The Air Advisor Academy at JB McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J., unveiled the new Air Advisor Memorial during a dedication ceremony at the joint base. While the memorial is dedicated to all advisors who have lost their lives in service, the July 27 ceremony honored the eight air advisors and one contractor killed in a gun attack in Afghanistan on April 27, 2011. More than 100 family members of those fallen airmen attended the ceremony as did fellow air advisors and community leaders. “It really is nice to know people still care, people still remember,” said Linda Ambard, widow of Maj. Philip Ambard, 44, one of the advisors who died in the gun attack. Col. Olaf Holm, Air Advisory Academy commandant, reached out to the local community and private companies for donations for the memorial, which workers built in a matter of months. (McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst report by TSgt. Benjamin Rojek) (See also Friendly Fire.)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…