Daily Report

Neil Armstrong, who on July 20, 1969, became the first human to set foot on the Moon, died on Aug. 25 in Cincinnati at age 82. He succumbed to complications following cardiovascular procedures, according to his Los Angeles Times obituary....

Col. Joseph Scherrer, commander of the 689th Combat Communications Wing at Robins AFB, Ga., last week awarded MSgt. Gene Jameson the Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device for his heroic actions that saved an estimated 50 lives during a fire...

Most defense companies won’t feel the full impact of sequestration for three or four years because of the speed at which the Defense Department typically spends money, said Todd Harrison, senior fellow for defense budget studies at the Center for...

Top Pentagon officials and defense industry executives have said budget sequestration would have a devastating impact on US national security. However, there are a few critical defense areas that would escape sequestration’s wrath, according to Todd Harrison, senior fellow for...

Workers began clean-up efforts to close the explosive ordnance disposal range at Kirtland AFB, N.M., announced base officials last week. Since the mid 1990s, agencies including local law enforcement and the nearby Sandia National Laboratories have used the range to...

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey last week hosted Gen. Shigeru Iwasaki, his Japanese counterpart, at the Pentagon as part of ongoing activities to strengthen bilateral security ties. Dempsey called the two countries’ alliance “long and very enduring” and said...

Air Force recruiting across the Total Force remained strong through July, the 10th month of Fiscal 2012, according to the Pentagon’s newest recruiting data, issued last week. The Air Force’s Active Duty component brought in 23,988 new accessions through July,...

A group of California Democrat legislators petitioned Air Force Secretary Michael Donley to consider upgrading the KC-10 tankers assigned to Travis Air Force Base on site instead of at an out-of-state depot. Since almost half the service's KC-10 fleet is based at Travis, "the KC-10 communications, navigation, and surveillance/air-traffic-management program is of particular interest to our communities," wrote Rep. John Garamendi, Rep. Doris Matsui, Rep. George Miller, and Rep. Mike Thompson in an Aug. 17 letter to Donley. Garamendi's district includes Travis; the other lawmakers' districts touch upon or are near Garamendi's district. The three-year CNS/ATM program will update the KC-10s with new radios and avionics. Citing Travis' recent experience with modernizing the avionics on C-5 transports, the lawmakers asked Donley to consider this proposal, arguing that retrofitting the KC-10s at Travis could reduce aircraft downtime and eliminate transit costs. (See also Garamendi release.)

US Ambassador to Poland Lee Feinstein last week presented the fifth and final C-130E to the Polish air force in a ceremony at Powidz Air Base in central Poland. “Today is a powerful example of the strong and vibrant relationship...