The Louisiana National Guard awarded SSgt. James Lam, a joint terminal attack controller, a Bronze Star with Valor device for his actions under fire during a three-hour firefight in Afghanistan in 2012. Lam, then a member of the Louisiana Guard’s 122nd Air Support Operations Squadron, was attached to a the 1st Battalion, 179th Infantry Regiment tasked with locating high-value targets in Afghanistan when they came under direct rocket-propelled grenade and machine gun fire on Feb. 23, 2012, according to a Louisiana Guard release. During the firefight, Lam left cover to help soldiers get ammunition for a machine gun. “I did my job, nothing more, nothing less,” Lam said at a Dec. 6 ceremony. “If we do it right, what we do as a JTAC, it brings those infantry guys home—and for me, it’s about bringing home those infantry soldiers and combat arms soldiers.” Lam is now a member of the Oklahoma Air National Guard.
The Air Force’s nascent KC-Z program, aimed at developing a next-generation family of systems for aerial refueling, will look to launch its analysis-of-alternatives study in 2024, years earlier than originally planned. Originally, the analysis of alternatives for KC-Z was set for “maybe in the 2030s,” Paul Waugh, program executive officer…