Biden: Withdrawal On Pace to Finish by Aug. 31, But DOD Drawing Up Plans if Extension Needed

Aug. 24, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

With a rapidly approaching deadline to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, President Joe Biden said the evacuation mission is on pace to finish by Aug. 31, though he has asked the Pentagon for contingency plans should that change.

U.S. and coalition efforts have evacuated approximately 70,700 people in 10 days as the Taliban has taken Kabul, with another 5,000 evacuated in the weeks prior to Aug. 14. There’s untold thousands more U.S. citizens, Afghan special immigrant visa applicants, and other vulnerable people awaiting a plane to leave.

Biden said the “sooner we can finish, the better. Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops.”

In just a 12-hour span, 19 U.S. military flights, including 18 C-17s and one C-130, flew out 6,400 evacuees. Earlier in the day, a Pentagon briefing outlined another 24-hour span, ending early Aug. 24, during which U.S. Air Force airlifters had dramatically increased their operations, again. In that timespan, 32 C-17s and five C-130s departed Kabul with 12,700 evacuees—well more than the 5,000-9,000 pace the Pentagon had predicted days before. Including charter flights and others, more than 21,000 people departed Kabul during that time period.

The bulk of the evacuees have been Afghans. The Pentagon said in a statement that approximately 4,000 U.S. passport holders and their families have been evacuated since the effort began. The State Department is expected to provide an update Aug. 25 with more detail on the number of Americans remaining.

Maj. Gen. William D. “Hank” Taylor, the Joint Staff’s deputy director for regional operations, said aircraft are departing the airport at a pace of one every 45 minutes, bringing people “out of harm’s way, … and on their journey to a better life.”

“We continue to make progress every day in getting Americans, as well as [special immigrant visa] applicants and vulnerable Afghans out, … and the vast, vast majority of these individuals are Afghans,” Pentagon spokesman John F. Kirby said in a briefing. “We are remaining committed to getting any and all Americans, that want to leave, to get them out.”

U.S. forces will need to pack up to leave in the days running up to the deadline, which would slow down and eventually halt evacuation operations. The Pentagon said Aug. 24 “several hundred” troops left Afghanistan. These included headquarters staff, maintenance, and “other enabling functions that were scheduled to leave and whose mission at the airport was complete. Their departure represents prudent and efficient force management. It will have no impact on the mission at hand.”

The Taliban said Aug. 24 it would pressure Afghans to not travel to the airport, in an effort to prevent educated and skilled people from leaving the country as the group tries to build its government, Al Jazeera reported.

Outside of Afghanistan, airlifts also continued, with private Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft taking passengers from interim staging bases such as Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, to follow-on facilities and ultimately to the United States. The sheer amount of people at these bases, especially in Qatar, has caused sanitation and other humanitarian problems.

“We’ll be the first to admit that there were conditions at Al Udeid [that] could have been better,” Kirby said. “They are improving now. I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that they’re perfect because they’re not. Because evacuees continue to flow into Qatar and there’s a lot on the ground right now.”

Within the same 24-hour period, four flights landed at Washington-Dulles International Airport with more than 1,000 passengers, who will go on to the four military bases identified to serve as temporary homes for the evacuees.

‘Space Junk’ is Greatest Shared Threat to Space Force and NASA, Says Administrator

Aug. 24, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

Colorado Springs, Colo.—Low-earth orbit is too crowded, and not only with satellites from around the world, but also with debris created by “irresponsible” spacefaring nations, NASA administrator Ben Nelson said when describing the civilian agency’s greatest shared threat with the Space Force.

“Space is a big place, but the biggest risk to all of our satellites right now is the space junk,” Nelson said at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.

“We’ve had irresponsible folks that have launched and blown up assets and there are thousands of pieces of space junk that are flying around at 17,500 miles an hour,” he said referring to a 2007 Chinese anti-satellite test of a ground-based missile. “They’re in that altitude range where our space station is, indeed where the Chinese space station is as well.”

Nelson declined to respond specifically to the threat that may now exist when military payloads share space with commercial and satellite payloads. He instead focused on areas of cooperation between the civilian and military space organizations.

“There are many things that we do together,” he said, describing deconfliction of launches at the newly renamed Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Fla., where both commercial and military launches occur. “There’s a lot that the Space Force and NASA do to work together, all with the common goal of having [uninhibited] exploration of space.”

“Often, the Space Force, for launching defense payloads are using rockets that were developed for NASA,” he said, referring to the high demand for monthly Atlas V launches.

Bradley Cheetham, CEO of commercial venture Advanced Space, a small business highlighted by Nelson, told Air Force Magazine that sometimes Space Force and NASA are at the same table when he is discussing new capabilities.

“What we can do to help a commercial company optimize a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites for communications, that same capability can help the national security mission figure out how to deploy sensors for different coverages they want,” he said.

Cheetham said the NASA Capstone mission to test a planned lunar orbiter will provide valuable cislunar information for the Defense Department.

“That is the high ground of space, right?” he said. “So, when you’re above geo[stationary orbit], everything that is a traditional orbit that we use is below you.”

Advanced Space has information sharing agreements with Space Force, and he has thus far noticed fluid coordination among civilian and military space.

As for where the Space Force-NASA relationship will go in the coming years, Nelson said it’s anybody’s guess.

“The Space Force is evolving,” he said. “So just give it some time and see how it evolves.”

B-2s from Whiteman Deploy to Iceland for Bomber Task Force

Aug. 24, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

A trio of B-2s from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., arrived in Iceland on Aug. 24, ahead of a Bomber Task Force mission in which they will conduct training across Europe and Africa.

The bombers and their crews, from the 509th Bomb Wing, will integrate with NATO allies and regional partners during their deployment.

“Regularly cooperating bomber activities with allies and partners helps us better address challenges in today’s complex global security environment,” said Gen. Jeffrey L. Harrigian, U.S. Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa commander, in a press release. “Strong partnerships are essential to our ability to deter, defend, and win.”

The deployment will also help crews with theater familiarity to enhance readiness and provide necessary training.

Due to COVID-19 protocols, all personnel involved in the mission were screened before departure and entered a period of quarantine after arrival.

The concept of deploying bombers to new locations as part of task forces as opposed to a continuous presence outside the U.S. was first introduced in April 2020 and was championed by then-Global Strike Command boss Gen. Timothy M. Ray.

In February, Ray said the Bomber Task Forces had increased morale and readiness, provided new training opportunities, and strengthened partnerships while projecting the Air Force’s global reach and power. At the time, he said the service was planning on “expanding beyond the normal” locations like Fairford, U.K.; Diego Garcia; Moron, Spain; and Guam.

While Ray retired in July and was replaced by Gen. Anthony J. Cotton, BTFs have taken place across the globe as of late. One mission to Orland Air Force Station, Norway, in particular was a first, with B-1Bs from Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, conducting several training missions in the Arctic region. B-2s from Whiteman were also deployed in March to Lajes Field, Portugal, in the Azores and flew several training missions with the B-1Bs in Norway, as well as Norwegian F-35s from Iceland.

Don’t Try to Fix Microelectronics Issues By Looking Backward, Experts Say

Aug. 24, 2021 | By John A. Tirpak

While it’s probably too late to fix the supply and trustworthiness of the current global microelectronics enterprise, there’s good reason to think the U.S., especially with some government investment, can regain its edge as a world chip supplier, experts said during a virtual Hudson Institute seminar Aug. 23.

There is a world shortage of microprocessor—”chips”—leading to supply delays for everything from cars to weapon systems, and many of these devices are afflicted by insecure features making them vulnerable to manipulation. The Pentagon is concerned that these vulnerabilities could be exploited by an adversary, either for espionage or to render them inoperative in combat.

“What we need, honestly, is a goal,” set by American policymakers about how the U.S. can remain the leader in the next generation of chip design and manufacture, said Victoria Coleman, Air Force chief scientist. The U.S. is poised to exploit “leap ahead” technologies in “fabrics, … materials, … and devices,” and targeted, “mindful” government investment can help set the stage for re-establishing the U.S. as the world leader in this area, she said.

“It’s also about creating a framework that can take those investments, prove them out, scale them, and then build sustainable business models around them,” Clarke said. It may require changes to regulation, government investment, or joint government/private investment.

“Policymakers have a lot of tools in the toolkit” to do this, she said, but it’s important to set goals so “we know … we’ve won.” However, due to the cost of labor, “it’s not possible to pull us out of the hole that we find ourselves in today with respect to leading-edge manufacturing of semiconductors,” she added.

Jay Goldberg, chief executive officer of D2D advisory, said when it comes to manufacturing and the current U.S, dependence on global chip supply networks, “that battle’s over.”

“Let’s look to the future,” he said. While China has done an excellent job revving up its design capacity, its efforts at production are focused on obsolescing generations of chips.

“China has done a pretty good job of incentivizing their industry to work together,” he said, “but they’re really building something for the last century. Just like Stalin in the ‘50s built railroads and hydroelectric dams, … the best 19th century economy in the 20th century.”

The U.S. doesn’t need to “invest in design, there’s all kinds of new fields coming up … That’s where we should focus. That’s where we’ve done well in the past and we’ll continue to do well in the future,” Goldberg said.

Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute, who co-authored a recent paper on the topic, “Regaining the Digital Advantage,” said the U.S. is best suited to the design and packaging aspects of the microelectronics enterprise; less so in manufacture because of the labor cost differential with Asia.

“How do we make sure we’re able to support the demands of future customers? You’ve got to be positioned in the parts of the supply chain,” he said. “Fabrication may not change that much between current generation chips and fifth-generation chips. But designs will change dramatically; packaging could change dramatically” because new chips or “triplets” will have new and potentially “heterogeneous” designs. The U.S. will be “well positioned” because it can “add value for the future, even if it’s not well positioned to support current demand” due to the low level of fabrication capacity in the U.S.

Still, government could “provide incentives to close that cost differential and make U.S. chips competitive,” he said.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the Defense Supply Chain Task Force, said future technologies such as “system on a chip, … heterogeneous or … disaggregated chip architecture,” will create opportunities to “bring … home” microelectronics dominance, and these are the areas government may seek to invest in. She advocated for more “pure science” research and development, along the model of Bell Labs in the 1950s and 1960s.

There are many years of work to be done fixing “vulnerabilities” in existing chips; some that were created inadvertently to get things to work, and some “nefarious,” created by overseas manufacturers with “evil intent,” Clarke said.

“We have our work cut out for us,” in that regard, she said, noting she is “very excited” about “zero trust” architecture design because “there will continue to be both intentional and non-intentional flaws in devices … Let’s build them in such a way that they’re actually resilient … When [faults] hit us, we can contain the infection, … so that it doesn’t spread to the whole system, so we can fail safely … It’s about how you build systematic resilience.”

US Space Command Achieves Initial Operational Capability

Aug. 24, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—U.S. Space Command boss Army Gen. James H. Dickinson declared the command’s initial operational capability in a speech at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Aug. 24.

IOC status means the Defense Department’s 11th combatant command has “matured to the point where we have strategic effects,” said Dickinson in a speech just five days shy of the second anniversary of the command’s re-establishment. Unlike IOC for a piece of equipment, Dickinson called the command’s institutional IOC “more strategically focused.”

“How much of an effect can we now have strategically?” he said. “How much have we moved the needle? Well, IOC is essentially a pivot point, or an inflection point. … It’s where we can credibly claim to be organized and effective for employing our enduring, no-fail supporting functions to the joint force, as we have for many years, and our supportive warfighting functions as well.”

He listed some of the milestones that led up to IOC, including:

Establishing Space Command’s service components from the Defense Department’s five military branches, including Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Marine Forces Space, Naval Space Command, 1st Air Force, and Space Force’s Space Operations Command; along with two functional components: Combined Forces Space Component Command and Joint Task Force Space Defense.
Becoming a party to more than 100 data-sharing agreements with allies, other U.S. government agencies, and commercial partners that improve space domain awareness among other benefits.
Establishing command and control capabilities, of which Dickinson said, “we continue to refine and grow those capabilities.”
Taking part in more than 24 Tier 1 wargames and exercises. “These are national, governmental-wide, and combatant-wide level events that test our collective response to real-world contingencies,” Dickinson said.
Calling out competitors for “actions contrary to peaceful operations in the space domain.”

What comes next, Dickinson said, is “a compelling and extremely important effort to build the future of the U.S. Space Command.”

He previewed a soon-to-be-released strategy document the command will publish, which he characterized as building on his earlier “commander’s strategic vision” and as a “roadmap for what comes next.”

“It describes how in coordination with allies and partners, U.S. Space Command will achieve and maintain space superiority when, where, and for how long we need it,” including efforts to counter “competitor influence” and to “build and maintain strategic advantages, strengthen our critical relationships, and attract new partners,” Dickinson said.

He didn’t bring up Space Command’s future home, however. Its provisional headquarters is Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The Department of the Air Force selected Redstone Arsenal, Ala., for the permanent headquarters, but both the Defense Department Office of Inspector General and Congress’ Government Accountability office are investigating the search process that led to that decision.

‘Guardians Wanted’: Space Force Launches New Recruiting Video in Push for Young, Diverse Talent

Aug. 24, 2021 | By Abraham Mahshie

The Space Force debuted a new fast-paced recruiting commercial, featuring clips of space operators responding to cosmic challenges posed by adversaries to inspire the next generation of Guardians.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond introduced the latest recruiting video before a packed auditorium of masked attendees at the 36th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colo.

In the video, Raymond slowly walks a stage, talking to young Guardians in solemn words about adversaries, repeating the oft-mouthed line: “Space is hard.”

“It used to be all we had to worry about was astrophysics, Kepler’s Laws [of planetary motion], gamma rays, solar flares, rocket science, black holes, and the Theory of Relativity,” Raymond said. “But now, we also track about 30,000 objects, orbiting at over 17,500 miles an hour, and our entire way of life depends on us to protect our satellites from attack, day and night.”

The video, which ends with two words: “Guardians Wanted,” emphasizes the highly specialized, yet critical role Space Force members will play in the national security enterprise.

U.S. Space Force/YouTube

The service in May released a white paper highlighting its vision for a fully digital service, in which it reiterated what Space Force leaders have been saying all along: “We have the opportunity to be highly selective in our recruitment, retention, and training, thereby ensuring we shape an elite, technologically adept, ‘digitally fluent’ workforce.”

During his speech at the Space Symposium, Raymond said, “We recruit top talent and they get the best training.” The new smaller and more agile service has worked hard to eliminate bureaucratic slowdowns enabling Space Force Guardians to move up the ranks faster than their sister services.

Raymond also touched on progress made in the standup of the Space Force and its commands nationwide, emphasizing the role young and diverse Guardians played in critical missions, such as detecting Iranian rocket attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.

Raymond stressed the need for international cooperation and applauded recent Air Force Academy graduate 2nd Lt. Aryemis Brown, a Rhodes scholar who will be the first Academy grad to study international relations in the United Kingdom.

Raymond stressed the “lean” and elite nature of the new force, saying more than 4,000 troops from other services applied for just 650 transfer slots, and 9,100 applicants applied for some 70 civilian positions at Space Force headquarters.

“For the last 18 months, our personnel processes for recruitment and training [have identified] the best of the best,” Raymond said.

He also noted the Aug. 23 standup of Space Training and Readiness Command, the last of three field commands, the equivalent of USAF’s major commands, to be established, and the year-over-year rise in professional military education slots from just three to 24.

Raymond: New STARCOM Will ‘Shape the Next Century’ of Space Operations

Aug. 23, 2021 | By Amanda Miller

The Space Force activated the last of three planned field commands in a ceremony Aug. 23 at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., during which Brig. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton also took command.

Space Force Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond referred to the activation of Space Training and Readiness Command, or STARCOM, as a “major milestone in the establishment of an independent Space Force, and the realization of one of the main reasons our nation established a satellite service: to unify national security space efforts and to develop one core cadre of space warfighting professionals.”

Field commands are the USSF’s equivalent of Air Force major commands. After Space Force’s creation in December 2019, counterparts of the new field command followed, including Space Operations Command, with headquarters at Peterson, in October 2020; and Space Systems Command, with headquarters at Los Angeles Air Force Base, which stood up earlier this month. STARCOM’s headquarters at Peterson is still provisional while a strategic basing process is pending to find the command a permanent home.

Raymond alluded to his past service at the base in his speech.

“I can’t remember the countless numbers of ceremonies that I’ve done in Hangar 140, and I can’t think of a more important one than the ceremony we’re about to do,” Raymond said. “STARCOM has the purpose and the absolute responsibility of developing our most precious asset—our people—by establishing and continuously evolving the tools, doctrine, training, and testing programs for our Guardians starting their first day of service.”

Families of the command’s top leaders took part in the ceremony along with members of the STARCOM’s five numbered deltas—the Space Force’s organizational equivalent of USAF wings—plus international military partners from Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Nigeria, and Poland and the Air Force Academy’s Stellar Brass band.

During the ceremony Bratton said he is taking over the command with “undoubtedly the coolest name of all the field commands,” noting later in a press briefing that the command currently comprises about 800 people, including about 50 in the headquarters, which he expects to grow to about 250. He expects the command to grow to “just shy of 1,500 over the next five years.” About 12,000 military and civilian personnel currently make up the Space Force.

Bratton said some training under STARCOM, such as Basic Military Training, “will look familiar,” but he foresees better training than he got when he advanced through the ranks.

“My training was very much on the ground on simulators,” said Bratton, who began his career as an enlisted member of the Arizona Air National Guard. He eventually deployed to serve in Operation Iraqi Freedom, including as U.S. Northern Command’s director of space forces.

“I think if we can grow to on-orbit training where we’re live-flying satellites in a training environment, where we can test and train things that we haven’t done before, I think that would be a huge step forward for us,” Bratton said.

A provisional delta that had temporarily operated in the command’s place, Star Delta, was inactivated during the ceremony.

Raymond, during his speech, delivered a message directly to members of the new command:

“You are setting an incredibly important precedent,” Raymond said. “You are developing the doctrine that will shape the next century of space as an operational and independent domain. You are where the rubber meets the road in establishing a cohesive, unified cadre of space warfare professionals.

“As we train the way we fight, that training starts with you.”

TRANSCOM: ‘All Mobility Resources’ Focused on Kabul Airlift Mission

Aug. 23, 2021 | By Brian W. Everstine

The airlift of U.S. citizens and Afghan evacuees out of Kabul has become a “monumental logistics effort,” and “all mobility resources are focused” on the mission, with well more than 200 air mobility aircraft taking part, the head of U.S. Transportation Command said Aug. 23.

Those aircrews are pushing the limits and flying to the point of exhaustion, though they are still focused on getting as many people as possible out of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, U.S. Army Gen. Stephen R. Lyons told reporters.

“When I say we’re all in, I mean to meet the President’s and Secretary’s directive to ensure that every evacuee that is cleared to move can move, and our crews are absolutely incredible,” Lyons said. “I won’t lie to you, they’re tired. They’re probably exhausted in some cases. I know that the leaders from time to time are pulling crews to make sure we don’t have any safety issues, but they are motivated, they are fired up, and they are committed to complete this mission.”

Within a 24-hour span ending early Aug. 23, 25 C-17s, three C-130s, and 61 chartered and commercial aircraft had flown out of Kabul, carrying about 16,000 passengers, 11,000 of whom were on U.S. military aircraft. This is the largest single-day airlift total since the operation began on Aug. 14. Overall, about 37,000 people have been evacuated from Afghanistan since then. Civil Reserve Air Fleet aircraft also are carrying evacuees from staging bases outside of Kabul to the United States.

More bases across the globe have begun to take in the evacuees on a temporary basis, where they are screened and processed before heading to the United States. Four bases in the U.S. now are accepting the evacuees: Fort Bliss, Texas, Fort McCoy, Wisc.; Fort Lee, Va.; and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, N.J.

Lyons said, “initial elements were airborne in less than three hours.” Since then, the number of aircraft and aircrews have increased exponentially and are operating as fast as possible.

“We’ve got a number of planes in the system, but we have twice as many crews,” Lyons said. “And the idea is to keep those planes moving all the time, either by extending the crew day or, preferably, by swapping crews and keeping the iron in motion. So, there’s a very tight detail management system to do that. Critical to that, of course, … is ground time. The faster we can turn, either load or discharge, the faster we can turn that aircraft, and then we’re razor focused on bringing that down.”

This means keeping aircraft on the ground in Kabul for less than one hour to load passengers and then quickly leaving for other bases in the Persian Gulf. The aircraft have enough fuel that they can refuel in-flight after leaving if necessary, rather than on the ground.

Lyons said he is confident that USAF airlifters will be able to carry more than 10,000 passengers per day. The Pentagon, in the early days, said it expected to increase output to between 5,000 and 9,000 passengers per day.

The limiting factor continues to be getting people to the airport safely and processing them through the gate. On Aug. 23, an unidentified gunman opened fire at one of the gates, killing one Afghan soldier and injuring several others before German and U.S. troops returned fire. U.S. Central Command, in a statement, did not say what the fate of the “unknown hostile actor” was.

Lyons said the “threat is significant” to aircrews, and they are working to stay safe.

“Our crews are the best in the world. That machine, the C-17, is the best in the world,” Lyons said. “And I’m confident that we’re taking the right measures to mitigate the threat, and we’re connected to the right sources and taking the right kind of measures. I’ll probably leave it at that, for good reasons.”

Muslim Airmen Reflect on Challenges, Rewards of Serving in Air Force

Aug. 23, 2021 | By Greg Hadley

In the latest edition of Air Education and Training Command’s “Real Talk” series, three Muslim Airmen gathered Aug. 19 to share their personal experiences of how their faith informs their service.

The discussion, moderated by AETC Commander Lt. Gen. Marshall B. “Brad” Webb, also touched on the Airmen’s positive and negative interactions with other Airmen about their religion, and how they hope the Air Force will progress on the issue in the future.

Chief Master Sgt. Gloria L. Weatherspoon, senior enlisted advisor at the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, enlisted in the Air Force in 1996. Since then, she said, she has seen a full range of reactions to her faith.

When she first started, Weatherspoon briefly considered seeking a waiver from Headquarters Air Force to wear her hijab but dropped the idea—”I’m an A1C, and the first person in my chain of command is a staff sergeant who knows nothing about this, and it was like, ‘Well, it’s not worth it,’” she explained.

Years later, however, she decided she did want to seek a waiver and reached out to Capt. Maysaa Ouza after a quick internet search showed Ouza wearing her head scarf in uniform.

“I was like, ‘Hey, you don’t know me, but I need help.’ I sent her my phone number, she called me right away. … And she told me how to do it, but I sat on it for a little while because I didn’t know how people were going to react to me,” Weatherspoon said.

Eventually, Weatherspoon did seek the waiver and was approved in a matter of days, she said. When she showed up for work the first time in her hijab, she posted a picture of herself to social media, and the photo was subsequently shared onto the unofficial “Air Force amn/nco/snco” Facebook page without her knowledge.

“No leader wants to be on there. I was just like, what is happening. I was so upset,” Weatherspoon said of her initial reaction. But to her surprise, the vast majority of comments from fellow Airmen of all ranks were positive.

Wearing the hijab is meaningful to Weatherspoon, she said, because it allows her to feel like an “open book.”

I wanted to serve as my whole self,” Weatherspoon said. “I wanted … people, when Ramadan came, to assume that I was going to fast instead of me having to give a whole entire briefing about why I’m not going to lunch.”

Alternatively, Maj. Sadia A. Heil, individual mobilization augmentee to the chief of Force and Unit Level Capabilities, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Directorate, does not wear a hijab while in uniform.

“When I see Chief Wetherspoon wearing hijab, I know that that was a personal decision she made and that she feels empowered wearing hijab. And I also know that I have the ability as a Muslim woman to make personal decisions that are good for me,” Heil said, emphasizing that either mandating or banning the hijab are both extremes that restrict an individual’s ability to practice their own faith and spirituality.

Heil added that she has had times in the Air Force when she “felt very disappointed” in how fellow Airmen have disrespected her or her religion. Those incidents, she said, included everything from Airmen mispronouncing the name of the holy month of Ramadan or asking her if she spoke “Islamic,” to a commander that used an Islamic title as his callsign and gave briefings in which he told Airmen that a “moderate Muslim” is a hypocrite.

“So I’m now in a position where I’m working for somebody … who … has the audacity to think that he can think that I’m a hypocrite, but is also taking that and is spreading it throughout my command,” Heil said.

The importance of commanders establishing a positive, respectful culture is key, the panelists agreed. Capt. Abdulaziz H. Ali, theater engagement division chief at the Air Force Special Operations Schoolhouse, recounted a time when his commander came up to him unsolicited during Ramadan and asked how he could help Ali during that time, which typically includes a month of fasting.

“When it comes to a culture of inclusion, that does fall squarely on commanders,” Ali said. “So it’s good that you see me, but what are you doing to make sure that everybody in the unit feels like they can be themselves at the unit?”

All three panelists also agreed on the importance of education—while they all consider themselves to be ambassadors for their religion and are willing to discuss it in good faith, they stressed that many conversations are more accusatory or lacking in context.

“I think if you are coming from a place of genuineness, you will do the work first,” Weathersppon said. “You will say, ‘Hey, … I Googled how to learn about Islam, and I saw these 10 books. Have you ever read them? Do you know about them? What do you think because I genuinely want to learn so I can connect better with you, so I can be there for you’ … versus picking apart things based off of whatever your biases already are.”

The panelists were also all able to recall times in which their Muslim faith had been helpful in their Air Force careers.

For Ali, his faith furthered his interest in learning Arabic, which has allowed him to help relations with Arabic-speaking partners and become a Foreign Area Officer.

For Heil, there was a time when she was able to connect with distinguished Muslim visitors at her base and ensure their Ramadan fast was respected.

And for Weatherspoon, there was an instance when her presence helped assure a delegation from the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Defense to partner with the force on education opportunities for women.

In all of these examples, Ali said, there’s ample evidence of what Muslim Airmen can contribute to a diverse Air Force.

“I think if you recognize that you have a pool of resources to draw from within the United States populace, and you create an environment that attracts people from different backgrounds—I mean, you know, the fact that this forum exists is a testament to the importance of that as a priority for leadership within the Air Force, but also what we bring to the fight,” Ali said. “ … Time and time again, people look at us and we are the envy of the world, because we make a deliberate effort to pull talent from everywhere.”