Contractor Logistics Services: A Way of Life

Oct. 1, 2021

Service to God, Country, and Family fuels Texas-based King Aerospace. Winning a contractor logistics support contract in 1992 launched King Aerospace and, from that day, established it as a mission-ready, no-excuses aviation services provider.

King’s first CLS contract supported U.S. Air Force E-9A information-gathering aircraft at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. The aircrews of these airborne surveillance/telemetry data-relay aircraft evaluate the air-to-air capabilities of Air Force fighter aircraft and collect data on fired missiles. E-9As also sweep the Gulf of Mexico to ensure it is clear during live missile-test launches. The King team supplied parts, maintenance technicians, mission equipment operators, and engineers.

“CLS isn’t just a job for us. It’s a privilege, an honor, and a calling,” says King president Jarid King. “For three decades we’ve witnessed countless providers get into—and out of—contractor logistics. We stayed and doubled down, refining our services to deliver greater and greater value. Whether we’re serving as a prime contractor or subcontractor, we view CLS responsibilities as our patriotic duty as Americans.”

Part of that duty means delivering maximum value. One of King’s first deliverables for the E-9A contract was to purchase $2 million of spare parts. King shopped for the best prices and came back with the needed parts for half a million under budget. The result: The government asked King to purchase another $500,000 in parts. King did and once again found savings, this time securing 25% more parts for the budget.

It’s About the Mission

Over the years, the company has gained performance-based experience supporting the U.S. government and all branches of the military—Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy/Marine Corps, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Homeland Security. CLS remains a primary focus.

While many CLS providers average five to 10 years for contract retention, King Aerospace typically keeps contracts from 10 to 18 years. Because of this longevity, King often acts as the stabilizing factor as military forces rotate in and out. King shepherds the new personnel as they transition in. More work frequently comes King’s way, which only happens when you’re delivering at a high level.

At King, serving America’s men and women in uniform is a commitment greater than contractual. Talk to team members and you quickly discover a dedication to service greater than self and to the company’s cornerstone principles covering everything from mutual respect and trust to problem-solving and quality in everything.

Most of the military aircraft King supports are commercial-derivative aircraft not designed for military needs. King understands how to modify and maintain these aircraft for the military’s use. It’s also more cost effective for the government—and taxpayers—than building military-specific aircraft and maintaining special parts for them. Aircraft CLS programs cover a wide scope of services from field support technicians who provide maintenance at the flight line to supply-chain management. King does it all.

Meeting exacting military specifications isn’t easy, but King has developed processes and procedures to ensure it does. The military expects MROs to meet the highest standards as they manage and maintain government-owned aircraft fleets and subcontract work from major defense contractors. It helps that the expected highest-possible quality aligns with the operations King has in place for its corporate and VVIP aircraft, including the Boeing Business Jet. King was honored as the 2019 Boeing Supplier of the Year for collaboration.

This E-9A aircraft recently made an unscheduled fuel stop at King Aerospace’s facility in Ardmore, Okla. The contract to support this mission-critical aircraft for Tyndall Air Force Base launched King Aerospace in 1992. Pictured here: Founder and Chairman Jerry King.

Ensuring Troops’ Mission Readiness

King Aerospace operates AS9110C-certified facilities and FAA repair stations at Biggs Army Airfield, Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas; Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, N.M.; and Camp Humphreys, South Korea. It also operates 24/7 logistics outposts around the world, even in the most remote, hostile, and harsh locations. Hearing gunfire—or being shot at—is not unusual.

“Sometimes our CLS services take us to some pretty sticky places, so these programs are not for the faint hearted,” says Jarid King. “The men and women who wear the King Aerospace wings could use those challenges as an excuse, but do not. They get the job done.”

Troops can’t fly if aircraft don’t. King’s team rapidly deploys wherever and whenever needed. It’s no small thing to get parts and people into challenging environments where travel is restricted. It calls for dedicated, mission-focused people who do the right thing for the right reasons with the right attitude when no one is looking. Because many of King’s team members are themselves veterans, they embrace King Aerospace’s passion for God, Country, and Family. They treat each other like brothers and sisters.

“I witness acts of servant leadership everywhere I look,” Jarid King says. “Our team members have each other’s back—and our military’s.”

Equipping Warfighters to Win

As a privately owned, family-focused business, King has proven itself over time. Since 2017, it has maintained the Army’s Special Electronic Mission Aircraft (SEMA) fleet used for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR). These include highly modified King Air (C-12), De Havilland Canada Dash 7 (DHC-7) and Dash 8 (DHC-8) turboprop aircraft.

It’s also provided aircraft services for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) since 2019. The transportation of national security assets falls under NNSA’s Office of Secure Transportation (OST). The fleet of Boeing 737-400 and DC-9 passenger/cargo aircraft, housed at Kirtland Air Force Base, move national security cargo to NNSA customers, support DOE emergency capabilities and transport federal-agent task forces.

In March 2021, King Aerospace was recognized along with the Office of Secure Transportation Aviation Operation Division as the best aviation organization within the DOE for FY2020. Craig Campbell, King Aerospace flight operations specialist for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Secure Transportation, Aviation Operations Division, received the Federal Interagency Committee for Aviation Policy (ICAP) Aviation Professional Award for Operational Support. King Aerospace team member and nominee Arthur Ray earned the DOE’s Maintainer Award.

“The urgent nature of the aircraft support services we provide as a government prime contractor makes these honors extremely meaningful and gratifying,” says Greg Mitchell, King Aerospace vice president of government services. “Our no-excuses culture and proactive problem solving uphold the DOE’s overarching mission to ensure America’s security and prosperity. It’s a role we proudly fulfill.”

Congress Passes Stopgap Funding as Pentagon Waits for 2022 Budget

Sept. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Congress passed a continuing resolution Sept. 30 to keep the Pentagon and the rest of the government funded through Dec. 3, avoiding a shutdown with just hours to spare.

The stopgap measure, approved 65-35 in the Senate and 254-175 in the House, means the Defense Department will start the new fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, under a continuing resolution for the 12th time in 13 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Under a continuing resolution, funding levels remain set at the previous year’s levels, which can limit the ability of the Pentagon and other governmental organizations to pay for and start new programs. It can also “lead to repetitive administrative tasks or incremental planning,” leaders told the GAO.

On the other hand, no continuing resolution would have meant service members would still have to work but would not be paid, while tens of thousands of civilian DOD employees would have been furloughed, under recent guidance issued by Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen H. Hicks in advance of the Sept. 30 vote.

Now, DOD officials will be in a holding pattern as they wait for Congress to pass bills authorizing and appropriating funds for fiscal 2022.

The House passed its version of the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act on Sept. 23, but the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2022, which actually appropriates the funds, was introduced back in July after clearing the House Appropriations Committee and has not been voted on since.

Meanwhile, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Ranking Member Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) filed their version of the 2022 NDAA on Sept. 22 after completing the panel’s markup process. But the Senate Appropriations Committee has not voted on any appropriations bill yet.

Once the Senate approves its version of the NDAA, legislators from both chambers will have to meet in conference to iron out the differences between the bills, of which there are many. But even then, an appropriations bill will be needed to actually appropriate the funds.

How long it will take Congress to approve the NDAA and appropriate the necessary funds remains to be seen. Dating back to 2010, the Pentagon has operated under a continuing resolution from anywhere between 76 to 216 days, according to the GAO. There are now 64 days until this new resolution expires.

Potentially complicating the timeline even further, however, is the fact that the legislature continues to negotiate and consider other massive spending bills related to President Joe Biden’s agenda, which will take time and resources.

North Korea Claims Hypersonic Missile Test; Intel Community Unsure

Sept. 30, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

North Korea tested a missile it called the Hwasong-8 “strategic weapon” Sept. 28, suggesting later that it was a hypersonic missile—but the Pentagon said it’s unclear exactly what Pyongyang flew and that it doesn’t change U.S. military posture in the Western Pacific.

Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command, told Pentagon reporters Sept. 30 that the U.S. Intelligence Community is “still making an assessment” of what was tested, which he said North Korea has claimed was a hypersonic missile.

“We’ll just have to see,” he said, but even if the conclusion is that the vehicle tested was a true hypersonic glide vehicle, it doesn’t pose a threat the U.S. can’t defend against.

“It would be my assessment that the homeland would be safe and secure” from a North Korean hypersonic missile, Van Herck asserted. He did not speculate on the threat to U.S. forces on the Korean Peninsula.

Pentagon Press Secretary John F. Kirby, in the same briefing, said, “we’re aware of the missile launch, and we’re consulting closely with our allies and partners.” The conclusion of the U.S. military is that the system “does not pose an immediate threat to U.S. personnel or territory, or to our allies.” It does, however, “highlight the destabilizing impact” of North Korea’s “illicit weapons program,” but Kirby insisted that “nothing changes about our commitment to our alliance with … both Japan and South Korea.”

North Korea’s state-run news agency said the missile was “the first test” of a hypersonic missile by that country, and that it was a success.

“National defense scientists confirmed the navigational control and stability of the missile in the active section, and also its technical specifications, including the guiding maneuverability and the gliding flight characteristics of the detached hypersonic gliding warhead,” the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

A single image of the weapon’s launch released by Pyongyang shows what could be a hypersonic gliding shape being lofted by a rocket booster. The shape is similar to that of China’s DF-12 hypersonic missile, but the Pentagon did not discuss any tracking data it may have on the missile’s flight path or speed. To be “hypersonic,” a vehicle must fly at a minimum of five times the speed of sound.

Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, made a speech at the U.N. right after the test, asserting that country’s “right” to develop and test technologies equivalent to those being developed by the U.S. and South Korea.

A South Korean military press release said that country has defenses against any missile threat from the North. It also said the missile appears to be an early experiment, still a long way from operational status.

A hypersonic missile offers many advantages over ballistic missiles. Such weapons can fly at very high speeds, maneuver to confuse or evade defenses, and sharply reduce a defender’s warning time of an attack.

The U.S. is developing hypersonic missiles of two kinds. One is a boost-glide system similar to what North Korea said it tested, in which a booster rocket accelerates a shape to hypersonic speed, which then glides and maneuvers to impact. The second kind is an air-breathing system, in which a hypersonic motor continues to provide the vehicle with thrust after it separates from its booster, thus increasing its range and maneuverability.

The Air Force’s preferred boost-glide system is the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), while its air-breathing system is called the Hypersonic Air-launched Cruise Missile, or HACM. The HACM will be based on technology from a joint program with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which claimed a successful test of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept (HAWC) earlier this week. The Air Force has yet to make a successful flight test of the ARRW, despite several attempts over the last year. The Army and Navy have their own, cooperative hypersonic missile programs.

Along with the hypersonic aspect, Pyongyang said the new missile marked a successful test of “ampulization,” in which the rocket’s liquid fuel is sealed in the launch canister, eliminating the time needed to fuel a rocket before launch and reducing its response time to a launch order. The fuel can be stored in the canister for years before being activated.

If Pyongyang’s claim is true, it will have entered a “club” of countries having flown a hypersonic vehicle that includes China, India, Russia, and the U.S. Iran is also said to be close to a working hypersonic weapon design.

GAO Expects Space Command Findings by Spring; Colo. Lawmakers Want Basing Work Stopped

Sept. 30, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Government Accountability Office expects to report findings in the spring of 2022 in its investigation into the Defense Department’s choice of Alabama as the likely permanent home of U.S. Space Command.

The selection of the Army’s Redstone Arsenal, announced in January 2021, has prompted objections from members of Colorado’s congressional delegation and subsequent investigations by both the GAO and the DOD’s Office of Inspector General. Members of the delegation registered their latest complaint Sept. 30 in the form of a letter to Department of the Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall calling the selection process for the headquarters of DOD’s 11th combatant command a “significant departure” from the norm and alleging, as in past letters, that political angling played a role.

The members of Congress want Kendall to “formally suspend any actions to relocate the USSPACECOM headquarters” until the investigations are complete. The letter is signed by Sen. Michael F. Bennett (D), former Colorado governor Sen. John Hickenlooper (D), and representatives Lauren Boebert (R), Jason Crow (D), Diana DeGette (D), Joe Neguse (D), and Ed Perlmutter (D). Rep. Ken Buck (R) did not sign the letter.

“Congressman Buck has long supported the U.S. Space Command staying in Colorado, having signed multiple letters on the topic in recent years,” spokeswoman Allie Woodward told Air Force Magazine. “Rep. Buck will send his own letter to express his support for keeping it in Colorado, as his priorities remain our country’s military readiness and national security, rather than politics.”

U.S. Space Command’s temporary headquarters is at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., which was home to Air Force Space Command until it inactivated with the creation of the Space Force. The delegation argues that Colorado makes the most sense for the new combatant command, created in parallel with the new military branch, because Colorado is already “the epicenter of operational integration between military and intelligence space assets” and home to numerous military organizations oriented around space. “Additionally, significant evidence exists that the former President’s political considerations influenced the final decision,” according to the letter.

Then-Secretary of Defense Mark Esper assigned the Department of the Air Force the task of evaluating prospective sites in March 2020. He “directed a different approach” from the Department of the Air Force’s usual strategic basing process that also incorporated aspects of the basing process used by Army Futures Command, a Department of the Air Force spokesperson told Air Force Magazine in an email. The department had already announced six locations as finalists but had to start over. The reboot expanded “the number of locations under consideration … by allowing communities to self-nominate,” according to the department spokesperson. The process also provided an opportunity for local communities to pitch incentive packages.

The Department of the Air Force is currently performing an environmental review of Redstone Arsenal’s appropriateness. The review is required before the selection becomes official.

In emailed replies to requests for comment:

A GAO spokesperson said, “GAO’s review of the methodology and scoring of the Department of the Air Force’s decision making process for the location of the permanent headquarters for U.S. Space Command is ongoing. We will be looking into the steps the Air Force took to identify the permanent location and the extent that its process conformed to best practices for analyzing alternatives. We will not have any findings to report until our work is complete. We expect to issue our report in spring 2022.”

A DOD OIG spokesperson said the office had no comment on the delegation’s letter nor the letter’s assertion that the selection process deviated from the norm; and said the office’s work is ongoing: “We do not have a timeline [for completing the investigation].”

A Department of the Air Force spokesperson said, “The Secretary will respond directly to the congressional delegation.”

In addition to alluding to “political considerations,” Colorado’s members of Congress have questioned whether all costs were taken into account in the selection process.

In a December 2020 interview with Central Florida’s Spectrum News, U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.) took partial credit for upending the original search that had resulted in six finalists being announced in 2019: “Myself, the governor, our senators, [and] a lot of our local officials started asking a lot of tough questions about how this decision was made, what’s the process,” said Waltz, an Army veteran.

In August, former President Donald Trump made headlines by claiming sole credit for the final decision.

PHOTOS: Fairchild Sets Record Launching 20 KC-135s Following Impressive Elephant Walk

Sept. 30, 2021 | By Amy Hudson

The 92nd Air Refueling Wing at Fairchild Air Force Base, Wash., simultaneously launched 20 KC-135s on Sept. 29, marking the largest-ever minimum interval takeoff event for the base, according to a spokesperson.

“This was an impressive feat boasting the largest take-off of a KC-135 fleet at Fairchild Air Force Base,” according to a Fairchild press release. “Today we launched more Refuelers than are owned by whole countries.”

The readiness exercise, which included an “elephant walk” as the aerial tankers lined up before takeoff, tested Fairchild’s maintenance generation capabilities and its ability to launch multiple aircraft in short order.

Fairchild is home to the Air Force’s only super tanking wing, with four KC-135 squadrons and 63 total aircraft. As such, the 92nd ARW nearly always has a squadron deployed downrange.

The Air Force announced in May that Fairchild is one of two candidate locations being considered for the next Active-duty KC-46 basing location. If selected, its 60-plus-year-old KC-135 fleet would be replaced with the service’s newest tanker.

Space Force Selects 670 More Soldiers, Sailors, Marines for Transfer

Sept. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

More than 600 Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines have been selected to transfer to the Space Force, the service announced Sept. 30, forming the second tranche of transfers from outside the Air Force to join the nation’s newest armed service.

When the Space Force first opened the transfer application process to members of the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps, more than 3,700 service members applied. In June, the first 50 selections were announced—40 from the Army, seven from the Navy, and three from the Marine Corps.

Of the 670 selected for transfer Sept. 30, 455 were selected from the original pool of 3,700. The other 215 were chosen from Army and Navy units that are set to be transferred over to the Space Force, along with 259 civilians assigned to those units.

All told, 603 Soldiers, 49 Sailors, and 18 Marines will be transferring during fiscal 2022, which begins Oct. 1, 2021. The original group of transfers “have begun executing their transfers and are beta-testing the process for this larger group,” Patricia Mulcahy, Space Force chief human capital officer, said in a statement.

The military transfers have all been matched to a specific Space Force career field—space operations, intelligence, cyber, engineering, or acquisition. Upon their transfer, most will be assigned “broadly” into Space Force organizations, the service said in a press release. Those transferring in from units being reassigned to the Space Force will remain in their current positions.

Those Army and Navy units being realigned under the Space Force are mostly related to those services’ satellites, in particular the Naval Satellite Operations Center and U.S. Army Satellite Operations Brigade. They were scheduled to start the transfer process beginning Oct. 1, but that process will in all likelihood be delayed as Congress is set to pass a continuing resolution to freeze spending levels before passing a defense budget for 2022 later in the year.

Once the transfers do come aboard, however, they and the 50 original transfers will make up roughly seven percent of the service, which currently has nearly 13,000 service members and civilians combined. In addition to transfers, the Space Force is set to recruit nearly 500 more enlisted Guardians in fiscal 2022 and add around 260 more officers through direct accession, according to the service’s 2022 budget request.

580 Service Members Die by Suicide in 2020, New Pentagon Report Says

Sept. 30, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

Five hundred and eighty service members died by suicide in 2020, the Pentagon announced Sept. 30, when the Defense Department released its annual suicide report.

Those 580 deaths mark the most the DOD has recorded in at least five years, with the Active-duty component accounting for 384, the Reserve for 77, and the National Guard for 119. In the Air Force, 81 Active-duty members, 12 Reservists, and 16 Air National Guard members committed suicide in calendar year 2020, according to the report.

“The findings are troubling. Suicide rates among our service members and military families are still too high, and the trends are not going in the right direction,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in a statement accompanying the release of the report. “This is a paramount challenge for our department. We must redouble our efforts to provide all of our people with the care and the resources they need, to reduce stigmas and barriers to care, and to ensure that our community uses simple safety measures and precautions to reduce the risk of future tragedies.”

While the total numbers increased, the Defense Suicide Prevention Office found that the rate of suicides per 100,000 individuals did not increase by a statistically significant margin from 2019 to 2020, assuaging some fears that the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to a surge.

“But that doesn’t mean we are standing by,” said Army Maj. Gen. Clement S. Coward, acting executive director of the Office of Force Resiliency, in a press briefing. “When we start talking about the data and what it could indicate, we have always known that COVID and the measures to respond to it have presented unique challenges that would include risk factors for some folks. That’s why we’re not only continuing to monitor this, but we’re also continuing to be relentless to mitigate the [effects] as much as we can.”

Based on rates per 100,000, the only component to see a statistically significant increase from 2019 to 2020 was the National Guard, which had seen a drop from 2018 to 2019—the increase now puts the rate at roughly the same level it was in 2018.

From a longer-term perspective, though, the Active-duty component has seen a statistically significant increase in suicide rates since 2015, going from 20.3 deaths per 100,000 to 28.7.

As in years past, the rate of suicide continues to be highest among young enlisted men—enlisted men younger than 30 years old made up 42 percent of the total force but accounted for 63 percent of suicide deaths in 2020.

The primary method also stayed the same; firearms were used in nearly 69 percent of suicides in 2020.

“Part of it has to do with impulsivity; younger individuals and males tend to have a higher level of impulsivity,” Defense Suicide Prevention Office Director Karin A. Orvis said in a press briefing when asked why young men make up such an outsized portion of suicide deaths. “And when we’re talking about our military community, I mentioned that the primary method of suicide death is by firearm. That is the most lethal method, about 90 percent lethal. … This can be an impulsive act, and you can go from thinking to acting, if you have that capability or that means, within 10 minutes.”

Department of Defense Annual Suicide Report, Calendar Year 2020. References to the Air Force include the Space Force unless otherwise noted, according to the report.

Next steps

While impulsivity is a factor, significant life events can play a role as well. Orvis noted that in the most recent data, about 40 percent of service members who died by suicide had had what she called a “relationship challenge” within the 90 days prior to their death. Financial issues have also been noted as a challenge in the lead-up to some suicides.

Those factors can be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has generally led to more isolation for many people. Looking to combat that, Orvis said, her office plans to expand some initiatives and introduce new ones.

“Part of that emphasis continues forward to this day,” Orvis said, namely, “checking in one on one, whether it’s face to face or whether it’s through a phone call, or a video message, or text messaging, to know what’s going [on] as a leader with your folks—so you can identify if there may be challenges going on at home in terms of relationship challenges or financial challenges,” Orvis said. “That’s absolutely critical, and that’s something we’re stressing.

“Then we do have a number of new initiatives in place … the new outreach campaign really targeting those healthy relationships and trying to change the perception of, ‘We all have relationship challenges,’ so we should be seeking out support and seeking help.”

Military families

For the third consecutive year, the annual suicide report also included data on military family suicides, though the data, based on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s national death index, was from 2019, not 2020.

The data showed an increase in the total numbers, to a three-year high of 202 deaths, but Orvis noted that there was no statistically significant increase in rate.

“Our military families often feel the stress of military life,” Orvis said. “We’re teaching healthy relationship skills and conducting outreach to normalize relationship help-seeking and to connect military couples to resources, including counseling.”

Misconceptions

Also as part of the annual report, the Pentagon included results from its first ever Quick Compass Survey of Active Duty Members, in which the department asked service members about their beliefs on firearms and suicide risk.

The survey, Orvis said, revealed that the majority of respondents held beliefs about firearms and suicide that run contrary to academic research and data.

In particular, 56 percent of respondents said having a firearm in the house did not increase the risk of suicide, and 66 percent said the way the firearms are stored had no impact on suicide risk. Studies have shown the opposite to be true.

“While the presence of a firearm does not cause someone to be suicidal, research tells us that storing a loaded firearm at home increases the risk of dying by suicide up to four to six times,” Orvis said. “… Such misconceptions can hinder suicide prevention efforts in our military community and across the nation. Knowing the facts may allow us to take life-saving steps to help our loved ones.”

The Veterans Crisis Hotline is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for veterans, service members, and their family and friends who need help. Call 800-273-8255 and press 1, text 838255, or visit www.veteranscrisisline.net.

Nearly 94 Percent of Airmen, Guardians Now Vaccinated Against COVID

Sept. 29, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

As the Nov. 2 deadline for members of the Air Force and Space Force to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 approaches, the percentage of vaccinated service members in the department has jumped significantly, the latest data show.

In a Sept. 28 update, the Department of the Air Force reported that 75.1 percent of Active-duty Airmen and Guardians are fully vaccinated, with another 18.8 percent partially vaccinated, for a total of 93.9 percent that have received at least one shot of the vaccine.

On Sept. 6, the day after the Nov. 2 deadline was announced, 66.5 percent were fully vaccinated and eight percent were partially vaccinated, a total of 74.5 percent, meaning nearly 20 percent of Guardians and Airmen have received a dose of the vaccine in the last three weeks.

While there is still more than a month before Nov. 2, the process of getting fully vaccinated takes time—two-dose vaccines such as Pfizer-BioNTech’s, the only vaccine approved for full use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, require three weeks between shots, followed by an additional two weeks after the second shot to be considered fully vaccinated by the department. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, however, has received emergency use authorization, which the department will accept, and requires just one shot, followed by two weeks.

While the percentage of those unvaccinated has shrunk, thousands of Airmen and Guardians still need to get the shot. That group becomes even larger when considering the Guard and Reserve. When those two components are added to the Active duty, the entire department’s vaccination rate falls to 86.5 percent.

That figure still represents a substantial increase from Sept. 6, when it stood at 68.4 percent. But with a slightly slower rate of increase, it does suggest that Guard members and Reservists remain slightly more reluctant to get the vaccine. The department will not require them to be fully vaccinated until Dec. 2.

The Air Force set the earliest deadline among the Defense Department for its troops to be fully vaccinated. The Navy and the Marine Corps aren’t requiring Active-duty Sailors and Marines to be vaccinated until Nov. 28, and the Army is giving Soldiers until Dec. 15.

Airmen and Guardians can apply for an exemption to the vaccine requirement on medical or religious grounds. To those who don’t receive one, however, a range of punishments may apply, from non-judicial punishment to courts martial. Air Force and Space Force leaders have not yet said how they plan to handle those situations.

Pentagon Wants Industry Input on Risks to Supply Chain

Sept. 29, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

The Pentagon is seeking industry comments about defense supply chain vulnerabilities in the areas of “select” kinetic weapons, power storage, microelectronics, and castings and forgings. The Biden administration wants the information to develop policies that can head off single-point failures in defense supply.

The call for input came in the Federal Register and was announced by the Pentagon on Sept. 28. Comments will be collected through Oct. 13 and will be available for public viewing at a later date. The information will support the Annual Industrial Capabilities Report mandated by Congress.

Biden directed six federal agencies to assess their respective industrial bases in a February executive order. The Pentagon is to supply a report to the White House describing “key vulnerabilities and potential courses of action to strengthen the defense industrial base.” The information follows up on a 2018 assessment, “Assessing and Strengthening the Manufacturing and Defense Industrial Base and Supply Chain Resiliency of the United States,” and the Deputy Assistant Secretary for industrial Policy is conducting it.

“Select kinetic capabilities” covers precision-guided munitions, hypersonics, and directed energy. The concern is that key components, such as “critical energetics” and microelectronics are “almost exclusively produced by foreign entities, including adversarial nations.”
“Energy storage/batteries” is on the list because they are critical to all kinetic capabilities and constitute an “evolving” requirement. Risks to the supply chain stem from defense-unique requirements with low production volumes that cause “high local costs.”
Microelectronics are used in nearly all defense systems. Defense-specific challenges in this supply chain are due to “acquisition processes, obsolescence, and the need for secure suppliers.” The one-year assessment will focus on military-specific applications and the “ongoing challenges between commercial and defense requirements.”
“Castings and forgings”—domestic capability and capacity in this area have declined, the Pentagon said, which limits the industrial base’s ability to “develop, sustain, or expand production.”

The Pentagon also wants input on “system enablers” as they affect the focus areas, since “gaps or fragility” in these areas can create strategic or operational risk. The enablers are: workforce, at all levels, from wrench-turners to those with engineering degrees; cyber posture, to include cybersecurity, industrial security, and counterintelligence; interoperability, among systems within the Defense Department and with allies; barriers to small businesses entering and staying in the “defense ecosystem;” and manufacturing, both traditional and “additive” methods.

The request for comments offers specific questions that the Pentagon would like respondents to answer, as well. These include, how globalization has affected company supply chains and ability to respond to the Pentagon’s needs; the greatest challenges facing companies “in a distributed environment;” how the DOD can help; where the federal government is “effectively” mitigating supply chain risks; what the government can do better to mitigate vulnerabilities, especially in PGMs and microelectronics; and what government can do differently to attract cyber expert talent, implement standards, and “incentivize” the adoption of modern technology.