An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle dropped 500-pound laser-guided bombs on enemy combatants near Kandahar, Afghanistan, on July 9, Air Forces Central said in a release yesterday. This attack was one of the 71 close air support missions flown by coalition aircraft in Afghanistan on that day. Others included F-15Es hitting enemy combatants near Qalat with 500-pound joint direct attack munitions and attacking enemy forces with 2,000-pound JDAMs in the vicinity of Shkin. There were 51 CAS missions in Iraq on July 9, AFCENT said, including an F-16 taking out an improvised explosive device near Khan Bani Sad with a 500-pound JDAM. All of these missions were successful, according to on-scene joint terminal attack controllers.
The Air Force Personnel Center announced that just 14.8 percent of eligible tech sergeants were selected for promotion to master sergeant in the 22E7 promotion cycle, marking the service’s lowest E-7 promotion rate since at least 2010. All told, 4,040 technical sergeants were selected to become master sergeants out of…