JACK RODGERS

I placed my foot methodically so as not to crunch any decaying leaves on the forest floor. After lowering myself into a prone position, I aimed my lens towards the Green Beret preparing to fire an M-240 machine gun with a belt of simulation rounds. A drone buzzed overhead seeking any hint of movement beneath the canopy. The Green Beret and the rest of his team members lie still, I did my best to do the same. As the buzzing in the sky faded from earshot, the Soldiers refocused

Originally published 6/17/2024. SrA Kayla Barker contributed to this story. NELLIS AIR FORCE BASE, Nev. -- With heat striations rising off the tarmac in the hot Nevada sun, a group of 419th Fighter Wing reservists briskly marched single file across the flightline. Ahead of them, against the backdrop of red mountains, a KC-46A Pegasus tanker sat ready to carry them and their equipment into the air during the wing's May 2024 Annual Tour training. 15 Airmen, selected to conduct

FORT MEADE, Md. -- As the canopy closed around Staff Sgt. Duncan Bevan in the back seat of an F-15 Eagle, the cockpit of the aircraft instantly began to heat up. There is no air conditioning in an F-15 and Guam sits just 900 miles north of the equator. Bevan was not the pilot, but had a camera in hand as the jet prepared for takeoff. He had made sure his settings were fine-tuned so as to best to document a flying formation during the joint-coalition exercise, Cope North 21. H

The following is a personal memoir that does not reflect the opinions and policies of the U.S. Air Force or the Department of Defense.  ​ “This sucks,” I thought to myself as I stood amongst hundreds of other trainees on a crisp, January morning just after 6 a.m. Morning formation had begun at the 320th Training Squadron as stragglers fumbled down the stairway still half asleep and doing their best to heed the commands of their Military Training Instructors (MTI’s). Water bot