About 300 members of the 366th Fighter Wing returned home to Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, Oct. 6, after a four-month deployment at Andersen AFB, Guam. These F-15E pilots, weapons system officers, aircraft maintenance specialists, and support personnel went to Guam in May under the flag of the 389th Expeditionary Fighter Squadron as part of a scheduled rotation of Air Force units to the region. The US military regularly shifts forces to the Pacific theater to beef up force posture there and deter aggression, lest any potential foe deem it a good time to strike since the United States is heavily engaged militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq. While on the Pacific Island, the Mountain Home F-15Es trained with B-52Hs and F-22s that also flew in for scheduled stints. (Mountain Home report by SSgt. Rodney D. Ivey)
Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III chaired a China-focused military briefing Oct. 27, part of a biweekly series of briefings with senior military commanders about China’s growing threat in the wake of an orbital hypersonic weapon test that elicited public worries from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. “What we…