Texas Political Lobbyist Report: The United States Air Force Celebrates 65 year Anniversary
The following is a digest of an original story from FedScoop.com. The Texas Lobby Group is posting this summary as a public service for Texas politicians and lobbyists, men and women in the armed services, and all other interested parties.
Read the original story here.
The United States Air Force was formed as a separate branch of the U.S. military on September 18th 1947 and has just celebrated their 65th anniversary. It was formed under the National Security Act of 1947, an act of congress signed by President Truman. This was shortly after the second world war. The force currently has over 300,000 active employees, 68,000 on reserve, and over 94,000 men on active air guard. Acting as a separate chapter of the military during WWII, but still listed as a part of the Army, it was decided that it would be more beneficial to separate land and air units. The U.S. Air Force is the most technologically advanced of it’s kind in the entire world, and is the most recently formed branch of the U.S. military.
“In the 1970s, the Air Force invested as much of its reduced budgets as possible in modernizing its aircraft and missiles while continuing to expand its role in space. It also made great progress on satellite-based communications, reconnaissance, warning, weather and navigation systems. With its large fleet of aerial refueling tankers and long-range transports, the Air Force also expanded its worldwide airlift capabilities.”
Throughout years of entanglements in wars, operations, and consistently being on active defense, the U.S. Air Force has led the way in technological advancements. The Air Force is also known to be one of the harder, if not the hardest, legs of the military to get into. It is a very competitive process.
The head of the U.S. Air Force, the Secretary, is appointed by the President with consent from the Senate. The air force has made great leaps forward in aircraft technology and satellite development. War is often a great producer of technology. Technological advancements made in wartime are more often than not a result of large amounts of funding. These advancements trickle down to civilians over the years in different forms. Computers, submarines, rockets, advanced bombs, catapults, radar, sonar, and penicillin are all just a small handful of the many leaps in technology that have been a result of investment in our military.