National Training Center at Fort Irwin News

23/12/2025

SOMEWHERE IN BELGIUM — I envy a few of my paratrooper buddies somewhere in Belgium this Christmas 2025, because as I write this, they are in and around the city of Bastogne— a place that paratroopers visit like the faithful making pilgrimage to Lourdes to be healed.
Bastogne, Belgium, I am told, is the most festive of cities for the holidays. Now. But not in 1944. I had friends and family who were there for the holidays 81 years ago.
My U.S. Army Airborne veteran buddies of 2025 were not in Bastogne during the fight around Christmas in 1944, but they do bring a couple of surviving World War II veterans there, and that is the holy part of the pilgrimage. The surviving veterans are 100 or so years old.
Are the events commemorated at Bastogne solemn? Yes. Thousands were killed. But it’s also festive as hell, with glasses of memory lifted, and survival celebrated.

SOMEWHERE IN BELGIUM — I envy a few of my paratrooper buddies somewhere in Belgium this Christmas 2025, because as I write this, they are in and around the ci

22/12/2025

Spending time away from family and friends is a given for America’s troops year-round. It hits particularly hard at the holidays, but camaraderie, good cheer, and packages from home help to ease the homesickness. Aerotech News interviewed four veterans on their experiences spending holidays on active duty.

Christmas mail, VHS tapes, and New Year’s Ramadan
When Janay Hernandez graduated from high school, she worked random jobs in her hometown of Palmdale, Calif., then enlisted in the military. She spent six years in the Air Force from 1998 to 2004 in Aerospace Control and Warning Systems, based at Luke Air Force Base in Glendale, Ariz.
She would be promoted to staff sergeant, but in December of 1998, she was 19, at Ali Al Salem, a makeshift base in Kuwait, having only been out of California once, to visit relatives in South Dakota.
“I was so far away from home, you know, which was a new experience for me. But everybody was away from home...

Spending time away from family and friends is a given for America’s troops year-round. It hits particularly hard at the holidays, but camaraderie, good cheer,

19/12/2025

From the Front Lines to the Home Front | Holidays in the Military Special Edition

From flight lines and forward bases to hometown parades and family gatherings, the holiday season takes on a different meaning for those who serve. The December 19, 2025 issue of Aerotech News and Review brings readers stories from across the globe—where duty, tradition, and resilience define the holidays for America’s military, veterans, and aerospace community.

This special Holidays in the Military edition features powerful photography, first-person reflections, historic remembrances, and global coverage—from NORAD’s timeless Christmas Eve mission to humanitarian airlift operations in the Pacific, and from Thanksgiving meals overseas to memories of Christmas past on the front lines.

Grounded in service. Spanning generations. Told with purpose.
Read the stories that connect home and duty—wherever the season finds our men and women in uniform.

https://www.aerotechnews.com/blog/2025/12/19/aerotech-news-and-review-holidays-in-the-military-december-19-2025/

Visit our website, www.aerotechnews.com, for much more aerospace and defense industry news, and “Like” our page to receive daily news updates.

Happy Holidays from our Aerotech News family to yours!

Digital and Print Journal of Aerospace, Defense Industry and Veteran News, serving the Aerospace, Military and Veteran Community of the Desert Southwest includi

02/12/2025

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, is building a new subscale aircraft to support increasingly complex flight research, offering a more flexible and cost-effective alternative to crewed missions.
The aircraft is being built by Justin Hall, chief pilot at NASA Armstrong’s Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory, and Justin Link, a small uncrewed aircraft pilot. The duo is replacing the center’s aging MicroCub subscale aircraft with a more capable platform that will save time and reduce costs. The new aircraft spans about 14 feet from wingtip to wingtip, measures nine-and-a-half feet long, and weighs about 60 pounds.

The subscale laboratory accelerates innovation by using small, remotely piloted aircraft to test and evaluate new aerodynamic concepts, technologies, and flight control systems. Named after aerospace pioneer Dale Reed, the lab enables rapid prototyping and risk reduction before transitioning to full-scale or crewed flight testing.

NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, is building a new subscale aircraft to support increasingly complex flight research, offering

27/11/2025

17/11/2025

Throughout center fielder Joe DiMaggio’s years with the New York Yankees, 1936 to 1942 and 1946 to 1951, the team won nine World Series championships, and DiMaggio set a record for the longest hitting streak — 56 games from May 15 to July 16, 1941, a record still unbroken by any Major League Baseball player.
While away from the Yankees for three years, DiMaggio served in the military during World War II.

On Feb. 17, 1943, DiMaggio enlisted in the Army Air Forces in San Francisco. He then went to Santa Ana Air Base, Calif., for training.
Before entering the service, he earned about $43,000 a year as a baseball player, and as an Army airman, his annual salary dropped to a meager $600. DiMaggio reportedly applied for combat duty but was rejected and instead served out his enlistment stateside as a physical education instructor.

Throughout center fielder Joe DiMaggio’s years with the New York Yankees, 1936 to 1942 and 1946 to 1951, the team won nine World Series championships, and DiM

14/11/2025

Actor Dennis Franz is best known for portraying a TV detective and starring in numerous blockbuster films in the 1970s through the 1990s.
Less known, is that Franz was a soldier who served in combat during the height of the Vietnam War. Franz was born in Maywood, Ill., on Oct. 28, 1944.
His parents were German immigrants. Franz’s mother, Eleanor, was of Jewish descent and was a postal worker. His father, Franz Ferdinand Schlachta, was a postal worker as well as a baker. Schlachta was of German and Polish descent.
During Franz’s high school years, he participated in baseball, football and swimming. He attended Wilbur Wright College and Southern Illinois University Carbondale, graduating from the latter in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in speech and theater.
In 1968, he was drafted into the Army and served 11 months with two divisions in South Vietnam: the 82nd Airborne Division and the 101st Airborne Division.

Actor Dennis Franz is best known for portraying a TV detective and starring in numerous blockbuster films in the 1970s through the 1990s. Less known, is that F

12/11/2025

Ah yes, the military flyover that graces the skies at sporting events warms the hearts of patriots but drives many crazy. They look at it as the militarization of many of our sporting events. Nothing could be farther from the truth; in reality, it’s just a smaller version of Veterans Day year-round.

So where did the flyover tradition really start and what were the conditions and events that inspired that first flyover?
Well, let’s look back at the end of World War I.

Veterans Day weekend has been celebrated for many years. We find that date on our calendars every November as we take the time to remember the men and women who