Col. George Uribe, chief of standardization and evaluation for 1st Air Force at Tyndall AFB, Fla., received a Bronze Star Medal on Aug. 19, the same day on which he was promoted to his new rank. He was recognized with the Bronze Star for his meritorious service as a lieutenant colonel in Iraq from September 2007 to March 2008 where he was deputy commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Operations Group at Joint Base Balad. Among his accomplishments, he flew 20 successful on-call close air support missions. Uribe is the first and so far only Air Force fighter pilot to accrue more than 1,000 combat flying hours in an F-16. Aug. 19 was also a big day for him as received his 14th Air Medal as well as a Meritorious Service Medal for his current work with 1st AF. (Tyndall report by Carol Carpenter)
The Air Force overall reduced its size by 120 aircraft in fiscal year 2021, but kept about the same number of fighter, bomber and attack aircraft, according to data supplied by the service. The F-35 fleet saw the biggest increase while the B-1B bomber fleet saw the largest decline.