Members of the Connecticut Air National Guard’s 103rd Airlift Wing have been meeting all their mission requirements and maintaining a 100 percent mission success rate during their first deployment to Southwest Asia with their C-21 transports. Members of the wing—all volunteers—left for the combat theater in July. It was their first stint in the region in six years, and the first time they deployed with the C-21s since losing their A-10 ground-attack platforms courtesy of BRAC 2005. “The 103rd AW has definitely risen to the challenge,” said Lt. Col. Brian Burger, 379th Expeditionary Operations Group C-21 detachment commander. Maj. Wayne Ferris of the 379th Expeditionary Maintenance Squadron added, “Our numbers are off the charts. Our full mission-capable rate is 98.5 percent, and our fix rate is 100 percent with zero break rates.” (379th AEW report by SrA. Michael Matkin)
While U.S. defense officials have spent much of the past decade warning that China is the nation’s pacing threat and its People’s Liberation Army represents an urgent threat in the Indo-Pacific, several defense researchers are skeptical that the PLA has the human capital, the structural ability, or the political appetite…