The Pentagon has announced that President Obama has nominated Maj. Gen. Charles Green to be the Air Force’s next Surgeon General. With Senate confirmation, Green, who currently serves as deputy surgeon general, would receive a third star. Green entered the Air Force in 1978 and is board certified in aerospace medicine. He has extensive disaster response experience, having planned and led humanitarian relief efforts in the Philippines after the Baguio earthquake in 1990 and the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. He has also served as head of Wilford Hall Medical Center in Texas and as command surgeon for Air Force major commands and unified command; planned the joint medical response for Desert Thunder and Desert Fox; and oversaw aeromedical evacuation for operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. Green would replace Lt. Gen. James Roudebush, who has served as USAF’s top medical officer since August 2006 and plans to retire in October.
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.