The Air Force will not continue involuntary force reductions in Fiscal 2015 as previously planned, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James announced Tuesday morning. “Enough is enough. We are as low as we are going to go,” the Secretary said during an online Open Door town hall-style meeting. “We have reduced far enough. We will not go leaner, and we will fight to hold on to the numbers now that we have.” In terms of new airmen coming in and experienced airmen staying on, “we need both,” James said. The Fiscal 2014 force shaping was supposed to provide that balance. “Analysis is analysis and real world is the real world,” James said, adding that in her travels over the last year, she has grown less convinced that involuntary force management is needed. The Secretary took questions from Twitter (with the #SecAfchat hashtag), Facebook, Skype, video, and from a live audience at Fort Meade, Md. (DOD report.)
President Donald Trump’s nominee for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff touted his highly unusual background for the job as an asset and reaffirmed his commitment to stay apolitical during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 1.