Joint 
Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, and leaders of the other services gathered in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes for a ceremony marking the 150th anniversary of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military award. Thirty of the 85 living MOH recipients, along with their families, were in attendance, to remember all 3,454 recipients. Mullen called them the “bravest of the brave” and thanked them. “For those of us who serve, and have had the opportunity to meet many of you, we marvel at your service, marvel at your dedication, and marvel at your caring,” he said during the March 25 event. Retired Air Force Col. Leo Thorsness, MOH recipient and president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, said there are many military personnel who “are deserving” of the MOH and didn’t receive it, “either because they slipped through the cracks or there were no eyewitnesses” to their valor. More than half of the MOH recipients did not survive the battle for which they earned the recognition, noted Mullen. (AFPS report by Lisa Daniel; second report by Daniel)
The Air Force on March 12 awarded contract modifications worth a combined $2.4 billion to Boeing to procure an undisclosed number of E-7 Wedgetail as part of the program's engineering and manufacturing development phase and continue work on the airborne battle management aircraft’s radar.