US Joint Forces Command plans to hold a five-day seminar in early December for senior military medical professionals to indoctrinate them into the world of joint medical operations. Officials say that the present-day and future concepts for joint task forces necessitate a change in medical thinking. In today’s operations, medical personnel are no longer “going in, doing a job, and coming back out,” says Rear Adm. Gregory Timberlake, JFCOM command surgeon. As members of a JTF, he adds, medics are being “involved from phase zero” and on.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…