Ivy League schools and additional prestigious universities are welcoming reserve officers’ training corps programs back to their campuses now that the seemingly last major impediment—the ban on homosexuals openly serving in the US military—is no more. Brown University in Providence, R.I., the last Ivy League institution to ban ROTC, is studying the issue of ROTC returning. Just last month Air Force Secretary Michael Donley signed an agreement with Yale University to welcome an Air Force ROTC detachment back to the school beginning next fall. Already, too, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has signed agreements with Harvard, Columbia University, and Yale for the return of naval ROTC programs. And the faculty senate at Stanford University voted in April to bring ROTC back to its campus; discussions now are under way with the various military branches for that to happen. (AFPS report by Donna Miles)
The Air Force and Boeing agreed to a nearly $2.4 billion contract for a new lot of KC-46 aerial tankers on Nov. 21. The deal, announced by the Pentagon, is for 15 new aircraft in Lot 11 at a cost of $2.389 billion—some $159 million per tail.