Roger That: Scott AFB generals Selva and McDew to appear Tuesday for Senate confirmation hearings

The Senate Armed Services Committee has scheduled confirmation hearings set to begin at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday for the two top Air Force generals at Scott Air Force Base: Gen. Paul Selva, commander, U.S. Transportation Command, for his appointment as the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and General Darren McDew, the Air Mobility Command commander, as the new commander of the U.S. Transportation Command.

Selva took command of Transcom on May 5, 2014, the same day McDew took command of AMC. Before that job, McDew had served between 2012 and 2014 as commander of the 18th Air Force, based at Scott.

Sevla and McDew, a pair of four-star generals with many hours logged as air transport pilots, are both expected to sail through their hearings and win easy confirmation.

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The three female Army officers taking part in Ranger School have passed phase one of the grueling, all-male infantry course and have advanced to the mountain phase, Fort Benning officials announced Friday, according to the website of Military.com.

The one female major and two female first lieutenants joined 158 male students at Camp Merrill in Dahlonega, Ga., on July 11 for 20 days of intensive platoon training and operations in the Chattahoochee National Forest.

The three female Ranger School students were given a second chance as part of what is referred to as a Day One Recycle, a normal course procedure that’s used when students struggle with one aspect of the course but excel at others. The three women were part of a group of 19 women picked to take part in one-time integration experiment of Ranger School. All 19 eventually washed out from it. The assessment is part of a wider Army effort to determine how to open combat arms jobs to women. Until now, Ranger School has only been open to men.

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White House officials say they do plan to fill the vacant inspector general post in the Veterans Affairs Department, promising that the Obama administration is committed to strong oversight of every federal agency, according to Military Times.

The VA’s watchdog office has been without a permanent leader for more than 18 months, after former Inspector General George Opfer retired from the job. Last month, Acting Inspector General Richard Griffin retired after 43 years of federal service.

That move promoted Assistant Inspector for Audits Linda Halliday to deputy inspector general and the default head of the office. Just days before Griffin’s retirement, a group of senators petitioned Obama for a permanent replacement, citing the need for management stability and strong leadership in the office.

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Queen Elizabeth II, the rest of the royal family and dozens of other dignitaries, plus millions of well-wishers, took part this past Friday in a celebration in London marking the 75th anniversary of the the Battle of Britain. The event was capped off with a flyby by two Hurricanes and four Spitfire warbirds, along with four modern Eurofighter Typhoons.

July 10, 1940, is widely acknowledged to be the start of the battle, with a series of German Luftwaffe attacks on shipping convoys off the south-east coast of England.

The Royal Air Force shot down 14 enemy aircraft and severely damaged 23 more that day, according to the Air Ministry, with 641 aircraft completing 200 patrols.

“The aerial conflict ranks alongside the battles of Trafalgar and Waterloo as one of the most significant in British history. It was the first major battle in history fought entirely in the air and was the first significant strategic defeat for the Nazis during the Second World War,” according to Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper.

The three-month Battle of Britain reached its climax on September 15, when the German Luftwaffe lost 56 planes and the RAF 28. During the 12-week battle, 1,733 German aircraft had been destroyed, compared with 915 RAF fighters. On September 17, German dictator Adolf Hitler recognized the growing futility of the campaign and postponed indefinitely the invasion of Britain. Yet this did not mean an end to the bombing terror. The Luftwaffe resorted to indiscriminate bombing of larger cities, a campaign nicknamed by hardy British civilians as “The Blitz,” with targets including London, Plymouth and Coventry.

This story was originally published July 13, 2015 at 10:39 AM with the headline "Roger That: Scott AFB generals Selva and McDew to appear Tuesday for Senate confirmation hearings."