“We’ve also added four RQ-4 Global Hawks and graduated our first class of RPA only pilots. Later this year Air Combat Command projects that we will have more RPA pilots than F-16 pilots in our Air Force. To support this expansion we’ve added two new RPA facilities at Cannon and in Syracuse, and the mission at Syracuse is being accomplished by the Air National Guard.”
– Honorable Michael B. Donley, Secretary of the Air Force, AFA Air warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“Therefore, our efforts to protect these interests in space and cyberspace must be as ambitious as our reliance on these domains. We must be able to deter and to defend against attacks on our space and cyber capabilities and fight through any degradation, disruption or even denial of vital capabilities.”
– Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, AFA Warfare Symposium, Feb. 18

“Certainly our reliance on space and cyber power is well established because our nation’s diverse interests -- diplomatically, financially, economically, and yes, militarily -- exist around the globe. We have an enduring need for robust space and cyber systems and the inherently globally oriented capabilities that they provide. It would be fair to say, I think, that space and cyber power affects the lives of virtually all Americans every day; keeping us connected and shaping the ways in which we all view the world.”
– Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, AFA Warfare Symposium, Feb. 18

“Space and cyberspace capabilities shape how we deploy forces and how we employ them against adversaries. In short, I believe that our space and cyberspace capabilities enable the American way of warfare.”
– Gen. C. Robert Kehler, Commander, Air Force Space Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“The team of airmen, civilians and contractors at Air Force Space Command wield space and cyberspace capabilities that allow the joint force to strike with precision, navigate with accuracy, communicate with certainty, see the battlefield with clarity, and network with assurance. Those are enormous contributions to our fight today, whether it’s irregular warfare, where these capabilities allow very small and disbursed forces to operate like much larger forces with the power of much larger forces; to near peer competition where these capabilities are all about finding and killing targets; to things that we’ve seen in Haiti with humanitarian relief; and of course, crisis management; and what we call, with some affection around the Air Force, global vigilance -- our ability to see deep into denied areas every day to make sure that we are not suffering from either strategic or operational or tactical surprise.”
– Gen. C. Robert Kehler, Commander, Air Force Space Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“The 6th Special Operations Squadron that was mentioned is a group of air commandos who are screened and selected. They’re more senior in grade, generally. They are seasoned air commandos in their own right. Then we train them in foreign languages, foreign equipment, foreign cultures. And Admiral Olsen’s ultimate aim is that we would produce Lawrences. Are you familiar with Lawrence of Arabia? Who’s going to be Lawrence of Mali? Who’s going to be the Lawrence of Mauritania? Who’s going to be the Lawrence of Indonesia? Where senior members of those militaries, whether they be air force or their joint commands, have great faith in this single or small group of Americans who have invested their careers in a particular region of the world to help them satisfy national security objectives that are in the interest of the United States.”
– Lt Gen Don Wurster, Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“Today only four percent of the officers in the United States Air Force and enlisted people are baby boomers. Fifty-five percent of them are millennials. Fifty-five percent, and that number is going to get bigger and bigger.”
– Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz, Commander, Air Education and Training Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“... in cyber, it’s 1910. We’re still learning to warp the wings in cyber, and it’s an exciting time to be alive. In the future, 50 years from now, there will be some guy or gal, thinking about, talking about a Benny Foulois for cyberspace.”
– Gen. Stephen R. Lorenz, Commander, Air Education and Training Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“...the way we operate could only be done with air power, with what the Air Force brings to this fight. There’s no doubt in my mind about it.”
– Maj. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, Commander, Army 82nd Airborne, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“Air Force Global Strike Command will achieve full operational capability late summer 2010 with about 900 personnel on board at the Headquarters in Barksdale; and nearly 23,000 people in the entire command. Of special note, the command will be a fully integrated total force team composed of active duty, Guard, Reserve, government civilians and contractors.”
– Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz, Commander, Air Force Global Strike Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“What we want to do is to make sure that those who take off in airplanes against our United States Air Force and particularly if they know the F-22 is airborne or in the future the F-35, they will remember that the most feared words that an enemy pilot will ever hear is “Cleared for takeoff.”
– Gen. Gary L. North, Commander, Pacific Air Forces, Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“I can’t thank the Air Force Association enough for what it’s done over the years. Giving us all opportunities to be deeply rooted in our communities. You are a community-based organization, just like the National Guard. And your chapters all across the country do great work, and I know most of the folks in this room are affiliated with a chapter. So I send out my congratulations to this great group.”
– Gen. Craig R. McKinley, Chief, National Guard Bureau, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“The National Guard for centuries has been that first military force that joins the first responders in a community, that stabilizes the conditions that allows the citizenry of that city, that community, that state, to get back on its feet. That’s the 21st Century that scares me the most. The fact that in this century people who want to do us harm can bring that harm to us on our very shores.”
– Gen. Craig R. McKinley, Chief, National Guard Bureau, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“..we move more fuel in the air than we do cargo around the world every day. That’s something a lot of folks don’t realize and that’s why that new tanker is so essential to us. This is what gives us global reach. This goes on every day. It refuels our airlift fleet, it refuels our fighters and bombers over targets in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is what allows us to extend this reach out and become truly, have global reach and global power.”
– Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, Commander, United States Transportation Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“What I try to do is make sure we have logistics superiority wherever we need it to be in support of the combatant commanders, so they have options that the adversaries do not.”
– Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, Commander, United States Transportation Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“Alexander the Great when he went into Afghanistan, “My logisticians are a humorous lot. They know if my campaign fails, they are the first ones I will slay.”
– Gen. Duncan J. McNabb, Commander, United States Transportation Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“But there are other cost savings. A lot of those have to do with our infrastructure. Most of our Air National Guard bases are located on municipal airports, state airports, and through what we call airport joint use agreements we’re able to access about $12 billion of infrastructure at a cost of about $5 million a year -- runways, towers, some of our leases are for the huge sum of a dollar a year. Those are some strengths that we can bring, some cost savings that we can bring.”
– Lt Gen. Bud Wyatt, Commander, Air National Guard, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“The other interesting thing is we focus a lot on Haiti. But if you look at the United States Department of Defense response it came from over 100 units in 35 different locations, not only within the United States but around the globe.”
– Gen. Doug Fraser, Commander, United States Southern Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“The USAID administrator on the ground puts it in this term. It will take a thousand trucks a thousand days to move the rubble that’s within Port-au-Prince. That’s a three year process. So how do you do that, what do you do? It’s all throughout. And it’s really interesting, in the middle of the city there’s almost complete destruction. As you go to other parts there can be houses that are complete and sturdy, next to one that’s completely collapsed. So it’s a hodgepodge as you go throughout the city, but that is now going on. And the issue with that is you’ve got to remove rubble to be able to provide capacity for people to build a camp. That’s a real intertwined mission as we look at it.”
– Gen. Doug Fraser, Commander, United States Southern Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“With an unpredictable future, our choices must ensure that we retain our combat capabilities across the entire range of military operations. Overall these difficult but necessary decisions require us to prioritize, to take measured risk, and to remain agile yet with a smaller force.”
– Gen. Will Fraser, Commander, Air Combat Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“With a smaller force we must continue to optimize our manpower including how we organize, train and equip with our Guard and Reserve components. We have been very fortunate to see volunteerism stay at the rate it has been. So this support of the total force partners has helped alleviate some of the strain upon our active duty.”
– Gen. Will Fraser, Commander, Air Combat Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“We need to ensure that we acknowledge that threats like terrorism, like cyber attacks, like chem/bio/weapons of mass destruction attacks, are a very clear objective of many out there, whether they are nation states or not nation states, and we need to not let our guard down.”
– Gen. Victor E. Renuart, Commander, United States Northern Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“Well, as you may or may not know, there are 43 nations with us in Afghanistan at last count, and about 38 of those nations are from Europe. I would submit that they are there, about 50,000 of them, doing the good work that they’re doing and being as good as they are because we have been with them in Europe for 67 years.”
– Gen. Roger Brady, Commander, United States Air Forces In Europe, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“It is my belief that the top priority for me right now is to maintain what I truly believe we are, and that is first and foremost a strategic reserve. We have to maintain that. That’s what the nation asks us to do. And it’s also asking us to leverage that strategic reserve on a daily basis to provide the operational force that the defense business requires around the world on a daily basis.”
– Lt Gen. Charles E. Stenner, Chief, Air Force Reserve, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.

“These airmen are doing the things that we have asked them to do. Non-traditional? Sure. Important? Absolute. Those are some of the airmen that, quite frankly, we have in our Air Force that we need to continue to remain focused on. They’re all in.”
– Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force, James A. Roy, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 18.

“So safe, secure and reliable are primary elements of deterrence. I have confidence now that what we have is safe, is secure, is reliable. I cannot project that confidence forward into the future, however, unless we do some modernization on those items. So we’re sustaining them now. The pain of that sustainment continues to grow as these things age and there is a need for modernization. So as we see the path ahead, where the nation is going, we need to have the dialogue and the debate about what elements of that do get modernized.”
– Gen. Donald J. Hoffman, Commander, Air Force Materiel Command, AFA Air Warfare Symposium, Feb 19.