the headquarters of the United States military in our nation’s capital city.”
Happy Birthday US Air Force: 78 Today
Sept. 18, 2025
Seventy-eight years ago today, on Sept. 18, 1947, Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson swore in Stuart Symington as the first ever Secretary of the Air Force, and the Air Force officially became the first new military service since the Revolutionary War.