The Arkansas Air National Guard’s 123rd Intelligence Squadron has become one of a handful of ANG units that provide real-time intelligence data from their home base to warfighters in Southwest Asia. Unit airmen have been in the intel business for years—from five to 15—but just started processing “live” data last month from their own facility. In the past, the 123rd airmen would travel to an active duty base to ply their trade. Arkansas ANG commander Brig. Gen. Riley Porter calls the new capability “an awesome responsibility.”
Special-ops aviators, a physicist from the intelligence community, and an enlisted Marine with decades of deployments: U.S. Space Command’s military and civilian leaders who spoke May 7 were as likely to come from strictly space backgrounds as not. These are some of the day’s insights from inside the command, which…