Air Force officials at Andersen AFB, Guam, reopened the base’s north runway June 18 after a two-year, $24 million reconstruction effort. The north runway is one of two parallel runways on the key Pacific region base. Airfield manager SMSgt. Darron Williams says the runway completion “gives us an exponential increase in the efficiency of the airfield.” Andersen certainly hasn’t let loss of its north runway curtail operations, as it continued to serve as the base for regular fighter and bomber rotations to the Pacific and to host exercises such as the ongoing Cope North. Japan deployed its F-2 fighters for the first time outside its territory and last week, as part of the exercise, the fighters dropped their first live weapons.
The Air Force Personnel Center announced that just 14.8 percent of eligible tech sergeants were selected for promotion to master sergeant in the 22E7 promotion cycle, marking the service’s lowest E-7 promotion rate since at least 2010. All told, 4,040 technical sergeants were selected to become master sergeants out of…