More than 200 Airmen will receive medals for their roles in Operation Allies Refuge, the effort to move more than 124,000 evacuees out of Afghanistan in the final weeks of the U.S. war there in late summer 2021.
One New York Air National Guardsman received the Distinguished Flying Cross with Valor, and five of his fellow Airmen were awarded an Air Medal with Valor on June 4 in recognition of their actions aboard a C-17 during the noncombatant evacuation out of Kabul, Afghanistan, ...
The crew of an AC-130J on June 22 received Distinguished Flying Crosses and Air Medals for protecting helicopters evacuating wounded American and Afghan forces during a September 2019 fight in Afghanistan. The Ghostrider, callsign Shadow 71, provided about two hours of constant close air support ...
A C-130J pilot received the Distinguished Flying Cross while a pilot and two loadmasters received Air Medals on May 10 for their actions last September, when their aircraft took enemy fire, injuring one on board and damaging the aircraft’s controls. The team returned to base, ...
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Charles E. “Chuck” Yeager died Dec. 7, at age 97. Yeager was a World War II fighter ace and most widely remembered as the first man to fly through Mach 1—the speed of sound—in 1947. He tested numerous research aircraft ...
An AC-130U Spooky crew provided more than nine hours of air support to special operations forces, enabling the rescue of 15 patients during a mass casualty evacuation in an April 2019 mission in Afghanistan. In a March 2 ceremony at Hurlburt Field, Fla., the aircrew ...