Air commandos participated in US Central Command’s biggest exercise this month, practicing personnel recovery alongside Jordanian and Italian special forces. USAF special tactics airmen in the 24th Special Operations Wing earlier this month practiced personnel recovery scenarios in realistic missions, including operating in simulated hostile cities and even a cave complex, along with the Jordanian Armed Forces Special Task Force and Italy’s 17th Stormo Incursori special operations forces, according to a US Air Forces Central Command release. “This is a combined fight just about everywhere you go,” Lt. Col. Rodger Jennrich, the 23rd Special Tactics Squadron and Special Operations Task Force CEDAR commander, said in the release. “We have to learn to work with our partners in training so that when we go into real combat scenarios, it’s not the first time we’ve seen it.” Eager Lion is a yearly, large-scale exercise hosted in Jordan and features more than 20 nations. This year, more than 7,200 troops participated, according to AFCENT.
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.