Air 
Force Reserve Command’s 482nd Fighter Wing introduced a development and training flight to prepare new accessions at Homestead ARB, Fla., for basic training. “Our job is to make sure these airmen are fully prepared to continue or begin their training so they can go on to be productive, fit-to-fight airmen,” said SrA. Cynthia Pichardo, DTF assistant program manager, in a Homestead release. The Air Force began testing the DTF concept at a group of trial bases last year, and expanded the program earlier this year at AFRC units across the country. Formal, unified standards for the program have not been established, but DTF curriculum generally includes pre-training in customs and courtesy, dress and appearance, physical fitness, and Air Force structure and history, states the release. Homestead’s first class of 24 prospective airmen started DTF at the wing’s training assembly on Aug. 11. (Homestead report by SrA. Jaimi Upthegrove)
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…