The Air Force plans to hold a selective early retirement board—SERB—targeting lieutenant colonels and colonels beginning on Jan. 8. In July, the service said it must shed in Fiscal 2007 some 8,000 officers, including hundreds of twice-deferred 0-5s and 0-6s not already selected for promotion to brigadier general. It wants to get volunteers to leave the service by Sept. 1, 2007 (not Sept. 30, as we reported earlier), but, if not, the SERB will identify the officers that must go.
The Air Force is moving forward with a new, algorithm-driven system to help U.S. Northern Command better detect airborne threats. NORTHCOM and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which are tasked with protecting the homeland from attack, depend on a slew of radars and other data systems to monitor U.S.…