Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh has released his latest edition of “Airman to Airman,” a monthly video series in which he speaks directly to airmen. In his Feb. 3 video message, he acknowledged the Air Force is “struggling” with some “pretty uncomfortable things,” including some “people who can potentially put their integrity aside,” he said referencing the ongoing cheating investigation at Malmstrom AFB, Mont. “Let me deal with those things,” he told airmen. “The fact that we are dealing with them, doesn’t take away from the fact that 99.9 percent of you out there still rock, and you do the nation’s business in a phenomenal way each and every day,” he added. Welsh praised the 220,000 airmen who support operations around the world and credited their skills to the training they receive. “We have always been the best trained Air Force on the planet and it can’t change. It has to stay that way,” he said. Despite “declining budgets (and) concerns about resources, the one thing we cannot lower on the priority list is the way we push our airmen to learn and improve in their warfighting skills,” he said. (See also Airman to Airman.)
Members of the House Armed Services Committee say the AIM-260 Joint Advanced Tactical Missile program has been set back three months due to the ongoing government shutdown. The comment is noteworthy because the JATM's status has been kept tightly under wraps.
