PJ Earns Prestigious Pitsenbarger Award

PJ Earns Prestigious Pitsenbarger Award: TSgt. Davide Keaton, a pararescue jumper with Air Force Special Operations Command's 24th Special Tactics Squadron at Pope AFB, N.C., is the 2008 recipient of the Pitsenbarger Award, presented by the Air Force Sergeants Association. The award is named for USAF PJ A1C William Pitsenbarger, who received a posthumous Medal of Honor for his heroic actions during the Vietnam War. During a tour in Afghanistan in 2007, Keaton risked his own life to save three Afghan children and two Afghan women being used as human shields during a firefight. He moved through gunfire—four times—to reach them and then shielded the bodies of the victims as he rendered emergency medical care and moved them to safety. In his words: "I've got one mission in life. Wherever I go, I'm there to make sure people are treated and they make it home to their loved ones. If it means that I have to get into the heat of battle, that's what I'm going to do." (AFSOC report by Capt. Amy Cooper)

6/25/2008

Verbatim

To Be Clear
“Just like in my business, the issues that go badly get all of the attention. I think, to be clear with you, there are many things that are managed well every day in the Air Force.”
—John Young, Pentagon acquisition executive, speaking to defense reporters on the state of Air Force acquisition, Washington, D.C., Nov. 20, 2008.

Verbatim

F-22 Options
“They have two choices. On January 21st, they can obligate the $90 million and decide there's some chance ... that they will buy the airplanes and they'd rather preserve the option to buy [them] at no additional cost to the taxpayer. Or, they could chose not to obligate the $90 million and accept that they still have a decision to be made between then and March 1st. But that decision may cost the taxpayer more money.”
—DOD acquisition czar John Young on how releasing only $50 million of the $140 million authorized by Congress to keep the F-22 production line active until March 2009 still preserves options for the new Administration, Capitol Hill, Nov. 19, 2008.