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.”
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
