Brown: ‘Shame on Us’ if Military Diversity Efforts Falter

Brown: ‘Shame on Us’ if Military Diversity Efforts Falter

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Change is coming to make the Department of the Air Force a more diverse, equitable place—but it won’t happen overnight, the four-star generals in charge of the Air Force and Space Force said in a Dec. 22 town hall on racism and discrimination.

“Shame on us if we miss this opportunity to make a change that’s required across our Air Force to make it better, whether it’s the Air Force or the Space Force,” Air Force Chief of Staff Charles Q. Brown Jr. said.

The discussion comes the day after the Department of the Air Force released the results of an Inspector General report on racial disparities across the force. A call for anecdotes on racism and inequality earlier this year prompted an avalanche of more than 123,000 responses across more than 27,000 single-spaced pages of feedback, alongside more than 100 in-person interviews.

The investigation confirmed earlier studies and reporting that found Black Airmen and Guardians are treated differently in the military discipline system and when pursuing career development opportunities.

“Varying degrees of disparity were identified in apprehensions, criminal investigations, military justice, administrative separations, placement into occupational career fields, certain promotion rates, officer and civilian professional military educational development, and some leadership opportunities,” the Department of the Air Force said Dec. 21. “The data does not address why racial disparities exist in these areas, and that while the data shows race is a correlating factor, it does not necessarily indicate causality.”

Over the past decade, white Airmen were promoted up the ranks more often than Airmen who are Black or members of other minority groups, according to an Air Force Magazine analysis. Average promotion rates for majors and colonels are more than 5 percentage points higher for white Airmen than Black officers, and the gap widens to around 10 percentage points for lieutenant colonels. Trends are similar in the enlisted force.

Brown said he’s read the 150-page report cover-to-cover five or six times. The document reflects his own experiences as a Black man coming up through the ranks and are “things I’ve actually felt,” he said. The first Black person to serve as the top officer of a U.S. armed force, Brown released his own viral video over the summer detailing his experiences with discrimination and feeling like an outsider.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx0HnOTUkVI

It’s far from the first time the Air Force has looked into the issue: The IG team reconsidered 23 past studies and reports on race and demographics in the military as part of the investigation.

So what’s different now? “George Floyd,” Brown said.

“Think about what happened. … Look at all the protests over the course of the summer,” he said of the national unrest sparked by Floyd’s death in May after a white police officer knelt on the Black man’s neck for nearly 9 minutes.

“When those other studies were done, there probably weren’t as many protests,” Brown said. “Think about it: It was 1973 and beyond. So you didn’t have a major national event that focused us on this particular topic, until this summer.”

Floyd’s death has opened the door for difficult conversations about persistent systemic racism across the military and American society at large. Over the summer, Air Force Magazine spoke to several Black service members about their experiences with discrimination during their time in uniform, and their hopes for improvement.

The pilot field that dominates the Air Force’s considerations and leadership remains overwhelmingly white and male, and the service has recently announced changes to height requirements and aircraft design that will allow more women into the cockpit. But there’s also more to do to make aviators more racially diverse.

“When I was a captain, I did an interview for Air Force Times, and it talked about the percentage of African Americans that were pilots. It was 2 percent. That was 30 years ago,” Brown said. “You know what it is right now? It’s still 2 percent.”

While the Air Force can diversify its top leadership by pulling the best candidates from career fields other than pilots, Brown cautioned the solution needs to be more holistic.

“Will the shape of the Air Force change in the future as we look at cyber, information operations, and other areas? I think it will. But it won’t make a dramatic shift,” he said.

He and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond pointed people to ideas that could spur lasting change. For example, the Air Force will reconsider whether its Officer Qualifying Test and Weighted Airman Promotion System tests offer the fairest way to assess proficiency. The Space Force wants to ditch tests for promotion and assignment boards that take the value of diverse backgrounds and ideas into consideration.

Air Force Materiel Command boss Gen. Arnold W. Bunch Jr. is taking a new approach to inclusion in the civilian workforce, which can spend much longer in the same job or field than military personnel. He started a “status of discipline” program like that is used by service members to track and discuss performance issues. That can raise red flags of barriers to progress within the command or biases in certain units or fields.

For Airmen and Guardians who work with a member of a white supremacist group, “We need to hear about it,” Brown said.

“We shouldn’t tolerate that type of leadership, particularly at the [non-commissioned officer] level in our Air Force, our Space Force,” he said when asked about a technical sergeant who led troops while participating in white supremacist activity, a practice regulated by the Defense Department.

Brown and Raymond encouraged troops to continue productive dialogue when they can, and to call in backup when needed. There should be a balance between mission readiness and ensuring people’s voices are heard on the issues that affect their quality of life, they said.

Another step in the right direction is the creation of a diversity and inclusion office at the department’s headquarters, which Brown said Black personnel have long wanted. That group, along with other initiatives and a broader culture shift, aim to shrink the number of incidents that warrant Inspector General or equal-opportunity program attention.

Building a Force Based on Inclusion

For the Space Force, the investigation is a chance to rectify racist practices and attitudes from the start. The Pentagon’s newest service is drawing up a human capital plan that looks to diversify the workforce and ingrain a culture of acceptance.

“Our forces are more ready when everybody that comes to work, regardless of race, color, sex, creed, or religion, feels welcome and has an environment [in] which they can flourish across all of our ranks,” Raymond said. “This is not affirmative action; this is equal opportunity and inclusion.”

The event raised some criticism that Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass, the first woman and Asian American to serve as USAF’s top enlisted member, did not offer her perspective alongside the two four-star generals.

Brown noted that Bass and Chief Master Sergeant Roger A. Towberman, the Space Force’s Senior Enlisted Adviser, are considering doing their own town hall for enlisted Airmen and Guardians.

To those who asked why people believe racial disparities still exist now that the Air Force has a minority Chief of Staff, Brown said: “Just because I’m here doesn’t mean that’s the end of the story.”

“Is it a woman that comes behind me? Is it someone of a different sexual orientation? Is it another diverse group? It can’t be a one-and-done,” he said. “We can’t slap the table and pat ourselves on the back now that I’m sitting here as the Chief of Staff.”

Operation Christmas Drop Continues for 69th Year Despite COVID-19

Operation Christmas Drop Continues for 69th Year Despite COVID-19

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

U.S. Air Force and Japan Air Self-Defense Forces earlier this month flew the 69th annual holiday tradition—Operation Christmas Drop—airdropping bundles of aid and toys to Palau despite COVID-19 restrictions.

Aircraft dropped 64 bundles to the 500-island archipelago of Palau from Dec. 6-10, providing aid to people on the islands, while also providing airdrop training for C-130 crews, according to a Dec. 17 release.

“Operation Christmas Drop is one of those exercises, it’s one of those missions, that you don’t forget,” said Maj. Joseph Spitz, Operation Christmas Drop mission commander, in a video release. “It’s got a special place in everyone’s heart who accomplishes it. It’s something you can’t duplicate in any other sense.”

For the 2020 iteration, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, organizers and aircrews took multiple precautions. All personnel from Yokota Air Base, Japan, had a 14-day restriction of movement period at home before, then had to test negative for COVID-19 before deploying to Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, for the operation. Donations were held for at least 24 hours, before participants, donning masks and gloves, packed them.

The donations were then bundled for the airdrops, disinfected, and placed in a sanitary location for at least 72 hours, according to the release.

“There were a lot of measures we took to make sure that what we did was in line with the DOD [Defense Department] and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines,” Spitz said in the release. “This allowed us to mitigate the risk of spread and transmission of COVID-19 to the islanders of Palau.”

C-130s flew to the airdrop locations, flying low and dropping the bundles via parachute to waiting crews on the ground. The low-level airdrop training is something aircrews from Yokota cannot get at their home location.

“When you fly over, and when you drop aid to them, and they wave to us from the ground, it’s something that you can’t recreate and it’s a very rewarding experience,” Spitz said. 

US Space Command Comes Into Focus in Year 2

US Space Command Comes Into Focus in Year 2

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

When the revived U.S. Space Command got up and running more than one year ago, Pentagon leaders knew they needed the group again, but how would it work?

The organization, which manages operations of the satellites, radars, and other support systems that enable everything from guided missiles to troop communications, launched in August 2019. The Space Force was created shortly after to provide personnel and resources to that command for daily combat needs.

Since then, SPACECOM has built a staff of nearly 600 employees from across the military, according to Chief of Staff Brig. Gen. Brook J. Leonard. It currently plans to grow to nearly 1,400 personnel, first based at the temporary headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo. The Pentagon is considering six locations, including Peterson, to become the permanent HQ.

SPACECOM hopes to draw from a robust local military, civilian, and contractor workforce that offers space and joint warfighting expertise, Leonard said Dec. 21 at an event hosted by the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies. About 60 percent of the command’s headquarters will be civilian employees.

“We are able to do what the nation needs us to do, but to stay ahead of our enemies, we’re going to need to continue to build out,” Leonard said. He noted the armed forces will be fairly evenly represented across that workforce.

Eighty percent of the command’s time and resources will be spent on short-term planning and operations, while the other 20 percent will be focused on research and development for big, futuristic ideas.

What has matured so far is the command’s understanding of how the armed forces should work together to use and defend space assets. The Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force each have a component at SPACECOM that are experts in how the services rely on space, and the Air Force is exploring its options as well.

“This traditional way of looking at warfare, where you have these phases that you incrementally ratchet up through and you finally get to, ‘Hey, bullets are flying now,’ that’s really not the way it’s going to play out,” Leonard said. “The timing of that is going to be different across the domains and the dimensions of the conflict or of the competition that you’re in.”

A scuffle in space could lead to further aggression on Earth, he added: “We might need to go first in space, we might need to be able to survive and take a punch in space.” 

Rather than rely on traditional bombing and ground combat campaigns, they’re drawing up new concepts of how to strategically “set the battlespace” to compete for global influence with countries like Russia and China.

In their thinking, space and cyber forces should partner with “gray forces,” like undersea or special operations troops, for targeted offense and defense, Leonard said. Successful operations could lead to smaller-scale conflict that stays more in the digital realm than the physical.

“How do we think about the fact that competition and staying in the game, and doing so in a way that we can easily pivot, but yet at the same time, show strength, is key to winning without fighting?” he added.

Those considerations are still evolving. China’s mining enterprise on the moon is expanding the scope of how SPACECOM defines its future responsibilities, Leonard said: “That forces us to be able to think through how we would secure that environment for the Artemis program, as we go back to the moon as well.”

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s aspirations to colonize Mars is also shaping those plans, since the U.S. military plans to support commercial companies as they head farther away from Earth.

“What’s the outer boundary of our area of responsibility?” Leonard said. “I mentioned 100 kilometers is sort of the inner boundary, but what’s the outer boundary, and how fast are they going there, and in what way are they going there?” 

Global—and extraterrestrial—planning calls for close ties with the other combatant commands. SPACECOM this year has worked to fully staff its planning cells that liaise with the other COCOMs, and already has those teams in place at U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and U.S. European Command. 

“We have some future missions that we’re preparing for: our global satellite communications manager mission and our global sensor mission, and how that plays into missile warning and missile defense,” Leonard said. “We’re working very closely with [U.S. Northern Command], as well as Strategic Command to be able to do that right, and really make the most efficient use out of many of our sensors that do a lot of the same things.”

In particular, Leonard noted the partnership between space and U.S. Cyber Command personnel is key. If those networks are attacked, space systems could be little more than hardware floating on orbit.

He added the growing relationship between the Space Force and the Intelligence Community is leading to a resurgence in operations intel that helps U.S. troops understand how space systems are designed and how an adversary might wield them.

“We’re starting to stitch together our processes and our capabilities,” Leonard said. “It’s been wonderful to see the expertise that they bring to the field, but also the reliance that they have on space—in particular, operations intelligence, which had subsided in the 17 years where Space Command was not in existence.”

Hypersonic HAWC Won’t Fly This Year Due to Ongoing Test Problems

Hypersonic HAWC Won’t Fly This Year Due to Ongoing Test Problems

Dec. 22, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

An attempt by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Air Force to fly the first Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept [HAWC] experimental missile last week failed because of testing snafus, sources report.

DARPA announced in September it had completed captive-carry testing of the two HAWC vehicle types and would be flying at least one by the end of the year. Both Lockheed Martin and Raytheon Technologies have developed HAWC demonstrators, and sources said the Lockheed vehicle was the one being tested. They said last week’s attempt can’t be re-organized by the end of December.

“This is not about a design issue,” said a source familiar with the program. “This is dumb mistakes.”

The Air Force and DARPA got telemetry aircraft up and cleared the test area, but the missile was apparently not released from its B-52 mothership. The exact nature of the problem was not disclosed, but sources implied there were “basic errors” having to do with the mechanics of the test.  

The service is expected to test the AGM-183 Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) by the end of the month, but that is an Air Force-only boost-glide hypersonic missile program proceeding separately from HAWC, said Air Force acquisition executive Will Roper during a Dec. 14 AFA Doolittle Leadership Center virtual forum.

A DARPA spokesman said the HAWC program is classified and the agency cannot provide any test information about it. A source familiar with the test said, “I assure you, you would have heard about it if there was something to celebrate.”

Press reports that a HAWC was inadvertently released and lost during a May captive carry flight were in error, sources said, but the missile was apparently damaged in that test, delaying additional captive carry tests for several months.

Raytheon officials said at the 2019 Paris Air Show that their HAWC might fly by the end of last year, but those predictions proved optimistic.   

Hypersonic aircraft fly at speeds greater than Mach 5, or five times the speed of sound. They are challenging to defend against because of their speed and ability to maneuver unpredictably.

The Air Force and DARPA are partnered on HAWC, which seeks to test an air-breathing, scramjet-powered, hydrocarbon-fueled missile to explore engine designs, heat-resistant materials, and other technologies necessary to develop a mass-produced, affordable hypersonic standoff missile that is small enough to launch from fighter aircraft.

Aerojet Rocketdyne made the Lockheed HAWC’s engine, while Northrop Grumman supplied the engine for Raytheon’s. Northrop’s expertise stems from its purchase of Orbital ATK, now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems, which worked on NASA’s X-43 hypersonic test vehicle. Northrop has said its HAWC engine is made entirely by additive, or 3-D, printing processes.

In a September press release, DARPA said HAWC flight tests would focus on engine performance and “thermal management techniques to enable prolonged hypersonic cruise,” along with affordable design and manufacturing techniques.

The Air Force Research Laboratory recently announced it had ground tested an 18-foot long scramjet engine in November. Built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, it produced 13,000 pounds of thrust, and is potentially applicable to a large future hypersonic vehicle. Lockheed Martin will acquire Aerojet by the end of 2021, Lockheed announced Dec. 20.

Lockheed CEO James D. Taiclet said on Dec. 21 his company could boost Aerojet’s hypersonic business opportunities by integrating them with Lockheed’s own efforts. Lockheed units working on known hypersonic projects include its “Skunk Works” advanced development unit; Space; Aeronautics; and Missiles and Fire Control.

In November, the Pentagon announced it will partner with Australia on the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE, an air-breathing hypersonic technology program meant to result in full-size prototype weapons within a few years, and a production system within five to 10 years. Sources report that SCIFiRE will derive at least in part from HAWC technologies and the Hypersonic International Flight Research Experiment (HIFiRE) program, a collaborative effort between the U.S. Air Force and Navy, and Australia’s Royal Australian Air Force and military technology agencies since 2005. The project will be run by the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons, Brig. Gen. Heath A. Collins, for the Pentagon’s Directorate for Advanced Capabilities, under the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.  

The Air Force is pursuing several hypersonic weapon programs: the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, an air-breather to be derived from HAWC technology demonstrations; the ARRW, and a third system, dubbed “Mayhem,” which could be larger than ARRW and carry multiple warheads. The Pentagon has said it is not pursuing hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads.

The Air Force dropped out of a joint effort with the Army and Navy, called the Hypersonic Conventional Strike Weapon, or HCSW, in February, saying it was focusing on ARRW and HAWC.     

Both the Pentagon’s Deputy Director of Defense Research and Engineering Mark Lewis and Roper have said they’ve been pleasantly surprised that air-breathing hypersonic missile development is further along than they expected when they took their respective jobs, compared with boost-glide systems that do not have a complex engine. Roper said in late April that “given how far scramjet technology has matured, I’d expect that we’ll be able to go pretty quickly” with such systems.

USAF, DOD Leaders Make Holiday Visits to Middle East

USAF, DOD Leaders Make Holiday Visits to Middle East

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

Top Air Force and Defense Department leaders visited several bases throughout the Middle East to meet with Airmen for the holidays, and receive updates on ongoing missions.

Air Force Secretary Barbara M. Barrett, Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass met with Airmen at locations including Prince Sultan Air Base, Saudi Arabia; al-Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates; Ali Al Salem Air Base, Kuwait; and al-Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Barrett later took to Twitter, saying the Airmen “are the ultimate competitors in a competition-driven security environment.”

It’s the first time Brown and Bass have toured these Middle East bases while in their current positions, and the second time for Barrett. Brown previously commanded Air Forces Central Command at al-Udeid.

Also on Dec. 22, Acting Defense Secretary Christopher C. Miller traveled to Afghanistan in an unannounced visit. During the trip, he met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to discuss ongoing U.S. military support and peace talks. He also met with Gen. Austin Scott Miller, commander of Resolute Support and U.S. Forces Afghanistan, for an assessment of the ongoing security situation, including the level of Taliban violence. 

Miller met with service members at RS headquarters, Combat Security Transition Command Afghanistan, and other locations to “acknowledge their sacrifice of being away from their families during a difficult holiday season,” according to a Defense Department release.

 The U.S. military is in the process of drawing down its presence in Afghanistan, dropping to 2,500 total troops by Jan. 15, 2021.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 8:39 a.m. to include more bases USAF leaders visited.

New Initiative to Tackle Racial Inequality Faced by Military Families

New Initiative to Tackle Racial Inequality Faced by Military Families

Dec. 22, 2020 | By Jennifer-Leigh Oprihory

The nonprofit Blue Star Families recently debuted a million-dollar Racial Equity Initiative to diversify the military- and veteran-service organization communities and ensure that military families of color feel connected, included, and as though they belong.

“Through five impact areas—research and advocacy, training, leadership, collaboration, and community impact—the initiative will gather new resources and focus the energy of Blue Star Families and a broad assembly of corporate, foundation, and non-profit partners,” according to the initiative’s homepage.

The initiative was born out of the nationwide civil unrest that followed George Floyd’s Memorial Day killing in police custody, Blue Star Families CEO and Board President Kathy Roth-Douquet said during a Dec. 16 interview with Air Force Magazine. 

“The U.S. military was activated or threatened to be activated both in a way that we saw was making our community very uncomfortable,” she recalled. “And [at] Blue Star Families, we lean heavy on data … so we did a pulse poll right away to see how our families were feeling both about the use of the military in, you know, ostensibly [the] civil unrest situation, but also how they were feeling, what their emotions were.”

That survey revealed that the BSF community was simultaneously experiencing a variety of “strong feelings,” including fear, worry, and hope, she said. It echoed a much broader survey conducted by the Air Force Inspector General’s office, which released a 150-page report on Dec. 21 citing widespread racial disparities within the Department of the Air Force.

“We also saw a lot of concern about use of … Active-duty forces,” she said. Although the concern was “universal” it “was a lot higher among military families of color,” she added.

While the organization hadn’t really historically examined its survey responses by race, this finding—paired with racial disparities it observed in subsequent “pulse polls”—served as a wake-up call.

“We realized that there is an opportunity for us to do much more work around the issues that are key to our mission, which are, ‘do military families experience that sense of belonging that one needs in order to thrive in order to … give us the strongest military that we need in our country?’” she said. “And it’s not hard to see that there is work to be done. And if not us, who? If not now, when?”

Video: Blue Star Families on YouTube

To get after this goal of increasing inclusion, Blue Star Families assembled an expert Racial Equity Committee co-chaired by retired Army Lt. Gen. Gwen Bingham, a Black former Army assistant chief of staff for installation management, and Ingrid Herrera-Yee, a clinical psychology health expert with Booz Allen Hamilton who is also a military spouse and a first-generation Latina-American.

“For me, inclusion is vitally important. I think it’s most important because it’s one thing to have a seat at the table if you have that seat at the table, but it’s another … to feel that sense of inclusion,” Bingham said.

While the initiative formally kicked off in mid-December, the committee has been meeting and brainstorming for months already, Roth-Douquet said.

Former Air Force Association President, former USAF Vice Chief of Staff, and retired Gen. Larry O. Spencer—also a member of the committee—told Air Force Magazine that Blue Star Families was the first person or organization to ask about how his race informed his and his family’s personal experience since he first joined the military.

Floyd’s and subsequent unrest has also shed more light on the struggles of undocumented immigrants and families being separated at the U.S.-Mexico border—issues that Herrera-Yee said also impact military families—and made Latino troops and their families feel more seen.

“We have military families … [whose] families … come from … these undocumented origins and who are suffering as well, and, and we have military families who have service members who are undocumented, who use this as a pathway to citizenship and then all of a sudden, they were being deported, so all of these issues are so vital to our entire community,” she said.

At the end of the day, minority troops and their families don’t exist in a bubble, Spencer said.

“There seems to be this assumption that military families are somehow isolated from everything that’s around them, and that’s just not true,” he said. “You know, military families live in the communities, they watch the same news and events that everybody else do[es], and they have concerns like everybody else.”

The initiative’s primary aims are to ensure that military families of color are informed about the support resources and programs at their disposal and to create a pipeline of leaders of color to support this diversity effort. 

The initiative will also do community outreach and engagement and “cross-sector group of organizations,” the nonprofit writes.

The initiative is getting training, financial, or other support from groups including the Bush Institute, the Bob Woodruff Foundation, the American Red Cross, Syracuse University’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families, Starbucks, Lockheed Martin, the McCormick Foundation, and Craig Newmark Philantrophies, she said. 

Spencer and Roth-Douquet agreed that military service organizations don’t have the luxury of ignoring the issue of racial inequality anymore.

“I don’t think this is a two sides issue,” he said. “I think it’s an American issue, it’s a matter of our society, continuing to move forward, and continuing to recognize, and, you know, treat everyone with dignity and respect.”

Lockheed To Buy Aeroject Rocketdyne for $5 Billion

Lockheed To Buy Aeroject Rocketdyne for $5 Billion

Dec. 21, 2020 | By John A. Tirpak

Lockheed Martin is buying Aerojet Rocketdyne in a $5 billion deal that would give Lockheed in-house capability in solid rocket motors, expand its hypersonic portfolio, and complement the company’s work on ballistic missiles, space launch vehicles, and a number of munitions and tactical missile programs. Lockheed is already the largest defense contractor, and the acquisition may draw some challenge from other contractors and Congress who are concerned about diminishing competition.

Most of Aerojet Rocketdyne would be consolidated with Lockheed’s Space unit and Missiles and Fire Control unit. The acquisition is expected to be accomplished by late 2021, Lockheed CEO James D. Taiclet said on a Dec. 21 investor conference call.

Lockheed will follow the example set with Northrop Grumman’s acquisition of Orbital ATK, in which Northrop agreed as part of that deal to be a provider of solid rocket motors (SRMs) to other contractors, Taiclet said. Aerojet Rocketdyne is the only other supplier of SRMs, and Taiclet expects there will be little opposition from “our peer group,” adding that they will also enjoy “more access” to Lockheed products.

Boeing declined to bid on the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent ICBM program a year ago, claiming that vertical integration with Orbital ATK created an insurmountable pricing advantage for Northrop in that competition.

A Boeing spokesman declined comment on the Lockheed/Aerojet Rocketdyne deal.

“We’ve concluded internally, and from our outside advisors, that there’s full complementarity between the Lockheed Martin portfolio and … Aeroject Rocketdyne, meaning there’s no overlap … in a traditional antitrust sense,” Taiclet said. He said he “reached out” to 10 peer companies on Dec. 20 to “give them a heads up, … but I think they have the same understanding,” that Lockheed will be a “more efficient merchant supplier” during a period of expected flat defense budgets. He expects they will see “the industrial logic and the common sense” of the acquisition, and the “mutual benefits” of the arrangement, he added. 

“I don’t think there’s much convincing to do,” Taiclet said.

Lockheed Chief Operating Officer Frank A. St. John said that Northrop has committed to source SRMs for “upper stage work” on GBSD from Aerojet Rocketdyne, giving Lockheed a long-time role on that program, as well.

Asked about the timing of the announcement—in between presidential administrations, with uncertainty about the specific defense leaders that will decide whether the deal is allowable—Taiclet said it was in keeping with Lockheed’s strategy, the “availability” of Aerojet, advantageous credit rates, and the ability to “come to agreement on price and terms.” The timing is “part of our strategy … to be a more thorough and deep mission systems supplier.”

Aerospace business analyst Byron Callan of Capital Alpha Partners said he guesses that while the deal will “play out in slow motion” over the coming year and will likely get approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission, “it’s not a slam dunk.” It remains to be seen, he said, who fills key jobs at the Pentagon that will have a big say in it. “We’ve got to see who [President-Elect Joe] Biden appoints to these positions; it’s not really a [Secretary of Defense] question, it will be the [undersecretary for] acquisition and sustainment, and then further down.”

Much will depend on how Boeing and Raytheon Technologies react, he said. Locking up rocket and hypersonic engine technology at Lockheed and Northrop “could create some concern: Are they really going to get access to the technology? Can that really be firewalled effectively?”

The Aerojet purchase doesn’t necessarily signal the beginning or end of a consolidation cycle, Callan said, noting there “just aren’t a lot of midsize contractors” left in the business.   

Rather, he sees the move more as “portfolio shaping.”

The major contractors are looking ahead to flatter defense budgets and to “shed businesses that don’t have a lot of growth” potential. He also noted Taiclet’s comment about Aerojet’s “availability” and observed that “maybe [it] was being shopped around … and he had to act with alacrity.”

Ken R. Possenriede, Lockheed chief financial officer, said the company has enough cash on hand to manage the deal without loans, if necessary. Taiclet has said the company will not “sit on” its large cash reserves, but is looking for ways to enhance shareholder value with stock buybacks and investing in new business.

Taiclet said the deal builds Lockheed’s space, hypersonic, and missile defense portfolio while “creating new opportunities.” Aerojet’s customers will benefit from Lockheed’s “engineering and manufacturing support to become a better … supplier of propulsion products in the space and defense domain.”

Lockheed platforms already account for about 35 percent of Aerojet Rocketdyne’s business. As far as new business, Aerojet is already on all three teams competing for the next-generation air defense interceptor system.

Aerojet’s space business includes the Atlas V and Delta IV launch vehicles, Vulcan Centaur and the Space Launch System for NASA. It makes bomb bodies and warheads for Air Force suppliers, motors for the Javelin, Griffin, TOW, ATACMS, and Stinger missiles for the Army, and the Navy’s Trident D-5 Sea-Launch Ballistic Missile and Tactical Tomahawk cruise missile.

10 Years After DADT Repeal, LGBTQ Airmen Say More Can Change

10 Years After DADT Repeal, LGBTQ Airmen Say More Can Change

Dec. 21, 2020 | By Rachel S. Cohen

Ten years after the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy began to phase out, gay and lesbian Airmen say there’s more the Department of the Air Force can do to support the LGBTQ community.

On Dec. 22, 2010, President Barack Obama signed legislation that led to the repeal of DADT, which for nearly two decades blocked openly gay personnel from serving in the military. The policy formally ended in September 2011 after months of preparation within the Pentagon.

“I became a better supervisor because I was able to live up to the core values of the Air Force at that time. It made me a better Airman because I was able to be open and transparent about my life,” said Jennifer Dane, an Air Force veteran who is now interim executive director of the Modern Military Association of America, the nation’s largest nonprofit advocating for LGBTQ service members and veterans.

“When you’re doing a mission together, you share a lot of yourself with your troops,” she said. “I wanted to show them I was a person just like they were.”

Several gay and lesbian Airmen who spoke to Air Force Magazine said they have become better wingmen since the fall of DADT, and are optimistic about a military where the LGBT community is better represented and accepted. All have served for more than a decade, including multiple deployments to the Middle East and elsewhere overseas.

Some wish the military health care system was better attuned to the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer personnel, ranging from HIV prevention and treatment to pregnancy issues. Mental health care professionals who specialize in LGBTQ issues are hard to find as well, for both Airmen and their families, they said.

Following the Air Force’s 2018 approval of the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) treatment known as Truvada, health care workers sometimes aren’t familiar with the steps an Airman must take to refill their prescription for the HIV-prevention drug.

“When I had to go do the bloodwork, it was hard for the lady to understand what I was asking for,” said Tech. Sgt. Donald G. Goins Jr., an Airman with the 30th Space Communications Squadron’s cyber mission defense team at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. “There should be three vials; there should be three blood tests that you have to perform.”

The Air Force offers an annual multi-day seminar where Airmen can get specialized care for living with HIV, with information on topics from diet to safe sex. While one HIV-positive Airman said that is helpful, they wish the service would take a new look at other requirements and restrictions for people with the virus.

“Every time I change a unit, I am required by [Air Force instructions] to sit down with my commander, and we have to sign a letter together about my sexual activity,” the Airman said. “Very invasive. … No one wants to have that conversation.”

Airmen have fought HIV-related issues in the courts. In early 2020, a federal appeals court sided with two Airmen who faced military discharge after testing positive for the virus in 2017. The Pentagon bars personnel with HIV from deploying to the Middle East, making them a target for discharge under the Defense Department’s “deploy or get out” policy. The Airmen argued they could deploy with medication or a policy exception, or take different jobs in the service.

Another federal judge recently ruled that DOD has “no rational basis” for blocking HIV-positive service members from commissioning as officers, another hurdle that persists for some Airmen. That limits their ability to pursue certain career moves like becoming a pilot.

Others in the Air Force pointed to progress made around in vitro fertilization and other specialized care that affects LGBT members.

Master Sgt. Kate Huguenin, the additional duty first sergeant for U.S. Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Md., noted that TRICARE now covers more of the cost of infertility clinics for same-sex couples. But if two women want to have a baby, she said, they have to pay for the sperm out of pocket.

While U.S. society has grown steadily more accepting of LGBTQ Americans over time, Airmen remain wary of setbacks to equal rights.

Huguenin recounted the night the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September. Ginsburg, a liberal icon known for her work on gender equality, was replaced on the bench by the conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

“My phone started blowing up, … [with] younger Airmen saying, ‘hey, if they overturn [Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 Supreme Court decision to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide] because they’re talking about it, what do I need to do? How do I protect myself?’” Huguenin said.

She wonders if the Air Force can continue to recognize same-sex marriage and other LGBTQ protections even if they are no longer the law of the land. The service should be prepared to look at state policies and educate Airmen on how to protect their families in places where marriage equality is not enshrined in law, she said.

“The reason I can [permanently relocate] with my spouse is because legally, the federal government says you cannot separate legally married couples. But we legally separate significant others all the time,” said Huguenin, whose wife is in the Coast Guard. “I have absolute faith that [Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr.] have my best interests at heart. Whether or not they have the legal sufficiency to protect that, I don’t know.”

Under DADT, Airmen shied away from connecting with their colleagues for fear of sparking suspicion that could lead to discharge. The years since repeal have strengthened personal and professional relationships, in ways as simple as being able to display a photo of one’s partner at work or to discuss parenting.

“It’s exciting that I’m going to retire from the Air Force and I am going to have a husband that gets to be there, literally there, in person,” said Master Sgt. Michael Burd, who works with the Rapid Capabilities Office at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. “When I was an Airman [under DADT] and I was winning awards, my partner couldn’t go to the award ceremonies … like the heterosexual couples.”

People said they’ve felt empowered and understood by LGBTQ commanders, and used their own stories to teach and guide others as well. 

“It’s been a switch in focus away from the concept of political correctness. Now you’re not using inclusive terminology to be politically correct or, because you have to change something,” said Maj. John H. Nussbaum, an airfield assistant public works officer at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. “You’re using it to ensure that when you speak, you speak to everyone, that you’re setting the same rules for everyone, the same expectations for everyone.”

Other policies and language can shift toward being more “family-neutral,” people told Air Force Magazine. Master Sgt. Ashley N. Grady, who works in administration at the Air National Guard’s 190th Mission Support Group in Kansas, said she’d like to see things like fliers for spousal retreats acknowledge same-sex couples alongside “husband and wife.”

Some also wish the military’s legal offices took claims of LGBTQ discrimination more seriously, and call for a more diverse and LGBTQ-friendly chaplain corps. 

Many spoke of the need for broader education about the LGBTQ community, whether discussing its history during Pride Month activities each June or simply grabbing coffee with another Airman to dispel their misconceptions. Group conversations could also follow the same model some units have used to discuss racism this year.

Air Force culture will continue to evolve as leadership diversifies. DADT and other factors shrank the number of out Airmen now climbing the ladder, but some are optimistic that trend is being reversed.

Perhaps the most notable high-ranking gay military official in recent history is Eric Fanning, president and chief executive officer of the Aerospace Industries Association. Fanning, a former Army Secretary and Acting Air Force Secretary, is the only openly gay person to have held senior positions in the Army, Air Force, and Navy, as well as in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. That talent pool has to widen rather than rely on a few high-profile people, advocates said.

“You couldn’t get a clearance if you were gay until 1998,” said Luke Schleusener, president of the advocacy group Out in National Security and a former speechwriter to Defense Secretaries from 2012 to 2017. “There are people who could come over one way or the other, Hill staff, that sort of thing. But it’s hard, in part because the culture has to change.”

Airmen praised openly gay leadership at their local units but worried that Air Force efforts to embrace diversity in promotions will lead to tokenism.

“The person should be put there because they are the best person for that position,” Goins said. “To say that you’re just putting that person there because of ‘X’ demeans that position and demeans the community which they belong to.”

Other changes underway across the Defense Department can bolster the LGBTQ community as well. Hiding names and photos on candidates up for promotion—a move intended to avoid racial discrimination—can aid people across the sex and gender identity spectrum, too. Some noted that the Air Force’s recent decision to allow women to wear pants with their mess dress uniforms also helps those who aren’t comfortable in the typical long, feminine skirt.

Airmen are likewise encouraged by President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration and new Air Force leaders, which they believe will usher in more inclusive military personnel policies—starting with the so-called “transgender ban.”

When asked whether the Air Force is considering any policy changes related to the LGBTQ community, Department of the Air Force spokesperson Maj. Holly A. Hess referred Air Force Magazine back to the Pentagon’s guidance on transgender service.

Hess said the Air Force and Space Force follow DOD guidance and will comply if policies change in the future.

In April 2019, the Pentagon blocked employees from newly coming out as transgender, while allowing those already diagnosed with gender dysphoria to continue living in their preferred gender. Troops diagnosed after April 2019 must continue serving according to their birth sex and cannot receive transition-related care. Those with a gender dysphoria diagnosis cannot enlist or join a military academy. The Department of the Air Force does not tally its number of transgender troops.

In 2014, the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy at UCLA’s School of Law estimated as many as 15,500 transgender people were serving across the Pentagon’s Active-duty, Guard, and Reserve forces. A similar RAND Corp. study in 2016 estimated that more than 6,600 transgender troops were part of the Active-duty force, noting that not all of them would seek gender transition-related treatment.

RAND researchers found that allowing transgender personnel to access transition-related health care would increase Active-duty health costs by up to $8.4 million a year, an increase of less than 1 percent. They used private health insurance claims data to estimate military expenses.

“Even upper-bound estimates indicate that less than 0.1 percent of the total force would seek transition-related care that could disrupt their ability to deploy,” they said.

Anyone who is capable and qualified to serve should be allowed in, MMAA Interim Executive Director Jennifer Dane said.

“I think the biggest fear from ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ was that we were going to be able to come out, and then have to go back in the closet because of a different policy,” she said. “The trans folks were able to come out one day, and the next day, they had to either go back in, or come really out and say, ‘Yes, I suffer from gender dysphoria.’”

The recent policy’s effects have trickled down to restrict care for service members’ children as well. “It really set back the progress we were making as an LGBTQ community,” Dane said.

The incoming Biden administration is expected to repeal restrictions on transgender service soon after taking office. Congress could go a step further and enshrine protections for transgender personnel in law.

Advocates urge DOD to roll back the ban in a way that doesn’t create further unintended consequences for military employees and their families. Intentional policymaking should carry over into other issues around gender identity and sexual orientation, they said.

For example, Generation Z—anyone born after 1997—appears set to break DOD’s male-female mold as the most gender-diverse group entering the military so far, Dane said. She knows of no policies or guidance addressing nonbinary service members and others in the queer community, but encouraged the Pentagon to be proactive.

“What do you do whenever you have recruits that don’t really fit into the standards that you have?” Dane said. “We’ve got to be ready for that, because there’s a lot of people that … do identify as such.”

Review Shows Widespread Racial Disparity in the Department of the Air Force

Review Shows Widespread Racial Disparity in the Department of the Air Force

Dec. 21, 2020 | By Brian W. Everstine

An extensive, 150-page report released Dec. 21 shows wide-spread racial disparities within the Air Force, with Black Airmen reporting distrust with their chain of command and military justice, and data showing Black Airmen are much more likely to face administrative and criminal punishment compared to white Airmen.

The Air Force Inspector General’s Independent Racial Disparity Review is based on more than 123,000 survey responses from Airmen, 138 in-person sessions at bases across the department, and 27,000 pages of responses. The review was launched in June following a nationwide reckoning on race relations in the country, and even those behind the effort were surprised at the response.

“The pent-up angst, … the volume was surprising,” USAF Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said said in a briefing Dec. 21. “When we asked for feedback, I expected to get feedback. But we were just drowned with feedback. So, the Airmen were very eager to tell … their story. They wanted their voices heard. So glad we did that element of the review. And I was, at first, like ‘Wow.’ I realized the response would be high, but this was unprecedented, overwhelming.”

Broadly, the Airmen participating in the review shared how they personally have faced disparities. The survey responses reported that:

  • Two out of five Black enlisted, civilians, and officers do not trust their chain of command to address racism, bias, and unequal opportunities.
  • One out of every three Black service members said they believe the military discipline system is biased against them.
  • Three out of every five Black service members believe they do not and will not receive the same benefit of the doubt as their white peers if they get in trouble.
  • One out of every three Black officers do not believe the Air Force and Space Force provide them the same opportunities to advance as their white peers.
  • Two out of every five Black civilians have seen racial bias in the services’ promotion systems.
  • Half of all respondents said they experienced or witnessed racial discrimination from another Airman.

In addition to surveys, the IG report focused on data related to Article 15, courts martial, administrative, and other punishment. Data showed that enlisted Black Airmen are 72 percent more likely to receive Article 15s, and 57 percent more likely to face a courts martial. Young Black Airmen are twice as likely to be involuntarily discharged based on misconduct.

Black Airmen in the service are twice as likely to be stopped by Security Forces and 1.64 more likely to be suspects in Office of Special Investigations cases.

Outside of criminal justice, Black Airmen are underrepresented in operational career fields, and overrepresented in support career fields. Specifically, as of May 2020 there were only 305 Black pilots out of about 15,000 Active Duty pilots in the Air Force. As of July 2020, there were about 19,000 rated officers in the rank of O-5 and below, with Black officers making up just 3 percent of that.

Black Airmen are underrepresented in promotions to the ranks of E-5 through E-7 and O-4 through O-6, and while they are overrepresented in the percentage of Airmen receiving nominations to attend professional military education, they are underrepresented in the actual designations to attend.

Secretary of the Air Force Barbara M. Barrett, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and Chief of Space Operations Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond will assign stakeholders to review the report, conduct a root cause analysis, and develop recommendations to address the disparities. The IG plans to conduct a “vector check” every six months to evaluate progress.

Said said the IG Office itself also was called out in the report, with Airmen raising concerns about the effectiveness of equal employment offices and the IG system as it pertains to handling claims of bias. Specifically, Airmen are worried that IG investigations are not independent from the chain of command and in turn face influence from commanders, the claim is not taken seriously, or it is not handled in a timely manner. This is an issue the IG is aware of and was already moving on by changing regulations.

“If you get a complaint at the IG level at the installation that in any way shape or form compromises the local leadership in their ability in dealing with it, whether the complaint is about them or the system not reacting, which they own, the issue has to be elevated outside that organization,” Said said.

Other recommendations and efforts include:

  • For disparity in Security Forces apprehensions: The AF/A4S and Headquarters Air Force Security Forces Center should begin including disparity topics during leadership sessions and symposiums, along with funding a “deep dive” review and root causes analysis.
  • For disparities in promotions: Groups such as A1, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, and leaders of major commands should take steps such as reworking enlisted evaluation systems to remove disparate testing outcomes, update officer evaluations with more emphasis on inclusive leadership, implement developmental categories to allow for more agility, implement bias training, and expand mentorship matches with emphasis for minorities, among others.
  • For the disparity in Air Force Specialty Codes: Air Education and Training Command and the A1 should review specialty selection criteria for minority barriers to entry and review rated officer selection processes and barriers to selection.
  • For disparity in Wing command and equivalent: A1 should strengthen minority representation and visibility throughout the command selection process, expand mentorship programs, and implement bias training.
  • For the disparity in undergraduate pilot training accession and graduation: AETC should work to inspire and attract talented and diverse youth and use multi-layered outreach to increase awareness of rated careers.

While the review found and confirmed several disparities in the experience of Black Airmen compared to other races, the report did not state that there is racism in the Air Force. Such a determination was not in its directive, Said said.

“Importantly, this review was not chartered to determine whether or not racial bias or discrimination is present,” the report states. “Such an examination would require considerable social sciences expertise, a broader look at American society in general, and was outside the defined scope.”

Brown said the review has opened the eyes of many leaders, and committed to continuing discussions and working toward “lasting change.”

Raymond echoed those comments, calling on Space Force leaders to continue having the tough decisions as the it builds up the new service around a culture of inclusion.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 7:28 a.m. to correct a quote from Lt. Gen. Said.