SrA. Jonathan L. Calhoun and A1C Erik F. Munana of the 898th Munitions Maintenance Squadron each have received an Airman’s Medal for voluntarily risking their lives on July 2, 2004, to aid a 3-year-old child and her disabled mother from an apartment complex fire in in an Albuquerque, N.M. The airmen were heading back to work after lunch off base, when they saw the fire. They entered the burning building with a local firefighter. Calhoun found the child, and Munana brought out the mother. They stayed to help rescue other people after the Albuquerque Fire Department released other first responders.
The U.S. supports “a stronger and more capable” European defense, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said during an Oct. 22 press conference in Brussels—but that defense should not duplicate the functions and capabilities of the NATO alliance.