By Charles Pope, Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs Long before his star turn as the Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force and “enlisted Jesus,” Kaleth O. Wright found himself back home in Columbus, Ga., mired in doubt and failure. He had bombed out of college in less than a year. He had […]

Tech. Sgt. Alyssa C. Gibson Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs Heather Wilson swore in as the 24th Secretary of the Air Force in May 2017 with a clear-eyed view on the task at hand. “When Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis asked me to serve as the Secretary of the Air Force I said, […]

The inaugural Airman Podcast for the At Altitude channel features a conversation with Dr. Will Roper, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics. As the Air Force’s Service Acquisition Executive, Dr. Roper is responsible for and oversees Air Force research, development and acquisition activities totaling an annual budget in excess […]

In his book, “The Spirit of St. Louis,” Charles Lindbergh admits that he wasn’t completely sold on the idea when contemplating his first parachute attempt, “The thought of crawling out onto the struts and wires hundreds of feet above the earth, and then giving up even that tenuous hold of safety and of substance, left […]

Airman Magazine: Can you recall a specific time when you failed or took a calculated risk which ultimately propelled you forward, either personally or on a specific mission? Brig. Gen. Leavitt: When I graduated from pilot training, the law had changed to allow women in combat, but the Department of Defense policy did not allow women […]

Capt. Michael J. Kanaan, Air Force Artificial Intelligence co-chair, believes the Air Force needs more computer language experts in order to maintain dominance. Kanaan said the languages of artificial intelligence algorithms can, and should, be taught to Airmen as a mission-critical skill, just like Mandarin, Spanish or Arabic. “The languages of computers themselves are as […]

It started out as a boring day. Sitting in a makeshift hospital situated in an austere and hostile environment at an undisclosed location, Maj. Alexander Le and his fellow Special Operations Surgical Team, or SOST, members welcomed the monotony. After all, a busy day for the members of the surgical team would mean the worst […]

In December 2018, Airman magazine interviewed Maj. Gen. Mark E. Smith, the Civil Air Patrol’s 24th national commander. He leads CAP’s more than 60,000 members across the United States in fulfilling the U.S. Air Force auxiliary’s Congressionally chartered missions of emergency services, cadet programs and aerospace education, in addition to the organization’s steadily increasing role […]

See more Veterinarian photos on Flickr (Editor’s note: The following is an encore presentation of an Airman magazine story documenting an Operation Pacific Angel mission to build international partnerships. In 2012, an Air Force veterinarian, Lt. Col. Douglas D. Riley, partnered with Mongolian veterinarians to improve the health of the livestock which provides the country […]

Lieutenant General L. Scott Rice is the Director, Air National Guard (ANG), the Pentagon, Washington, D.C. He is responsible for formulating, developing and coordinating all policies, plans and programs affecting more than 107,600 Air Guard members and civilians in more than 90 wings and 175 geographically separated units across 213 locations throughout the 50 States, […]