Some 350 airmen from Ellsworth AFB, S.D., deployed to Southwest Asia on Jan. 20, where they will support B-1B operations in both Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Freedom’s Sentinel in Afghanistan. The aircrew members, maintenance, and support personnel from Ellsworth’s 28th Bomb Wing are deploying to the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing at Al Udeid AB, Qatar, where they will help provide US Central Command air presence, precision strike assets, and surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities, while other airmen will work to assist sortie generation and mission assurance tasks. For the last nine months, airmen have worked extensively to train for scenarios they’re looking to be involved in during the deployment, including hours of personal and tactical studies as well as numerous training sorties, said Capt. Jonathan Vogel, a 34th Bomb Squadron instructor pilot. The 28th BW deployment will take the place of airmen from the 9th BS from Dyess AFB, Texas, who deployed to CENTCOM in summer 2014.
In the final few hours before the Senate adjourned for its Memorial Day recess on May 26, lawmakers approved a raft of some 3,400 pending military nominations, including a number of high-profile Air Force and Space Force generals to assignments that will significantly reshape some of the upper echelons of…