The Total Force Takedown: Air National Guard Chief Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley told the Daily Report that the evolving air and space expeditionary force concept has featured growing “synergy” between the active and reserve cultures. McKinley said, in a Tuesday interview, that the AEF construct has transformed from “unit centric” relationships reminiscent of the Cold War to full integration of the Air Guard and Reserve components. He credited the evolution in successes such as the air strike last month that killed Abu Musab al Zarqawi in Iraq. “We all were part of that operation,” said McKinley. He added that much about that mission “is still classified … but, once that comes to the light of day you will see how integrated our Air Force is—in terms of planes, in terms of people, in terms of mission.”
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…