The 85th Group officially ended 55 years of Air Force service at NAS Keflavik, Iceland, on June 29. Col. Phillip Gibbons, the 85th Group commander, formally relinquished command and encased the unit’s colors. Most recently, the group handled flight operations for HH-60 helicopters, KC-130 tankers, and F-15s. Air Force officials credit the group’s 56th Rescue Squadron with making more than 308 saves during operations from 1971 to 2003 in the North Atlantic.
The stand-up of the Space Force, and now its early overhaul and the creation of a new Space Systems Command, are all about resilience: Ensuring that space capabilities, which the whole country relies on, could survive a concerted attack by a near-peer adversary. As part of that drive, a new…