Ten Airmen received the Distinguished Flying Cross on Nov. 1, including the crew of the C-17 that flew a record-breaking 823 people to safety during the noncombatant evacuation out of Afghanistan last August. Every member of that famous C-17 flight, call sign REACH 871, received ...
With the Russian army pummeling Ukraine in Europe, and China increasingly threatening its neighbor Taiwan militarily in the Indo-Pacific, the Air National Guard has embraced the culture of can-do innovation at the core of agile combat employment.
The Pentagon continues a “relentless focus” on counterterrorism, as evidenced by recent successful operations against al-Qaida and ISIS, even as the nation continues to debate the cost and meaning of America’s longest war, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said on the first anniversary of ...
Aug. 30 marks the one-year anniversary of the end of Operation Allies Refuge (OAR), the final act in the longest war in U.S. history. Historians will long study the United States’ post-9/11 Global War on Terrorism and, in particular, the failed, two-decade effort to plant ...
Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall has ordered an investigation into the facts and circumstances related to the erroneous Kabul drone strike Aug. 29 that killed 10 civilians. The effort will be led by Air Force Inspector General Lt. Gen. Sami D. Said, who ...
President Joe Biden spoke to the American people Aug. 31, one day after the final military flight left Kabul, to say that some 200 Americans remained in Afghanistan but that the military mission had ended and “over-the-horizon” capabilities will now fight terrorism in the country. ...
The threat of another Islamic State-Khorasan attack on the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul and on U.S. troops based there remains high, but Pentagon leaders say there is “still time” to evacuate remaining Americans before a self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline. The U.S. struck an ...
The U.S. airlift mission in Afghanistan is continuing, following one of the deadliest attacks on American forces in the 20-year war. “These American service members who gave their lives … were heroes. Heroes who have been engaged in the dangerous, selfless mission to save the ...
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 which were on U.S. military aircraft, marking the largest single-day total of the airlift. Some 37,000 ...
At least three babies have been born during the airlift mission out of Kabul, as U.S. and international aircraft race to fly out at-risk Afghans and American citizens from the now Taliban-controlled country. Air Mobility Command on Aug. 21 said that during a C-17 flight ...
President Joe Biden extended his commitment Aug. 20 to evacuate all Americans in Afghanistan, as well as the Afghans who helped coalition forces, even if it could not be done by a self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline. Military commanders in recent days had promised only “as ...
The Aug. 15 C-17 evacuation flight from Kabul set a new record—by far—for the number of passengers carried on a Globemaster III flight at 823 people, a dramatic rise from the initially reported number on the flight. The crew of the C-17, call sign REACH871 ...