Military Learning Center » Europe

USAFE chief: Don’t rely on UAVs

Angel — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:36:37 +0000

The Air Force’s top officer in Europe has a strong message for supporters of unmanned aircraft: Remotely piloted planes won’t be as effective in future wars as they are in Iraq and Afghanistan.

First AFRICOM air chief looks to future

Angel — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 09:59:50 +0000

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Maj. Gen. Ronald Ladnier faced a gargantuan task after he left his command at U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Detachment 5: Stand up a numbered Air Force and the air component for U.S. Africa Command … Continue reading →

Study says Aegis radar systems on the decline

Angel — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 14:10:19 +0000

The advanced radar systems aboard cruisers and destroyers are in their worst shape ever, according to an independent probe into Navy readiness, raising questions about the surface fleet’s ability to take on its high-profile new mission next year defending Europe … Continue reading →

Select bases begin using new civilian application procedure

Angel — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 21:58:00 +0000

The planned Feb. 22 rollout of a civilian hiring test initiative activated on schedule, requiring current Air Force civilian employees to follow new procedures when applying for jobs at select bases.

Air Force civilians applying for jobs at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas; Osan Air Base, South Korea; or any of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe bases will apply for vacancies through USAJOBS instead of the Air Force Civilian Employment Self-Nomination Application found on the Air Force Personnel Center’s secure Web site.
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Gates, Mullen support overturning gay ban

Angel — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 18:23:54 +0000

Defense Secretary Robert Gates told Congress on Tuesday that he “fully supports” President Obama’s desire to repeal the law banning open military service by gays.Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen agreed, adding that he personally believes gays should be able to serve openly in the military.“We received our orders from the commander in chief, and we are moving out accordingly,” Gates said.During a packed hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gates said he has ordered a 45-day review of Pentagon policy that will produce recommendations to “enforce this law in a fairer manner” while Congress decides whether to enact Obama’s call to repeal the controversial law and policy, which has banned military service by openly gay people beginning in 1994.More than 13,500 gay service members have been discharged since then, according to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, a Washington, D.C., group dedicated to repeal.Gates told committee chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., that the review will examine internal conclusions that the Pentagon should, on its own, be able to raise the level of the officer who can initiate and conduct a “don’t ask, don’t tell” inquiry; “raise the bar on what constitutes credible information, what constitutes credible information”; and reduce the number of instances in which a gay service member is “outed” by a third party.Gates, who acknowledged concerns about making such changes in the midst of two ongoing wars, also announced the formation of a longer-range review of current policy that will look at all aspects of repeal’s potential impact on the force “by the end of this calendar year.”Gates said this review group, to be headed by Gen. Carter Ham, commander of U.S. Army Europe, and Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson, will examine all policies they believe could be affected, including service member benefits, base housing, fraternization and other issues.It will also “examine potential impacts of a change in the law on military effectiveness” such as recruiting and retention, and “will develop ways to mitigate and manage any potential impacts.”Mullen said he is “in complete support” of Gates’ recommended approach. He followed that comment with his first expression of his personal view on open service by gays.“Speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal and professional belief that allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do,” Mullen said.Mullen said the department had spent the past two months reviewing the “fundamental premises” behind the law and policy, “as well as its practice over the past [17] years.”Pentagon leaders “understand perfectly” Obama’s desire for repeal of the law, he said, adding: “We owe him our best military advice about the impact of such a repeal and the manner in which we would implement a change in policy.”Mullen said he and the other Joint Chiefs “have not yet developed that advice and would like to have the time to do so in the same thoughtful, deliberate fashion with which the president has made it clear he wants to proceed.”Further signaling a desire to proceed slowly, Mullen said that implementation “must be carefully derived, sufficiently thorough and thoughtfully executed.”But in a personal sense, Mullen told the committee that he feels “don’t ask, don’t tell” is fundamentally unfair.“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Mullen said. “For me, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals and ours as an institution.”Mullen said he believes the military would “accommodate” the change but added: “I do not know this for a fact, nor do I know for a fact how we would best make such a major policy change in a time of two wars.”Mullen said he and the other Joint Chiefs “recognize the stress our troops and their families are under, and … should the law change … we need to move forward in a manner that does not add to that stress.”Mullen acknowledged that such a change will have a significant impact. “That there will be some disruption in the force I cannot deny,” he said. “That there will be legal, social and perhaps even infrastructure changes to be made certainly seems plausible.”The review Gates has ordered will examine such issues, Mullen said. But it is understood that any change ultimately must come from Congress, he added.“The American people have spoken on this subject through you, their elected officials,” Mullen said. “And the result is the law and the policy we have.”In the absence of any change, Mullen said, “we will continue to obey that law, and we will obey whatever legislative and executive decisions come out of this debate.”Levin said he favors ending “don’t ask, don’t tell” and believes a change “would improve our military’s capability and reflect our commitment to equal opportunity.”But a visibly upset Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the committee’s senior Republican, said he believes the policy, which he called “imperfect, but effective,” should not be overturned during a time of war.Mullen said it will be important to fully explore the diverse views on the subject of open service by gays and that while “there are those on both sides of this debate who speak as if there is no debate … I hope we can be more thoughtful than that. I expect that we will be more thoughtful than that.”Mullen said that he is “100 percent committed” to ensuring that Pentagon leaders listen to the concerns of the force and the general public.“What the citizens we defend want to know — what they deserve to know — is that their uniformed leadership will act in a way that absolutely does not place in peril the readiness and effectiveness of their military,” Mullen said.Related reading• Gates, Mullen to discuss ‘don’t ask’ policy• Gates to announce review of ban on gays

AF hands out awards to 16 units

Angel — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:20:59 +0000

Sixteen units have been honored with 2008-09 Air Force Unit Awards. The winners are as follows:Gallant Unit Citation— 720th Special Tactics Group, Hurlburt Field, Fla. for the period of Jan. 1, 2006, to Dec. 31, 2007.Meritorious Unit Award— 4th Expeditionary Air Support Operations Group from Jan. 18 to Dec. 13, 2006.Air Force Outstanding Unit Award With Valor— 24th Expeditionary Field Investigations Squadron from June 10, 2008, to June 9, 2009.Air Force Outstanding Unit Award— 1st Weather Group, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb., from April 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— 2nd Weather Group, Offutt AFB, from Sept. 19, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Air Force Office of Special Investigation Field Investigative Region 7, Andrews Air Force Base, Md., from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2008.Air Force Organizational Excellence Award— The Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of the Air Force, Internal Affairs, Washington, D.C., from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment and Logistics, Washington, D.C., from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2008.— Office of the Secretary of the Air Force Warfighting Integration and Chief Information Office, Washington, D.C., from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2008.— Headquarters Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Ill., from June 1, 2006, to May 31, 2008.— Headquarters United States Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein Air Base, Germany, from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Air Force District of Washington, Andrews AFB, from April 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Agency, Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, from June 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center, Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Air Force Weather Agency, Offutt AFB, from April 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.— Air Force Element, North Atlantic Treaty Organization E-3A, Geilenkirchen, Germany, from Jan. 1, 2007, to Dec. 31, 2008.Each winning unit will be presented with appropriate certificates, citations, and streamers for the award. All personnel assigned or attached to an identified organization for at least one day during the period for which a unit award was awarded, and who directly contributed to the mission and accomplishments of the unit, are authorized to wear the appropriate award ribbon on their uniforms. The one exception to this is the Gallant Unit Citation. Only individuals who received imminent danger pay during the period of the award are eligible for that award and the wear of the ribbon.

Select bases to implement new civilian application procedure

Angel — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:19:06 +0000

As early as mid-February, the rollout of a civilian hiring test initiative will require current Air Force civilian employees to follow new procedures when applying for jobs at select bases.

Air Force civilians who want to apply for jobs at Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas; Osan Air Base, Korea; or any of the United States Air Forces in Europe bases will apply for those vacancies through USAJOBS instead of the Air Force Civilian Employment Self-Nomination Application found on the Air Force Personnel Center’s secure Web site.
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Unconventional officer flourishes in Afghan war

Angel — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 15:40:30 +0000

ALTIMUR, Afghanistan — You may wonder how Thomas Gukeisen made it to lieutenant colonel, and by age 39 at that. He breaks Army rules and operates by his own rendition of counterinsurgency warfare whose arsenal includes Afghan poetry, chaos theory and the thoughts of a 17th-century English philosopher.A towering, rough-and-ready 205-pounder, the officer from Carthage, New York peppers his sentences with unprintables and reads Karl von Clausewitz’s classic on war in the original German.But the high-ups seem to like what they see. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who commands U.S. forces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, has visited his sector, as have Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry.Substantial resources have flowed into Gukeisen’s hands, including $850,000 in small bills for such jobs as building schools and putting carpets in the mosques of Afghans who turn against the Taliban.Col. David B. Haight, Gukeisen’s superior, calls him one of the brightest officers he has met.Gukeisen wages his war across 620 restive, rugged square miles of Logar, a strategically important province bordering Kabul where he has implemented what he calls an “extreme makeover.”Rather than rigidly applying the current mantra — Clear, Hold, Build — he has held back from trying to clear large, Taliban-influenced swaths of territory, focusing instead on areas he believes are ripe for change, and then injecting aid where it counts most. Combat, he says, is driven by reliable intelligence and limited to eradicating Taliban fighters.The goal was to create “security bubbles” where life could improve, so that “the rest of the districts would want to join the club,” Gukeisen said in an interview at his headquarters in the village of Altimur.Six months later, he says, nearly half the 400,000 people of Baraki-Barak, Charkh and Kherwar districts, along with half of Puli-a-Alam, are within the bubble. He says roadside bombs, attacks and other violent incidents have dropped by 60 percent while intelligence from locals about the insurgents has soared by 80 percent.Gukeisen believes rules sometimes have to be broken to get past the bureaucrats. He says he had to browbeat the purse-holders for the $850,000 and the authority to distribute it through his junior officers. “If you go outside the box, you have to be cognizant of the risk. I’ve often been questioned about my moves, about being a maverick,” he says.But he sees a much-changed Army that is, in his sardonic wording, “beginning to gain a semblance of intelligence.”“It’s no longer party-like thinking. COIN [counterinsurgency] is graduate-level warfare. You need those collegiate thinkers,” he says. “I think the Army is coming back to the soldier as scholar and statesman.”“When I began my career, the image of the high school jock, football player, pickup truck, NRA [National Rifle Association] was very trendy,” he recalls. “Of course, generals were never dumb, but you’d hear them saying, ‘Shucks, I’m just a good ole’ boy.’“Haight, in an interview, confirmed Gukeisen’s intellectual side with an anecdote. When he asked Gukeisen about the components of a mineral mined in Logar, “I thought he would tell me, ‘I will look that up, sir, and let you know.’ Instead he came right out and gave me a detailed description including exact names and positions on the chemical periodic table of elements.’“Some credit Petraeus with having helped to foster the new breed of officers to tackle counterinsurgency, surrounding himself with innovative thinkers and encouraging them to play devil’s advocate.Military historian Douglas B. Cubbison admires the work Gukeisen has done during 30 months in Afghanistan, but he sees limits and pitfalls.Innovation is always critical to success, especially in a counterinsurgency, he says. “Unfortunately, one inhibiting factor is that defense organizations tend to be conservative and traditional. Officers who think ‘outside of the box’ often find themselves to not only be unpopular, but are the subject of vehement attacks.”So they need supportive, thinking commanders, one of whom he says is Haight, Gukeisen’s superior, who commands a task force in Logar and neighboring Wardak province.Gukeisen, now commanding 600 soldiers of the 3rd Squadron, 71st Cavalry, says his fascination with non-conventional warfare began when growing up in Europe with his German mother and U.S. Air Force father, and hearing the stories of Dutch, Belgian and French resisters in World War II.“As I grew up I realized the military does not operate in a singular world so I started reading outside that world,” he says.His personal list of “Most Influential COIN Items” includes a collection of Afghan poetry, a study of chaos theory, and Hollywood films such as “Red Dawn,” a fantasy about American guerrillas fighting a Soviet invasion of the U.S. From John Maynard Keynes, the visionary British economist, he drew the idea that by “jump-starting the economy via an initial stimulus you create a cascade.”His approach to pacifying the Logar districts, Gukeisen said, was also influenced by the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, author of “Leviathan,” who explored man’s fear of death and his quest for security in a violent world.“You take the theory of COIN, you take history, understand the people, make a philosophic inquiry and then you act,” he says. “But you still have to be rooted in the fundamentals of military operations.”Gukeisen says Army doctrine provides only “a guide for commanders, a basis to begin, to provoke thought.” He says “Clear, Hold, Build” needs to be nuanced, and he doesn’t know whether it can be a model for the rest of Afghanistan. “Each area of Afghanistan is different,” he cautions.Winding up his second tour here, Gukeisen says he looks forward to being back with his wife and 7-year-old son but is reluctant to leave things uncompleted.“It’s like giving your child up for adoption, and having no control about how the new parent will bring up your child,” he says. “I’d like to be here another year.”

Obama: 30,000 to Afghanistan by summer

Angel — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 14:24:54 +0000

Declaring “our security is at stake,” President Barack Obama ordered an additional 30,000 U.S. troops into the long war in Afghanistan on Tuesday night, nearly tripling the force he inherited but promising an impatient public to begin withdrawal in 18 months.The buildup will begin almost immediately — the first Marines will be in place by Christmas — and will cost $30 billion for the first year alone.In a prime-time speech at the U.S. Military Academy, the president told the nation his new policy was designed to “bring this war to a successful conclusion,” though he made no mention of defeating Taliban insurgents or capturing al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.“We must deny al-Qaida a safe haven,” Obama said in spelling out U.S. military goals for a war that has dragged on for eight years. “We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum. … And we must strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s security forces and government.”The president said the additional forces would be deployed at “the fastest pace possible so that they can target the insurgency and secure key population centers.”Their destination: “the epicenter of the violent extremism practiced by al-Qaida.”“It is from here that we were attacked on 9/11, and it is from here that new attacks are being plotted as I speak,” the president said.It marked the second time in his young presidency that Obama has added to the American force in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has recently made significant advances. When he became president last January, there were roughly 34,000 troops on the ground; there now are 71,000.After the speech, cadets in the audience — some of whom could end up in combat because of Obama’s decision — climbed over chairs to shake hands with their commander in chief and take his picture.RELATED READING:• Read text of Obama’s speech• McChystal: Building Afghan forces is priority• Troops, families unsure about Afghan plan• Europe hails speech, but few pledge troops• Congress scrutinizes Obama's Afghanistan planObama’s announcement drew less-wholehearted support from congressional Democrats. Many of them favor a quick withdrawal, but others have already proposed higher taxes to pay for the fighting.Republicans reacted warily, as well. Officials said Sen. John McCain, who was Obama’s Republican opponent in last year’s presidential campaign, told Obama at an early evening meeting attended by numerous lawmakers that declaring a timetable for a withdrawal would merely send the Taliban underground until the Americans began to leave.As a candidate, Obama called Afghanistan a war worth fighting, as opposed to Iraq, a conflict he opposed and has since begun easing out of.A new survey by the Gallup organization, released Tuesday, showed only 35 percent of Americans now approve of Obama’s handling of the war; 55 percent disapprove.He made no direct reference to public opinion Tuesday night, although he seemed to touch on it when he said, “The American people are understandably focused on rebuilding our economy and putting people to work here at home.”“After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home,” he said flatly.In eight years of war, 849 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan and neighboring Uzbekistan, according to the Pentagon.In addition to beefing up the U.S. presence, Obama has asked NATO allies to commit between 5,000 and 10,000 additional troops. The war has even less support in Europe than in the United States, and the NATO allies and other countries currently have about 40,000 troops on the ground.He said he was counting on Afghanistan eventually taking over its own security, and he warned, “The days of providing a blank check are over.” He said the United States would support Afghan ministries that combat corruption and “deliver for the people. We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable.”As for neighboring Pakistan, the president said that country and the United States “share a common enemy” in Islamic terrorists. “We are in Afghanistan to prevent a cancer from once again spreading through that country. But this same cancer has also taken root in the border region of Pakistan. That is why we need a strategy that works on both sides of the border.”The speech before an audience of cadets at the military academy ended a three-month review of the war, triggered by a request from the commanding general, Stanley McChrystal, for as many as 40,000 more troops. Without them, he warned, the U.S. risked failure.The speech was still under way when the general issued a statement from Kabul. “The Afghanistan-Pakistan review led by the president has provided me with a clear military mission and the resources to accomplish our task,” it said. McChrystal is expected to testify before congressional committees in the next several days.Obama referred to a deteriorating military environment, but said, “Afghanistan is not lost.”The length of the presidential review drew mild rebukes from normally amiable NATO allies. There was sharper criticism from Republicans led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who said the president was dithering rather than deciding.Obama rebutted forcefully.“Let me be clear: There has never been an option before me that called for troop deployments before 2010, so there has been no delay or denial of resources necessary for the conduct of the war,” he told his audience of more than 4,000 cadets seated in Eisenhower Hall.Most of the new forces will be combat troops. Military officials said the Army brigades were most likely to be sent from Fort Drum in New York and Fort Campbell in Kentucky; and Marines primarily from Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.Officials said the additional 30,000 troops included about 5,000 dedicated trainers, underscoring the president’s emphasis on preparing Afghans to take over their own security.These aides said that by announcing a date for beginning a withdrawal, the president was not setting an end date for the war.But that was a point on which McCain chose to engage the president at a pre-speech meeting with lawmakers before Obama departed for West Point. “The way that you win wars is to break the enemy’s will, not to announce dates that you are leaving,” McCain said later.Obama’s address represents the beginning of a sales job to restore support for the war effort among an American public grown increasingly pessimistic about success — and among some fellow Democrats in Congress wary of or even opposed to spending billions more dollars and putting tens of thousands more U.S. soldiers and Marines in harm’s way.Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and liberal House Democrats threatened to try to block funding for the troop increase.Sen. Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs a military oversight panel, said he didn’t think Democrats would yank funding for the troops or try to force Obama’s hand to pull them out faster. But Democrats will be looking for ways to pay for the additional troops, he said, including a tax increase on the wealthy although that hike is already being eyed to pay for health care costs. Another possibility is imposing a small gasoline tax that would be phased out if gas prices go up, he said.The United States went to war in Afghanistan shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorist attacks on the United States.Bin Laden and key members of the terrorist organization were headquartered in Afghanistan at the time, taking advantage of sanctuary afforded by the Taliban government that ran the mountainous and isolated country.Taliban forces were quickly driven from power, while bin Laden and his top deputies were believed to have fled through towering mountains into neighboring Pakistan. While the al-Qaida leadership appears to be bottled up in Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal regions, the U.S. military strategy of targeted missile attacks from unmanned drone aircraft has yet to flush bin Laden and his cohorts from hiding.———Steven R. Hurst reported from Washington. AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven and National Security Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report..RELATED READING:• Read text of Obama’s speech• McChystal: Building Afghan forces is priority• Troops, families unsure about Afghan plan• Europe hails speech, but few pledge troops• Congress scrutinizes Obama's Afghanistan plan

General reflects on changes at Air Mobility

Angel — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 13:25:59 +0000

The longest trips Gen. Arthur J. Lichte took growing up in the Bronx were on the subway to different boroughs of New York City. He never gave it a thought that one day he would fly airplanes around the world.On Friday, Lichte retired from the Air Force as commander of Air Mobility Command, ending a 38-year career that stretched from the Cold War to irregular warfare.Taking command is Gen.-select Raymond Johns, whose operational career includes mobility and test pilot assignments.Before leaving, Lichte talked with Air Force Times about changes he’s seen in the mobility world and where the command is heading.Q. What led you to join the Air Force in 1971?A. When I enrolled at Manhattan College, they sent me a packet on Air Force ROTC. … To be honest, I didn’t know much about it. My father said … if you join the Air Force, they’ll take care of you well. Father knows best and I went that way. I haven’t looked back. Maj. Tom Hally, my ROTC instructor, was very enthusiastic about flying and why I should become a pilot. He encouraged all of us to “Get up in the Blue”… I can still hear him today. I have stayed in touch with him all these years, and he was there to help pin on my second star and attended my fourth star pinning.I never left the [New York City] area until I headed off for pilot training in 1971 at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas.Q. How have tanker operations changed since KC-135s started in 1974 as part of Strategic Air Command?A. In those days of the Cold War, we were sitting on alert every third week. … It was all about getting fuel to the nuclear bombers and being prepared to launch at a moment’s notice.You would only fly twice a week. You would only get, maybe, 20 hours a month. We had a lot fewer hours than what our aircrews are getting today.The world has changed a lot. Now [tankers] are constantly deployed in a more tactical role, while at the same time, we still keep the proficiency up for the nuclear mission.Q. How has the airlift role changed?A. When you look all the way back, it was kind of standard runs. For example, there were channel missions that supported embassies around the world.Some of that still exists, but our airlifters are called on to do things in a more tactical environment like you are seeing in Afghanistan.One of our great strengths is that we can adapt, whatever the mission.Q. You commanded the 89th Airlift Wing, home of Air Force One, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., during 1997 and 1998. How was commanding the 89th different from other assignments?A. As the wing commander at Andrews, I used to say that I aged in “dog years.” Because it was such a hectic pace, you always had to catch a nap when you could because you would be meeting and greeting our nation’s leaders as well as world leaders. It helped me see how our Air Force contributed to this overall national security policy and how at that level we build partnerships.Q. Do any of the visitors stand out in your memory?A. King Hussein of Jordan was a very impressive person.First of all, I thought I’d never be greeting a king. But the king was also a pilot, so he would sometimes fly his own airplane in. He would come off that airplane and not only would he greet me at the bottom of the steps, but he would greet the marshallers who marshaled the plane in, he would shake hands with some of the people doing the luggage.The one story that I told was that it was pouring rain and part of the ritual was that we’d stand there and salute as the head of state would depart. King Hussein rolled down the [cockpit] window and said “General, please don’t stand in the rain for me.”I said, “Your majesty, I would stand here all day for you.”Q. Are any of the KC-135s you flew as a young officer still in service?A. Oh, yes, there are. I saw a few of my old tail numbers when I passed through RAF Mildenhall, England, recently. Whenever I’m out [at a tanker base] I’ll recognize a tail number that I flew.There are also a few sitting in museums and in the boneyard.When I went out to Tucson, Ariz., and the Pima Air and Space Museum, I presented a plaque because I happened to have a crew picture of myself, the co-pilot, navigator and boom operator standing in front of the museum’s airplane when I was a captain. I flew it to Europe on my first TDY as a captain.While I was at Pima, I turned around and there was an EC-121 Super Constellation that I had flown … And then I turned around, and there was a 707 I had flown.It’s starting to be, I have a lot more planes in museums than I have on the flight line.Q. Did you think when you were a captain that the Air Force would still be flying KC-135s today?A. When I showed up at Plattsburgh Air Force Base, N.Y., to fly tankers, the KC-135s were about 15 years old. They were younger than what our KC-10s are today.Yeah, it’s time that we get a new tanker.Q. The KC-X tanker gets a lot of attention. Are there other needs for Air Mobility Command?A. We’re asking the question: What is the airlifter behind the C-17? Should it be some type of hybrid airship? Should it be a standard airplane? Should it be an unmanned aerial vehicle?We’re trying to keep our eyes on the future and look down the road.Q. After you leave command, what are your plans?A. At this point, I don’t know what I’m going to do in retirement, except to spend more time with the family, more time seeing my [six] grandkids and then continue to work.My wife, Chris, and I joke that I am going to be a burden to my children. We have five children and we’re going to visit them.