WASHINGTON (AP) — An Air Force unit that operates one-third of the nation's land-based nuclear missile force has failed a safety and security inspection, marking the second major setback this year for a force charged with the military's most sensitive mission, the general in charge of the Air Force's nuclear force told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The failure was recorded by the 341st Missile Wing at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., which is responsible for 150 Minuteman 3 nuclear missiles that stand on 24/7 alert for potential launch against targets around the globe.

Lt. Gen. James M. Kowalski, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command, which is responsible for the Minuteman 3 force as well as nuclear bombers, said the 341st wing failed a "small team exercise" as part of a broader inspection. The exercise failure meant the whole inspection was a failure, he said.

Kowalski said this did not call into question the unit's safe operation of nuclear missiles but was its second failure of a safety and security inspection in just over three years.

"I wouldn't necessarily call it a pattern," he said, since a large number of those involved in the latest inspection were not there for the previous failure in February 2010.

Kowalski would not discuss details of the failure or explain the exercise, citing security, except to say that it did not involve the crews who monitor the missiles from inside underground launch control capsules. That left open the possibility that it involved airmen responsible for security, weapons maintenance or other aspects of the highly sensitive mission.

"This unit fumbled on this exercise," Kowalski told the AP by telephone from his headquarters at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.

In a written statement posted to its website, Kowalski's command said there had been "tactical-level errors" during the exercise, revealing "discrepancies."

Without more details it is difficult to make a reliable judgment about the extent and severity of the problem uncovered at Malmstrom. Asked whether the Air Force intends to take disciplinary action against anyone as a result of the inspection failure, Kowalski said the Air Force is "looking into it."

He said those who failed the exercise would be retested within three months.

This is the second major setback this year for the Air Force's nuclear weapons force. Last spring the 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., received weak grades on an inspection but did not fail it outright; that performance was so poor, however, that 17 officers temporarily lost their authority to operate missiles.

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Follow Robert Burns at Twitter at http://twitter.com/robertburnsAP

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Earlier this month, Business Insider broke the story about Jennifer Stephens, a female soldier who fired back at the military for a poster blaming victims of sexual assault. 

The poster, hung in a women's restroom at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, told potential victims of sexual assault that they could "avoid becoming a victim" by paying attention to their surroundings and associating with people who share their values, among other things. 

Stephens was troubled by this official tactic of sexual assault prevention, as it places responsibility for sex crimes on the shoulders of the victims.

It's estimated that fewer than 15% of victims of sexual assault in the military report the crime. Stephens said that she thought tactics like the poster at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base contributed to that. 

In response to the story, Col. Cassie Barlow, who commands the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson, reached out to Business Insider to explain the robustness of their sexual assault prevention efforts.

"Just from a strategic level, I like to look at the program in terms of four different prongs to a stool, basically," Barlow said.

She described the four "prongs" as taking care of survivors, investigating every single case, prevention, and continually reinforcing a culture of respect and trust.  

"Something we’ve done a little bit differently here at Wright-Patterson is that we’ve really initiated a grassroots effort," she said.

Barlow said that she approved the poster, designed by Wright-Patterson's Sexual Assault Response Coordinator.

"We have a lot of very, very young airmen who come to us from their house, where they lived with Mom and Dad. And Mom and Dad, through the 18 years that they lived with them, gave them lots of hints of things they could do to be safe in any environment," she said. "And if this saves one or two people who were never told by their parents when they left home that people can put drugs in their drink — there are people out there who don’t know that. So if this saves one or two people from being assaulted or being a victim of a crime, then we succeed."

Barlow said she intends to sit down with Stephens but was critical of her take on the poster. 

"That’s one person’s view of that," Barlow said. "They have the right to believe that, but like I said before, this is a very important issue to us we’re doing everything we can possibly do to fight the problem."

Barlow said she was in contact with the people who created the Invisible War documentary, or the Service Women's Action Network, both groups which have been critical on the military's approach to sexual assault prevention.

"Yep, yep we are in contact with them," Barlow said. "Obviously that video was sponsored in our congressional district, so yeah, we are very familiar with them and we talk to them regularly."

We heard a different story, however, when talking to Anu Bhagwati, the executive director and co-founder of the Service Women's Action Network, and a leader in the fight against sexual assault in the military. A former Marine Corps captain, she was profiled in the Invisible War, has testified before Congress, and speaks regularly before national news outlets on the issues effecting women in the military.

"I would really love to know what experts she's talking to, because she's not talking to the right ones," Bhagwati said. "The folks at the top just don't get it."

Bhagwati used a Marine Corps expression in describing the messaging — "piss poor."

"The first thing it causes is victims to feel shame, guilt, and self-blame," Bhagwati said. "It's incredibly ineffective."

We asked Bhagwati whether the things listed on the Air Force poster would keep people safe.

"This is classic commanding officer hogwash. You cannot conflate alcohol awareness with sexual assault awareness," Bhagwati said. "It's one thing for leaders to pull their troops aside, which happens every day, and say 'hey, you shouldn't drink too much,' no one should do that throughout society, but to conflate those issues with being sexually assaulted is wrong."

Bhagwati said the messaging from the military about preventing sexual assault should be directed firmly and directly at perpetrators.

"But instead alcohol is always part of the messaging," Bhagwati said, "and it's always used against victims."

Barlow said Wright-Patterson and the Air Force stand behind the poster as an effective means of preventing sexual assault and have no intention to change the tactic.

"At this point we don’t," the colonel said. "We ran the poster up through our headquarters and through the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office, and they are in lock step with us in continuing our prevention efforts."

SEE HOW IT ALL STARTED: Female Soldier Brilliantly Calls Out Military For Blaming Victims Of Sexual Assault

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An Air Force B-1 bomber has crashed in southeastern Montana in the midst of a routine training mission, according to multiple news outlets. 

The two pilots and two weapons systems officers safely ejected and survived the crash, but some did suffer unspecified injuries, according to the Billings Gazette.

Their specific conditions, as well as their names and identities, are unknown at this time.

The plane belonged to the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota. 

 "We are actively working to ensure the safety of the crew members and have sent first responders to secure the scene and work closely with local authorities at the crash site," Col. Kevin Kennedy, 28th Bomb Wing commander, said in a statement cited by CBS News. "Right now all of our thoughts and prayers are with the crews and their families."

The cause of the incident is under investigation. 

The B-1 is a long-range supersonic bomber developed by Boeing that has been in service since the 80s. The Air Force has roughly 60 B-1s in its arsenal. 

The last major crash came over the Indian Ocean en route to a combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2001. All four crew members in that incident ejected and were rescued, and the cause was never determined. 

SEE ALSO: Its First Time In Combat, Two F-14 Tomcats Shot Down Two Libyan Fighters In A Clean 45 Seconds

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Yesterday, we reported on the Air Force B-1B Bomber that crashed in southwestern Montana in the midst of a routine training mission.

Today, the Air Force released the names of the crew, who all ejected safely and are either recovering in the hospital or have been discharged, and we saw pictures of what happens when a massive supersonic jet crashes.

The crew reportedly consisted of Maj. Frank Biancardi II and Capt. Curtis Michael piloting the aircraft while Capt. Chad Nishizuka and Capt. Brandon Packard were weapons system officers.

As for the jet, there's nothing left — just black char on the Montana countryside. It's pretty startling:

Here it is from a wider angle:

Thankfully all four crew members were able to eject.

SEE ALSO: An Air Force Bomber Has Crashed In Montana

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The US Air Force is unable to keep up with a growing demand for pilots capable of operating drones, partly due to a shortage of volunteers, according to a new study.

Despite the importance placed on the burgeoning robotic fleet, drone operators face a lack of opportunities for promotion to higher ranks and the military has failed to identify and cultivate this new category of aviators, Air Force Colonel Bradley Hoagland wrote in the report published for the Brookings Institution think tank.

In 2012, the Air Force had a goal to train 1,129 "traditional" pilots and 150 drone pilots to operate Predator, Reaper and Global Hawk robotic aircraft.

But the Air Force "was not able to meet its RPA (remotely piloted aircraft) training requirements since there were not enough volunteers," the report said.

As of last year, the Air Force has 1,300 drone pilots, making up about 8.5 percent of the force's aviators, compared to 3.3 percent four years later.

The fleet of unmanned aircraft includes 152 Predators, 96 Reapers and 23 Global Hawks, which is large enough to fly 61 combat air patrols.

The military measures air power in terms of combat air patrols, or CAPs, which are supposed to provide 24-hour air coverage over a designated area. It typically takes three or four drones to make up a combat air patrol.

But goals for expanding the patrols are increasing "at a faster pace than the AF (Air Force) can train personnel to operate these systems," the study said.

One of the factors behind the shortfall is a high rate of attrition among the drone operators, which is three times higher than for traditional pilots, it said.

Another factor is the intense tempo of operations for drone missions over the past decade.

The constant drone flights mean operators, unlike their counterparts in other specialties, lack the time for additional education and training to attain a higher rank, undercutting their career prospects, the author wrote.

The problem is reflected in a 13 percent lower promotion rate to the rank of major over the past five years, compared to other military fields.

The fewer number of promotions is also fed by a military culture that still does not fully appreciate the skills of drone pilots, Hoagland said.

"One of the controversies surrounding their historical lack of high level recognition is the viewpoint that RPA pilots were not risking their lives while operating their aircraft 7,000 miles away in Nevada," he wrote.

In a bid to give them more recognition, the Pentagon in February created a new "Distinguished Warfare Medal" for pilots of drones or digital specialists who affect the battle at a remote distance.

But two months later, in the face of an outcry from veterans groups, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel scrapped the medal, which had been placed relatively high in the hierarchy of military honors.

Instead, a device will be attached to existing medals to recognize the new-era warriors.

SEE ALSO: 'Did We Just Kill A Kid?' — Six Words That Ended A Drone Pilot's Career

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Researchers at the U.S. Air Force Academy have created a ball-shaped flash of plasma that closely resembles the near-mythical "ball lightning" reported for millennia.

It’s estimated that only one in a million lightning strikes produces the ball lightning phenomenon, which makes it impossible to study in nature.

Though it's rare, ball lighting is so stunning that there are more than 10,000 written accounts of the bright, spherical lights in the sky which linger for seconds longer that a true lightning bolt. Here's one example of these lightning balls in nature:

A glowing orb of ball lightning was even rumored to be what killed 18th Century scientist Georg Wilhelm Richmann. The glowing balls can range from a fraction of a centimeter to more than a foot in diameter. They are often misidentified as UFOs.

Nikola Tesla was the first person known to have recreated a ball lightning-like charge in the lab, in 1904. In the hundred years since then, only a few researchers have successfully repeated Tesla’s accomplishment.

Producing ball lighting in the lab not only disproves UFO claims, but allows scientists to study its properties and get a better understanding of the conditions inside thunderstorms that produce it.

Russian scientists successfully made plasma balls in the lab in 2002 — catching the attention of Mike Lindsay, then a student at the U.S. Air Force Academy, who wondered if he could recreate and study the phenomenon.

"When I heard about these plasmas that were being created in Russia, that looked like ball plasma, a plasma that could live without a power source for seconds, that struck me as exciting," Lindsay told Business Insider.

Lindsay's team has recreated the previous experiments, while managing to extend the life of the ball by making adjustments to the mechanisms that create it.

To recreate the previous experiments, Lindsay and his research team filled a bucket with a salt solution, and then ran a long, tube-like electrode vertically from the bottom of the bucket to just above the surface.

Then they ran a strong electrical charge through the metal rod. The reaction of the electrical charge above the electrolyte solution created an arc that then floated above the surface and took on a ball-like shape — the plasma balls seen in these GIFs.

"We even tried it with Gatorade," Lindsay said. "It works."

By adjusting both the acidity of the electrolyte solution and the voltage in the electrical charge, Lindsay's team has managed to get the ball to last longer than it ever has in previous experiments. They were even able to video tape it.

Lindsay published his results in the June 14 issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry.

Their findings suggest that a bolt of lightning is actually a channel of plasma that conducts an electrical charge for an instant — a second at most.

They found that what makes ball lightning different is that the plasma can linger for several seconds, rather than instantly disappearing back into the atmosphere.

The scientists can now reliably produce this phenomenon in the lab, letting them study it in greater detail than ever before.

Here's another video of ball lighting in nature — you can see why people sometimes confuse it with UFOs:

SEE ALSO: Fewer People Are Dying From Lightning Strikes Than Ever Before

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The Israeli air force struck a Palestinian group in Lebanon on Friday, officials said, hours after a different organisation said it fired four rockets at the Jewish state from Lebanon.

Israeli aircraft "targeted a terror site located between Beirut and Sidon in response to a barrage of four rockets launched at northern Israel yesterday (Thursday)," the military said.

"The pilots reported direct hits to the target."

Lebanon's NNA news agency said the target was a position of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC), a hardline but secular militant group which said it had nothing to do with Thursday's rocket fire.

The salvo of four rockets, which caused damage but no casualties, was claimed by the Abdullah Azzam Brigades -- an Al-Qaeda-linked group which claimed similar rocket fire on Israel in 2009 and 2011.

Israeli army spokesman Brigadier General Yoav Mordechai said on Thursday that the rockets were "launched by the global jihad terror organisation" -- an apparent reference to Al-Qaeda.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had threatened retaliation. "Anyone who harms us, or tries to harm us, should know -- we will strike them," he said on Thursday.

Two of the four rockets fired from Lebanon on Thursday hit populated areas of northern Israel, causing damage but no casualties.

One struck in Gesher Haziv, a kibbutz east of the Mediterranean coastal town of Nahariya, AFP correspondents reported. Another hit Shavie Zion, a village between Nahariya and Acre, further south, Israeli media said.

A third rocket was intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome defence system, the army said. The fourth apparently struck outside Israel.

Thursday's attack was the first of its kind since November 2011, when the same Palestinian jihadist group fired a volley of rockets from southern Lebanon at Israel. That fire too provoked retaliation by the Israeli military.

Defence sources said that the PFLP-GC base hit was in the Naameh valley. The Palestinian group has a number of heavily fortified positions in Lebanon.

Headed by Ahmed Jibril, the group is known for close ties with the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

PFLP-GC spokesman Ramez Mustapha denied any link between his group and the rockets fired at Israel on Thursday.

In its Friday statement, the Israeli army again said it "holds the Lebanese government accountable for the attack".

On Thursday, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman described the rocket fire as a violation of UN resolutions and of Lebanese sovereignty, and urged security forces to hunt down the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

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Amid heightened political tensions between the U.S. and Russia over a variety of issues, U.S., Canadian, and Russian air forces at least will seek some cooperation next week with a joint exercise over the Bering Sea.

The exercise, dubbed Vigilant Eagle, started as an attempt to train to respond to a hijacked airliner that required both Russian and North American intervention.

It will pair troops and technology from the joint U.S.-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command and Russian Federation Air Force and will last from Aug. 26-30.

This year's drill will feature two scenarios involving international flights, according to a release from NORAD. One flight will originate in Alaska and travel into Russian airspace, while the other will originate in Russia and travel into U.S. airspace. 

Relations are presently strained between Washington and the Kremlin after Russia granted conditional asylum to fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden. In response, President Obama canceled a summit scheduled for next month between the two nations. The international response to the unrest in Syria has also been a point of contention between Washington and Moscow. 

SEE ALSO: Russia supposedly challenged the US to a tank biathlon

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The Chinese national aerobatic team, named August 1st (after the date of the founding of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force) is to be the highlight on the MAKS 2013 air show in Moscow on Aug. 27.

The team was established 51 years ago; over the years pilots have performed for 668 delegations from 166 countries and regions. However, the Moscow tour will be the team’s first show abroad.

According to the official sources the debut is to strenghten the international ties between Russia and China – in this way the team’s visit to Moscow has a largely political dimension.

The Chinese team initially used J-5 fighters, which were homebuilt MiG-17s. Nonetheless in order to fully showcase the developments in the Chinese aviation, domestic third gen. J-10 fighters in a version that has no armament, equip the display team based at Yangcun Air Force Base (Meichong) near Tianjin.

August 1st use 8 J-10s but only 6 of them take part in the show.

The home debut of the J-10s took place during the 7th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, back in 2008.

SEE ALSO: What It Looks Like Inside A North Korean Kindergarten

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A member of the U.S. Air Force was arrested by Massachusetts State Police after making terror threats at Boston's Logan Airport, according to Jasper Craven with the Boston Globe.

The airman, who has been identified as 30-year-old Jeremy Sawyer, reportedly became irate after learning that the airport's USO lounge was closed. 

“What am I supposed to do with this pressure cooker?” He reportedly asked an airport employee, pointing to his backpack.

It's a reference to the type of improvised explosive device used in April's Boston Marathon Bombing.

Obviously, all available Massachusetts State Police officer's at the airport were dispatched to apprehend Sawyer.

He was found and arrested within minutes and charged with making a bomb or hijack threat. A not-guilty plea was entered automatically on his behalf, and he was released on his own recognizance.

His next scheduled court appearance is Dec. 20, according to the Globe report. 

SEE ALSO: State Police Officer Relieved Of Duty After Leaking Incredible Photos Of Boston Bombing Suspect

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The following images were taken by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder during a Green Flag – East (GF-E) training mission flown by a Barksdale Air Force Base’s 20th Bomb Squadron B-52 Stratofortress strategic bomber.

GF-E is a realistic air-land integration combat training exercise meant to replicate deployed warfare conditions.

B-52s are among the assets that could take part in an potential U.S. air strike on Syria operating from both overseas airbases (as RAF Fairford in the UK, or Diego Garcia in Indian Ocean) and their homebase in the CONUS (Continental U.S.), during round trip Global Strike missions.

The 60 years old bombers are capable of flying at high subsonic speeds at altitudes up to 50,000 feet carrying a variety of weapons including nuclear and precision guided conventional ordnance with worldwide precision navigation capability.

SEE ALSO: 46 Photos Of Life At A Japanese Internment Camp

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The B-52 has seen several decades of active service and was about to see some more service over Syria, according to reports from ABC.

Whether strikes on Syria go forward or not, the behemoth is already immortal, with both a hair-do and a rock band named after it. 

From carrying nukes to cluster bombs, to drones, to space ships, the B-52 has a remarkable past and plays a incredible role in current military functions.

With an operational history that began in the 1950s, the bomber is slated to continue operations through 2040.

SEE ALSO: Everything You Need To Know About The Missile The US Will Likely Use To Attack Syria

The B-52 was first tested as the X-52, an effort to create an inter-continental bomber that would not have to rely on foreign governments to land and refuel.

Source: Boeing

The first B-52A flew Aug. 5, 1954. It was nicknamed BUFF — Big, Ugly, Fat Fellow.

In the years that followed, the B-52 broke a litany of aviation records.

As the youngest branch in the military, the Air Force gets a bad rep.

Other service members are often critical of the relative comfort and higher standard of living afforded to airmen and airwomen.

But they're no runt of the litter — the Air Force has the highest budget of the four branches, and its operational capabilities are robust and exciting. 

In short, the Air Force is way tougher than you think. 

SEE ALSO: Take An Inside Look At The 60-Year Old Behemoth That Would Bomb Syria

Typically, when people think about the Air Force, they think planes and cushy jobs.

But it's much more complicated than that.

Yes, there are lots of planes.

The Air Force Tweeted out an Instagram image of the Air Force Chief of Staff Mark A. Welsh wearing a Captain America mask during a brief today.

Military Times also posted its own image of Welsh, who was talking at the Air Force Association’s Annual Air & Space Conference and Technology Exposition.

Consequently, a few commenters on the Instagram account called the mask "creepy" and noted that "the regs" (regulations) probably don't allow for masks in uniform.

Military Times reported: "Pointing to the ‘A,’ he said, 'A is for Airpower.'"

To the contrary though, Business Insider's own Paul Szoldra rightly noted that Captain America was in the Army, not the Air Force.

"Creepy" or not, generals of his rank can do stuff like this.

He was probably just having fun, morale is always a consideration — though if he shows up to give a brief in a Wookie mask anytime soon, people should ask questions.

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On Sept. 4, the 337th Test and Evaluation Squadron sent a solo B-1B over the Gulf of Mexico and its sea ranges to prove the concept that Lancers (or “Bones” as the swing wing bombers are dubbed) can be used to attack surface targets whilst at sea; in other words, the goal of the mission was to assess and improve the B-1′s capabilities.

According to the Dyess AFB website the B-1 released six munitions, including a 500lb GBU-54 laser guided bomb as well as 500lb and 2000lb  joint direct attack munitions (JDAM).

Lt. Col. Alejandro Gomez, 337th TES special projects officer said: “This evaluation solidifies what our crew members have already known: We can strike surface targets. The knowledge we gain from these events gives combatant commanders assurance that we can be called upon to complete the mission.”

The mission, called a “a maritime tactics development and evaluation” or TD&E ,saw the B-1 being given the goal of detect, target and engage small boats using currently fielded and available weapons, released in all weather conditions.

The dramatic photo in this post was taken during the mission and shows that the B-1 was very effective in doing its goals: the term “using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut” springs to mind as the GBU-10 is captured a split second before annihilating a small rigid hulled boat.

The Bone would give a group of Pirates a very bad day!

Richard Clements for TheAviationist.com

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Practice Practice Practice.

Kathryn Bigelow's pop-culture portrayal of military bomb techs in the movie Hurt Locker would have you erroneously believing (among other things) that the life of a bomb tech is an endless series of deployments, cowboy antics, and ditching bomb suits to "die comfortable."

The truth is that an average bomb tech might go through years of schooling and training just to "reduce"— the term they use for disarming — a bomb from a hundred yards away with the help of a robot and an XBox controller.

They've got the steady hands of a surgeon and the sharp minds of the world's best pilots.

Of course with any training, there is extensive planning.

There's also the bomb suit: weighing in at almost 100 pounds, internal cooling systems prevent total melt downs.

Along with the suit, techs carry with them an assortment of specialized tools, from wire cutters, to a basic knife, to full blown, 30 lb "iRobot 310 SUGV" man-portable bot.

Not many people can say they served in three branches of the military, were involved in a war and two conflicts, provided care for a U.S. hostage for nine months in a foreign country and gave vital information that led to an Army “Delta Force” extraction.

One man can say all those things and now has a Bronze Star for Valor for his efforts.

Retired Air Force Col. (Dr.) James A. Ruffer was getting ready to attend medical school when the Vietnam War began and knew right away he would have to put aside his medical school dreams and join the cause. He went to a Marine recruiter with the intent of becoming an officer, and shortly after commissioning, he attended flight school.

His leadership came into the classroom one day as he told his fellow Marines attending flight training there was only one fighter pilot position open, and all the rest of the students would be trained to become helicopter pilots. To be chosen for that one position, Ruffer would have to be the “student of the week” out of 388 Navy and Marine pilots. Ruffer always wanted to fly a jet and knew to achieve his goal, he would have to give his all. Sure enough, Ruffer was selected for the lone fighter pilot position.

“I wasn’t shocked; I knew I was doing the best I could at my studies and during my training flights,” Ruffer said. “I learned at a young age to give everything I had in everything I wanted, and I would find a way to (earn) what I wanted.”

After graduating fighter pilot school, he was thrown into the “fire” in Vietnam, providing close air support for his fellow Marines on the ground.

“We flew so low, we used our own eyes to target where we wanted to drop the bombs,” Ruffer said. “I knew while flying over those Marines that if I could pave a clearer path for them, they would be safer. That was always my goal.”

Ruffer served five years as an active duty Marine then six years in the Individual Ready Reserve. While on IRR, he was finally able to attend medical school. He wanted to stay close to the Marine Corps after he earned his medical degree, but the Marine Corps didn’t offer him a position, and he ended up joining the Navy as a flight surgeon.

Ruffer claims his greatest accomplishment in the Navy was a day in the emergency room where he delivered eight babies in 24 hours.

“That day was a handful,” he said. “I was running around taking care of patients and pregnant women kept coming in. In those days, if you were due, you went into the base emergency room. It truly was a blessing to be a part of bringing those children into the world.”

Ruffer served with the Navy for six years before he left the military to become a civilian doctor. That lasted for only a few months before he missed military life. He called an Air Force recruiter and asked if the Air Force had any need for a doctor; joining his third service shortly after that call he was stationed at Edwards AFB, Calif. He was the flight doctor for a civilian flight crew made up of Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, the crew of the Voyager, during that assignment. The Rutan Model 76 Voyager was the first aircraft to fly around the world without stopping or refueling.

“Working with those two was a pleasure. I take pride in knowing I got to meet and work with them,” Ruffer said.

Shortly after finishing his work with the Voyager crew, he was looking for a new challenge. Ruffer knew American forces were being sent to the Republic of Panama, and he wanted to be where the action was. He applied for the assignment, and a couple months later, his family moved to Panama City, Panama, where he would be the deputy command surgeon for the United States Southern Command in the Republic of Panama.
During that time, U.S. civilian Kurt Muse was arrested and held in the Carcel Modelo Prison for transmitting an anti-Manuel Noriega radio station. The American was beaten and interrogated so Ruffer was sent in to the prison by the Department of Defense to ensure he was still alive and to try and stabilize him.

“I have never seen a man be made into nothing,” Ruffer said. “When I started treating, him I couldn’t stop praying for him.”

He was debriefed by Delta Force members and commanders on the captive’s condition each day. He made the commanders aware he needed to see Muse as much as possible. Ruffer went back to the prison the next day and talked to the captors and negotiated treatment sessions for Muse.

“Every other day for as long as you have him,” Ruffer demanded of the captors.

The prison guards saw it his way and granted him access to Muse for the next nine months. Ruffer worked with Delta Force intelligence officers discussing the prison’s floor plans to include where the guard shacks were, how thick the cells were, if the prisoner would be strong enough to get out, and if he would be willing to risk escaping.

Operation Acid Gambit took place Dec. 20, 1989, to rescue Muse. The operation was a success.

“Being able to say I helped in the plans to extract an American held hostage is something that brings me a great sense of honor,” Ruffer said.

Ruffer and his family moved out of Panama a couple months after the extraction, and he was slated to deploy in support of the Persian Gulf War, but his orders were cancelled.

“I knew we needed to have someone over there to assess the casualties for chemical traces,” he said. “I went to the commander and told him I need to get over there to make sure we know how to treat and protect against chemical warfare.”

After the discussion, Ruffer was sent to an Air Force forward operating location as a consultant for “Chemical Casualty Medical Management” to the Tactical Air Command and served as an air transportable clinic commander.

“My tour in the desert was great,” Ruffer said. “Being able to help implement protective steps during a chemical attack was something that needed to happen. That’s why I pushed to go on the deployment, so I could help potentially save the brave men and women of our country.”

After completing his six month deployment, Ruffer was soon transferred to serve as an emergency room physician at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, where he retired in 1995, but his time in the military still didn’t feel complete.

“I never sought medals in my career; it was always about the mission and country before self-glorification but something was missing,” Ruffer said. “I always felt I should have received a medal for my efforts in Panama.”

Twenty three years after his part in the operation was declassified, Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Lofgren, United States Air Force Warfare Center commander, presented him with a Bronze Star for Valor with heroism.

“What a great opportunity for our Air Force to recognize this true hero; for me, I was humbled and excited to officiate over such a significant event,” Lofgren said, “Being able to recognize a true American hero was a thrill. What an amazing story.”

After the ceremony, Ruffer recognized his wife and family for supporting him through thick and thin.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better support team than them,” he said.

Growing up wanting to be a doctor, then joining the Marine Corps becoming a pilot, joining the Navy as a doctor, leaving the military for a civilian practice, and then coming back to the military to join the Air Force as a doctor marks a military career that is not often duplicated.

“When my Bronze Star ceremony was complete, my wife and I walked to the car,” Ruffer said. “But I didn’t want to go home; I knew when I took that uniform off my military career was over, and the decoration I thought I deserved for so long was finally on my chest. I hadn’t prepared myself for the emotions that took place during that walk to the car."

Story by Senior Airman Daniel Hughes, 99th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

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Social media is a relatively new thing to America's services, most of all, Instagram.

While their troops seem to be taking to the airwaves (albeit, in officially "unofficial" capacities), the services headquarters are slowly catching up.

In honor of the Air Force's recent 66th birthday, we're throwing up these images from their Instagram account.

They're the youngest service of all four, and that may be why they Instagram so well.

(Or it could be all the cool toys.)

The C-17 Globemaster is the military's long-distance logistics work horse.

An aircraft carrying the Space Shuttle Discovery performs a flyby over Joint Base Andrews.

Here U.S. Airmen cross-train with the Brits.

You may remember the mysterious "legion of doom" conference call of Al Qaeda leadership reported last month in The Daily Beast. After that call (or Internet chat, it's not entirely clear), as reported by Josh Rogin and Eli Lake, 22 U.S. embassies were temporarily shut down.

Many thought it was likely an intercept from some automated high-tech system we don't even know about.

Well, it wasn't.

It was a junior enlisted, senior airman at the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance Wing at Fort Meade, Md. who just happened to be doing his or her job that day.

From Foreign Policy:

The individual analyst being credited with the key discovery that alerted officials to a possible terrorist attack is a "cryptologic linguist" with the rank of senior airman who leads a team of electronic data analysts in one of the Air Force's premier signals intelligence units, Lt. Gen. Otto said. A senior airman in the Air Force is equivalent in rank to a corporal in the Army.

"Part of his job is just sifting through troves of data and determining what's relevant and then translating that data into useful information to our decision makers," Otto said.

Here's a little background: Senior airman is an E-4 rank (the top is 9). Although the airman is unnamed, you can get to this rank easily in 2-3 years. Not only is this young airman leading others, probably only at age 21 or 22, but he or she learned and honed Arabic language skills in the military and is also responsible for listening to Al Qaeda's phone calls.

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A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the U.S. Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.

The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the U.S. was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January, 1961.

The bombs fell to Earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: Its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.

Each bomb carried a payload of 4 megatons — the equivalent of 4 million tons of TNT explosive. Had the device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city — putting millions of lives at risk.

Though there has been persistent speculation about how narrow the Goldsboro escape was, the U.S. government has repeatedly publicly denied that its nuclear arsenal has ever put Americans' lives in jeopardy through safety flaws.

But in the newly-published document, a senior engineer in the Sandia national laboratories responsible for the mechanical safety of nuclear weapons concludes that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United States and a major catastrophe."

Writing eight years after the accident, Parker F Jones found that the bombs that dropped over North Carolina, just three days after John F Kennedy made his inaugural address as president, were inadequate in their safety controls and that the final switch that prevented disaster could easily have been shorted by an electrical jolt, leading to a nuclear burst. "It would have been bad news — in spades," he wrote.

Jones dryly entitled his secret report "Goldsboro Revisited or: How I learned to Mistrust the H-Bomb"— a quip on Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satirical film about nuclear holocaust, "Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb."

The accident happened when a B-52 bomber got into trouble, having embarked from Seymour Johnson Air Force base in Goldsboro for a routine flight along the East Coast.

As it went into a tailspin, the hydrogen bombs it was carrying became separated. One fell into a field near Faro, North Carolina, its parachute draped in the branches of a tree; the other plummeted into a meadow off Big Daddy's Road.

Jones found that of the four safety mechanisms in the Faro bomb, designed to prevent unintended detonation, three failed to operate properly. When the bomb hit the ground, a firing signal was sent to the nuclear core of the device, and it was only that final, highly vulnerable switch that averted calamity.

"The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52," Jones concludes.

The document was uncovered by Schlosser as part of his research into his new book on the nuclear arms race, "Command and Control." Using freedom of information laws, he discovered that at least 700 "significant" accidents and incidents involving 1,250 nuclear weapons were recorded between 1950 and 1968 alone.

"The U.S. government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," he said. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."

This article originally appeared at guardian.co.uk

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