She was four days out before returning home to Dover Air Force Base, Del., from her deployment in Provincial Reconstruction Team, Farah, Afghanistan.

Master Sgt. Jennifer Allara and her explosive ordinance team started the day off at 0330 for a routine combat mission patrol. Allara and her EOD teammates went outside the fence to sweep an ally they call 'IED alley' in Shewan, Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, they didn't foresee what was about to happen next.

Allara is a 436th Civil Engineer Squadron Explosive Ordinance Disposal team leader currently based out of Dover AFB, Del., who had her world turned upside down in a matter of minutes.
more...

When Neil Armstrong made history with man's first footsteps on the moon, Susan Helms needed a little nudging from her mom to get excited. And get excited she did. She realized that there would never be another first step on the moon, and even as a young 11-year-old, knew the feat was something special.

Little did she know that a little more than two decades later, then Maj. Helms would be the first woman military astronaut to fly in space.

"I would read books on science, the planets, the universe and nature," Helms said. "I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book."
more...

Senior Army and Air Force leaders for the Reserve and National Guard were on Capitol Hill to testify March 19 and answer questions about updating and replacing their combat-worn equipment.

Chairman Michael Turner, R-Ohio, and Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., led the hearing at the House Armed Services Committee's Tactical Air and Land Forces Subcommittee. They questioned the reserve-component leaders about modernization and equipping strategies, new initiatives, program changes, and potential impacts from the Budget Control Act's initial $487 billion in DOD cuts and sequestration's additional $600 billion in cuts to defense programs.
more...

Minutes before sunset on Friday, she lowers her head and covers her face in prayer. Her hands are illuminated by the faint glow of the Shabbat candles, each flame representing and honoring a family member.

As the week comes to a close, Capt. Sarah Schechter, the Jewish chaplain of the 11th Wing at Joint Base Andrews, Md., regularly invites the base community to join her family for a traditional Jewish Shabbat dinner, as a way to share not only her culture, but also to offer an opportunity for communal meeting.
more...

It was less than 90 days after Sept. 11, 2001, and nerves were still raw. Capt. Allison Black had landed in Uzbekistan just hours earlier and was headed towards her first combat mission in Afghanistan. An AC-130H gunship navigator assigned to the 1st Special Operations Group, her assignment was to plot routes, communicate with ground forces and identify targets in the darkness below.

Bearded special forces soldiers were traveling on horseback armed with intelligence gained from Afghan Northern Alliance soldiers and Black and her crew were there to use high caliber rounds to create a problem for the Taliban.
more...

This week's photos feature the winners from the 2012 Military Photography of the Year contest.

View the slideshow.

more...

In the 1940s, women's roles in the military were much different than they are today. Women's auxiliary units had just begun to integrate with the service branches and people were concerned about how females serving would affect the nation. One southern congressman even addressed the House saying, "Who will then do the cooking, the washing, the mending, the humble homely tasks to which every woman has devoted herself; who will nurture the children?"

Prior to World War II, women serving in the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, and similar organizations, did not receive comparable benefits and compensation to their male counterparts. In 1943, the War Department created the Women's Army Corps as an official branch of the Army to help bridge those gaps.
more...

In a field dominated by boys, especially during the mid 1950's, a young high school junior in Tacoma, Wash., was determined to win her local science fair. Borrowing a small piece of uranium from her uncle, who worked for a mining company, the student created a model of atoms and set up a display to explain the science behind radioactive decay.

She not only won the science fair, but so impressed the science community, she drew the attention of MIT alumni who encouraged her to follow her dreams, starting with getting her education from one of the nation's top science and technology universities.
more...

From aviation operations to installations and ground vehicles within the homeland and abroad, energy is essential for Air Force operations and key to the United States' national and economic security.

"The Air Force is fundamentally a global force that the nation relies on for Global Vigilance, for Global Reach, and for Global Power; we have to be ready to project American influence anywhere in the world on a moment's notice," said Dr. Jamie Morin, acting under secretary of the Air Force, during a media roundtable in the Pentagon with Dr. Kevin Geiss, deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for energy. "Having those capabilities and using those capabilities requires energy - it requires a lot of electricity and even more so it requires a lot of gas."
more...

Pentagon officials have put off sending furlough notices to civilian employees until they've had a chance to analyze how pending legislation that would fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year will affect the Defense Department.

Officials now estimate that furlough notices will go out on or about April 5, Navy Cmdr. Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said.

"The legislation could have some impact on the overall number of furlough days, but no decisions have been reached, especially since the legislation hasn't been signed into law," Hull-Ryde said. "The number of furlough days at this point remains at 22."
more...

Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force James Cody testified on quality-of-life issues in the Air Force before House Appropriations Committee members March 19.

The biggest challenge currently facing the Air Force is the nation's fiscal situation, Cody said, citing the looming furlough of 180,000 civilian Airmen due to sequestration as a threat to the service's readiness and the overall quality of life of our Airmen and their families.

"There is no question our Airmen are nervous and concerned with the current fiscal environment that affects our nation and Air Force," Cody said.
more...

"Let the generations know that women in uniform also guaranteed their freedom. That our resolve was just as great as the brave men who stood among us. And with victory, our hearts were just as full and beat just as fast--that the tears fell just as hard for those we left behind."
                                                      Anne Sosh Brehm, 1LT, US Army Nurse Corps WWII
more...

Describing her career as "inconceivable," there isn't much that Maj. Gen. Sharon K. G. Dunbar would want to change. "I've done more than I ever imagined," said the small-hometown-in-Illinois commander of the Air Force District of Washington, Joint Base Andrews, Md.

"I've met incredible people everywhere I've been assigned," she said, recalling her postings throughout the U.S. and in Europe, four command tours, duty in the U.S. Senate, and those she met throughout her 18 career assignments in 30 years.
more...

This week on Today's Air Force we'll take a look at a unique memorial ceremony that takes place every year. Then we'll learn about Airmen who forecast the weather for operations in Afghanistan. Lastly, we'll meet the longest-held enlisted Prisoner of War in American history. This 30-minute, bi-weekly news show can be seen every day on The Pentagon Channel and American Forces Television Service stations around the world. The show also airs on more than 140 public cable-access stations within the United States.
more...

Since 1953, the Air Force's air demonstration team, the Thunderbirds,  have captivated spectators across the world and showed its audiences what the Air Force's aircraft are capable of.

For two years, Lt.Col. Nicole Malachowski surprised audiences not just in the air, but especially when she stepped out of the cockpit of the fighter jet as the first woman to be accepted for a seat on the Air Force's premier show team.

Being on the crew took Malachowski full circle to the root of her career, she said. At just 5 years old, she visited an air show with her parents and was fascinated by the powerful roar and agility of the F-4 Phantom II.
more...

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody took questions from Airmen here March 14, on the decision to suspend military tuition assistance.

He also addressed how Airmen can continue to further their educational needs and what the future holds for the program next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Click here to watch Chief Cody's discussion with Airmen.



more...

The Air Force's top lawyer testified Mar. 13 before the Senate Armed Services Committee's personnel subcommittee on sexual assault in the military and ongoing efforts to combat the problem.

The Judge Advocate General, Lt. Gen. Richard C. Harding, was joined by his fellow service counterparts and the Defense Department's Acting General Counsel, Robert S. Taylor, as well as the DOD's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office director. 

The group vowed to do whatever it takes to end sexual assault in the military and a big part of that, Harding said, is supporting victims.
more...

Born about the time the Tuskegee Airmen were earning their reputation over the skies of North Africa and Italy, Marcelite Harris would go on to break a number of racial and gender barriers during an illustrious Air Force career.

Harris was born Jan. 16, 1943, in Houston and attended Spelman College in Atlanta, where she earned a bachelor's degree in speech and drama in 1964. She then attended Officer Training School at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, where she was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1965.
more...

In a quote from one of Shakespeare's plays, "Twelfth Night," the character Malvallo remarks that "some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."

Women in the Air Force (WAF) produced many such women who did not set out to be trailblazers but whose accomplishments personified the dream and made it an achievable reality in the minds of those who came after.

WAF--not to be confused with the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (WAFS), a small group of female transport pilots that existed for little more than two years (1942-44) and was part of the Women Air Force Service Pilots (WASPs) before their disbanding--was a program which served to bring women into limited roles in the Air Force. Women pilots from World War II would have been excellent leaders, but they were diverted to the Reserves.
more...

"Things done are won; joy's soul is in the doing." This quote from one of Shakespeare's most ambiguous plays, Troilus and Cressida, appears to be the constant theme behind the careers of many of the Air Force's most accomplished women.

Whether it was The Honorable Sheila E. Widnall, the 18th Secretary of the Air Force (1993-97)--and the first and only woman to take the oath of office as the secretary of any of the armed forces--who came out of academia to answer her country's call; or Gen. Janet C. Wolfenbarger, a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy in engineering sciences, who has come up through the ranks to become the Air Force's first female four-star general; or Maj. Nicole Malachowski, who in 2006, was the first woman pilot on the precision flying team the Air Force Thunderbirds, the same can be said of each: One success served only to provide the inspiration and firm foundation for the next.
more...