Latest news with #C-17s
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Congressmen decry turning Fairfield base into ‘mass deportation center'
(KRON) — Two congressmen sent a joint letter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth following reports that the Trump administration is considering using Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield as an immigration detention facility and mass deportation center. U.S. Representatives John Garamendi (D-CA) and Mike Thompson (D-CA) are calling the Travis Air Force Base plan 'outrageous.' 'It's outrageous and inappropriate for the Trump Administration to use Travis Air Force Base as an immigration detention facility,' the congressmen wrote. Travis Air Force Base is known as the 'Gateway to the Pacific' because of its its geographical location and mission for transporting for military personnel and equipment around the world. Earlier this year, Garamendi's office sent a letter demanding answers from the Department of Defense regarding the use of C-17s and C-130s from Travis Air Force Base to deport undocumented immigrants. Travis-AFB-LetterDownload 'Unfortunately, this is not the President's first attempt to inappropriately utilize Travis Air Force Base, hampering its critical mission. In February, we uncovered that Trump was using Travis's military aircraft to transport undocumented individuals. Now, the President wants to turn Travis into a mass deportation center. All these instances compromise our national security and are simply absurd,' the congressmen wrote. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump admin moving forward with plans to transport undocumented immigrants to Libya
The Trump administration is moving forward with plans to transport a group of undocumented immigrants to Libya on a US military plane, an administration official told CNN. It is unclear when the plane would leave and whether other groups of migrants would also be sent to Libya — a country engaged in an ongoing civil conflict — in the future, the official said. Flight trackers show that a US Air Force C-17 has filed a plan to fly on Wednesday from Kelly Field in San Antonio to Misrata Airport in Libya. The US has repeatedly used the large C-17s to transport migrants in recent months. The White House declined to comment. CNN first reported the administration was communicating with Libya to have the country take migrants from the United States. Reuters first reported on the potential military flight this week. The decision to send migrants to Libya, which the UN has previously criticized for its harsh treatment of migrants, is a further escalation of the president's deportation policies — which have faced widespread political and legal backlash. The State Department's website has a Level 4 travel advisory for Libya. 'Do not travel to Libya due to crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict,' the site reads. Conversations about sending migrants to other countries in Africa, such as Rwanda, continue. But there are no confirmed plans for flights to those other countries right now, sources familiar with those discussions said. Natasha Bertrand and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report. For more CNN news and newsletters create an account at
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Army to recode 20,000 parachutist jobs in major airborne restructuring
The Army will recode nearly 20,000 paid parachutist positions in a major restructuring of its airborne forces aimed at improving readiness, service officials said. The recoding means the positions will remain airborne billets, but soldiers will no longer be required to maintain jump status or receive jump pay. Over a five-month period beginning last September, two dozen Army organizations met to examine the service's requirements for airborne operations and training, Lt. Gen. Gregory Anderson, head of the 18th Airborne Corps, told Army Times. 18th Airborne at the center of major Pacific exercise for the first time Since 2006, the Army has kept 56,756 paid parachutist positions on its rolls, Anderson said. For reference, the entire force of Army parachutists that jumped into Normandy during World War II was 13,000 troops. In recent years, limited aircraft availability, especially C-17s and C-130s, has contributed to an overall 'decline in collective airborne proficiency,' Anderson said. As a result, assets used to maintain the jump status of the more than 56,000 positions has come at the expense of keeping the assault force — the combat troops in immediate response missions — at a high level of readiness, the three-star said. 'We started to assume risk with the high-end forces that have to be ready to go tonight,' Anderson said. 'This is not about saving money; it's about getting readiness to where we need it.' Below are the parachutist position recodings by command; these figures are estimates by the U.S. Army and are not yet finalized: 9,000 – Army Special Operations Command 3,600 – Army National Guard 3,500 – Army Forces Command 1,900 – Army Reserve 1,000 – Army Pacific 850 – Army Europe and Africa Currently, to maintain jump status, a parachutist must jump four times each year. 'What ends up happening we take fewer aircraft, same jump requirements and units doing everything they can to achieve basic airborne currency,' Anderson said. 'In many cases, they were not meeting even currency.' The Pentagon requires the Army to produce 15,000 parachutists at the ready at any time. As the organizations analyzed this requirement, training needs and the demands of maintaining the force from riggers to jumpmasters, they had to ask tough questions, Anderson said. 'Are support battalions going to jump into a combat situation with the assault echelon?' Anderson said. 'Or would they come in later some other way?' Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George told Army Times in an email statement that the adjustments will prioritize training and resources where they are needed most. 'Too many positions were allocated outside the direct combat force. This was a drain on resources and we're fixing it.' Soldiers in the affected billets will still be airborne trained and if they transfer into an assault position, they will be retrained with a refresher course and put on paid jump status, Anderson said. 'These decisions help make our paratroopers more proficient by concentrating on those who could be jumping into combat,' George said.
Yahoo
01-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Maddow Mocks Hegseth for Wasting $40 Million on Guantánamo Migrant Efforts: ‘Government Efficiency!'
MSNBC's Rachel Maddow mocked former Fox News host and now U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for using $40 million worth of taxpayer money in just one month to fund a migrant detainment facility in Guantánamo Bay that has since been shut down. 'The [New York] Times reporting tonight that Hegseth's failed gambit to stand-up a U.S. military role at Guantánamo, specifically to make it look like Guantánamo has something to do with [Donald] Trump's deportations. That gambit has thus far cost taxpayers about $40 million in its first month,' Maddow said Monday as she outlined the TV personality-to-politician's recent actions as defense secretary, also mentioning how Hegseth ordered two Navy destroyers to 'hover around the U.S. border doing nothing.' 'Now, this whole Guantánamo thing is a plan that has essentially been scrapped now, but only after Pete Hegseth moved nearly a thousand U.S. troops there and then back and had them sent up a tent city and then kind of dismantled it, because these guys — don't forget — government efficiency, can't allow old people to call the social security office anymore,' 'The Rachel Maddow Show' host said sarcastically, referring to the Elon Musk-ran Department of Government Efficiency's decision to downsize Social Security Administration with office closures and phone services. 'But hey, we gotta save money. Pete Hegseth needs to fuel up the C-17s to fly, like, five guys around so they can make TikTok vides about how tough they are. 'See my tattoos?'' Maddow mocks. In addition to slamming Hegseth over his controversial decisions, Maddow also called him out for casually bringing his wife Jennifer Rauchet and younger brother Phil Hegseth into his everyday and very private government duties. Alongside him, Rauchet attended two meetings with foreign military counterparts where 'sensitive information was discussed,' per The Wall Street Journal. 'Does she have a security clearance? This is the same wife, you may recall, who Mr. Hegseth brought with him to his meeting with U.S. senators ahead of his confirmation process for this job,' Maddow said. 'That, of course, made it socially awkward for those senators to ask him at those meetings about the rape allegations that he faced in California and his alleged serial infidelity and problems with drinking on the job. He has denied the rape allegations in California, and of course he was never charged in conjunction with those allegations.' She then moved on to his baby brother, whom she joked is completely qualified to participate in Hegseth's responsibilities. Phil has been given key role as liaison and senior advisor in the Pentagon. He also joined Hegseth on his trips to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and Hawaii. 'What is his little brother doing there? Good question. His past career experience includes starting a podcast, production company,' Maddow shaded. 'So, naturally it makes sense that he is paid by the U.S. taxpayers to go everywhere with his brother, the defense secretary, who has assured us that he definitely won't drink on the job anymore, and who apparently thinks it's OK to bring his wife to NATO meetings.' You can watch the full 'The Rachel Maddow Show' segment in the video above. The post Maddow Mocks Hegseth for Wasting $40 Million on Guantánamo Migrant Efforts: 'Government Efficiency!' | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Yahoo
Those ‘Hegseth bodyguards' are actually there for the Air Force's ‘Doomsday' plane
A short video of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the normally unremarkable act of climbing a set of stairs launched a wave of internet speculation this week when it also captured two armed guards who looked like they might be assigned to him. Both wore Air Force flight suits, carried M-4-style rifles with tactical vests — a rarely-seen level of firepower on civilian VIP flights — and both were women. Speculation on the pair ranged from incorrect to ridiculously incorrect. Posters on social media immediately labeled the pair as everything from secret Delta Force operators to undeserving 'DEI recruits.' One internet outlet even called them 'Hegseth's Heavily-Armed Female Bodyguards.' Some even compared the two to the ornamental 'Amazon' guards once favored by Muammar Gaddafi. A few internet sleuths got closer to the truth, assuming they were Phoenix-Raven troops, the Air Force's specially-trained security forces squads that fly on large transport aircraft like C-17s and C-130s when they travel to unsecure airbases (Ravens were aboard nearly every flight out of Kabul during the 2021 airlift). It will shock you to learn that in each of those case, someone on the internet was wrong. .@SecDef@PeteHegseth departs DC for his Indo-Pacific tour Hawaii Guam Philippines Japan — Kingsley Wilson (@DepPressSecDOD) March 24, 2025 In fact, the two women were members of a small team from the 55th Security Forces Squadron which is assigned to guard not Hegseth, but the plane he was flying on, the Air Force's secret E-4B 'Doomsday' plane, otherwise known as the National Airborne Operations Center, or NAOC. The security detail, which is specially selected from Air Force security forces at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, flies with the plane everywhere it goes. The rifles and combat gear, an Offutt spokesperson told Task & Purpose, are 'standard protocol' for the team. They were not, the spokesperson said, assigned to guard Hegseth, but rather flew with the plane to Andrews to pick him up for the trip. The E-4B is not one of the Air Force's 'normal' VIP transport planes flown by the 89th Airlift Wing, which are based at Andrews and are generally painted light blue and white. The 89th planes — which include the converted 747s that serve as Air Force One — appear on television regularly carrying a wide range of government VIPs, with very few if any obvious security guards around them. Not so for the E-4B Nightwatch, which is an all-business warplane, built for the President and Secretary of Defense to carry out war plans during major attacks. The plane is not based at Andrews but at Offutt, which is also home to U.S. Strategic Command — the military's nuclear war planners — and the 55th Air Wing, which flies a roster of secret spy planes from the base. And though based in Nebraska, the E-4B is actually operates under the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, the operational command that oversees all of America's nuclear and strategic bombers. In other words, the NAOC is nobody's VIP shuttle (though to unfamiliar eyes, its white paint job, blue stripe, and similar-scripted 'United States of America' on its fuselage might hold a passing resemblance to Air Force One). Not surprisingly, where the NAOC goes, so goes the 55th's security team, according to Kris Pierce, the Chief of Public Affairs at Offutt. 'The two individuals shown in the photo and video are full-time members assigned specifically to the NAOC Security team,' Pierce told Task & Purpose in an email response to questions on the guards. Piece declined to identify the two women, but said both held the rank of senior airman. 'They serve as fly-away security and are officially designated as part of the aircrew. When supporting an overseas mission involving the Secretary of Defense, they closely coordinate with the SecDef's security team.' The weapons and kit the two carried may have looked excessive on the ceremony-heavy flightline at Andrews, but are about what you might expect for guarding a plane at the heart of America's nuclear arsenal. 'Carrying the M4 and M18 is standard protocol,' said Pierce 'This is part of their authorized lethal loadout and aligns with standing orders for personnel, especially when operating in official capacities such as deployments or movements during missions. There has been no recent change in policy or procedure regarding their weapons posture.' The 55th's NAOC team is full-time at Offutt, and members must both volunteer and undergo a selection process. 'Becoming a member of NAOC Security is a highly selective and competitive process,' said Pierce. 'Once selected, their training intensifies with aircraft-specific instruction designed to build and sustain the specialized skills required for the mission.' In subsequent stops on his trip in Asia, Hegseth met reporters within a few yards of the E-4B several times to address his use last month of Signal to distribute strike plans against Yemen on a chat group. During those press conferences, several different sents of NAOC guards are visible in the background flanking the plane's steps, as the two guards did at Andrews. In a statement to Task & Purpose, the 55th squadron commander confirmed it was his troops that had set the internet off. 'The two Senior Airmen [seen Monday] are among the best of the best from 55 SFS' Recon Raiders, Air Combat Command, and across USAF Security Forces,' said Lt. Col. Andrew Ferguson. 'Only the most professional, most competent, and most lethal members from my squadron get the opportunity to serve on the NAOC Security team. I've personally flown with most if not all our NAOC Security team members on several overseas missions including one of the two pictured. I vouch for my NAOC Security team.' The Army's Master Combat Badges will be coming to soldiers this month Air Force shoots down Houthi drones launched at Navy carrier strike group Medal of Honor recipient depicted in movie 'Glory' erased from Pentagon website 'Saving Private Ryan' didn't make the Army's list of most accurate movie portrayals Army reveals designs for Mountaineering and Mariner Badges
