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new facility at JB San Antonio, Tex., built to accommodate all Air Force evasion and conduct-after-capture training, opened its doors to students. Roughly 6,000 students a year are expected to pass through the new facility, which began operations on Oct. 3. The $6 million-plus facility merges all Air Force ECAC training into one location under the 22nd Training Squadron, Det. 2. It includes an urban-evasion laboratory for training airmen to overcome obstacles they may encounter when avoiding capture in urban areas. “When they leave this course, if they become isolated in any environment in any part of the world, they’ll have the skills necessary [to] adapt and overcome,” said TSgt. James Davis, the detachment’s ECAC course manager. Students going through the Combat Skills Training Course and Basic Combat Convoy Course at nearby Camp Bullis also will train at this facility. (Lackland report by Mike Joseph)
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…