At 
the start of the 2012-13 NBA season, there will be one member of the Dallas Mavericks who could not have been a rookie without being a veteran first. “I honestly wouldn’t be playing basketball if it wasn’t for the Air Force. I might be messing around, but I wouldn’t be playing competitively,” said Bernard James, a former staff sergeant who served in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar between 2003 and 2008, and is now a first-year center for the Mavs. “At every base I was at, I was lucky to find a basketball court,” said James in an interview. While in the Air Force, James played in the 2005 Armed Forces All Star Game, which led to Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton offering him a scholarship. James capitalized on the opportunity to play college basketball and on June 28, 2012, the professional door opened for him as the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted him and then traded him to the Dallas that same day. Click here to continue to the full report.
Former AFCENT Commander Reflects on Lessons of Epic Fury
Sept. 13, 2026
Operation Epic Fury marked the U.S. military's largest air campaign in a generation, with strikes on 13,000 targets in Iran before the first in a series of shaky ceasefires began in April. Now, even as hostilities continue to flare up, Lt. Gen. Derek C. France sees several clear lessons that…
