The majority of the force entered the Air Force after Sept. 11, 2001, which means they’ve never experienced an Air Force that wasn’t at war. As operations in Iraq draw to a close later this year, senior leaders are trying to come up with ways to ensure this highly capable, combat-proven force remains motivated, said CMSAF James Roy Wednesday at AFA’s Air & Space Conference. “We have a dilemma. We keep talking about drawing this force down in Iraq. We will be drawing down in Afghanistan. The challenge for us leaders is how do we keep drawing those innovative young airmen to us and how do we keep them?” said Roy. Today’s airmen “can tell you what they did on their first deployment and even their eighth deployment, but how are we going to replicate that in the future.” Exercises may be the key, whether they are joint, coalition, interagency, or service-specific. That’s “what we need to continue to take all that training and all that development and put it to use,” he said.
New approaches to testing Space Force equipment are speeding up delivery to operators, but the service needs more testers and perhaps its own space-focused test center, officials said April 1. Those are key pieces of the fledgling force’s testing methods and future moves that will keep new technology flowing into…