A Jan. 12 Air Force statement notes that the service relieved a female training instructor of her duties following her revelation that she would appear in next month’s issue of Playboy magazine. Scores of media reports identified the airman as SSgt. Michelle Manhart stationed at the service’s basic training facility at Lackland AFB, Tex. In an interview with the San Antonio Express-News, Manhart, who is married to another airman and is a mother of two, said, “There’s nothing wrong with it.” The Air Force disagrees, stating that her “action does not meet the high standards we expect of our airmen, nor does it comply with the Air Force’s core values of integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do.”
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.