Roger That: Hero of French train attack will be promoted from E-3 to E-5

Airman 1st Class Spencer Stone, who has been hailed as a hero for helping stop a gunman from committing a massacre on a French high-speed train, will skip two pay grades and be promoted to staff sergeant, according to an announcement from Gen. Mark Welsh, the Air Force chief of staff, the Washington Times is reporting.

Stone’s promotion from E-3 to E-5 comes in addition to the Purple Heart and Airman’s Medal he is scheduled to receive.

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If the Pentagon is forced to operate for a long time under a continuing resolution, it could lead the U.S. Air Force to break its contract with Boeing on the KC-46 tanker, according to the Air Force Times.

Brig. Gen. Duke Richardson, the program executive on the Air Force’s next-gen tanker program, told an audience at the Air Force Association annual convention that a continuing resolution (CR) would create a “very large problem” for the program.

But how big a problem wasn’t clear until after his speech, when he told a reporter that the CR could potentially break the contract with Boeing, one which is notable for the financial protection it affords the service.

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Lockheed Martin this week revealed its Skunk Works proposal for a next-generation U-2 spy plane, a tactical reconnaissance aircraft called “TR-X,” according to Air Force Times.

As the Air Force looks to retire Lockheed’s U-2 Dragon Lady in 2019, the company has come up with a next-generation replacement, Scott Winstead, strategic business manager for the U-2 program, told reporters on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual conference. Lockheed is still shaping the capabilities of TR-X, a high-altitude aircraft that is designed to conduct intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions for decades to come.

TR-X will look very much like the U-2, taking advantage of the spy plane’s General Electric F118 engine and carrying a similar ordnance payload. The concept is for a low-observable aircraft designed to fly at 70,000 feet, Winstead said.

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Hitler’s armies carried out their “Blitzkrieg” invasions of Poland in September 1939, and of France the following spring, while high on a version of crystal meth which kept them wide awake, feeling euphoric and invincible, according to a new book about the Nazis’ use of drugs during the Second World War.

In “Der Totale Rausch” — (Total Rush), which was published in Germany last week, Norman Ohler reveals the key strategic role of the methamphetamine-based drug, manufactured from 1937 onwards by the Nazis under the brand name of “Pervitin” and distributed among the armed forces, according to Great Britain’s The Independent newspaper.

The drug was marketed as a pick-up pill which was designed to combat stress and fatigue and induced feelings of euphoria. “In the beginning the army didn’t realize Pervitin was a drug: soldiers thought it was just like drinking coffee,” explained Ohler.

But the Nazi leadership was well aware of Pervitin’s value as stimulant during combat. After having tried it in 1939 during the German invasion of Poland, the German army subsequently ordered 35 million tablets of Pervitin for soldiers before advancing on France in the spring of 1940.

This story was originally published September 16, 2015 at 11:41 AM with the headline "Roger That: Hero of French train attack will be promoted from E-3 to E-5."