DynCorp, formally DynCorp International, was an American private military contractor. Started as an aviation company, the company also provided flight operations support, training and mentoring, international development, intelligence training and support, contingency operations, security, and operations and maintenance of land vehicles. DynCorp received more than 96% of its more than $3 billion in annual revenue from the U.S. federal government. The corporate headquarters were in an unincorporated part of Fairfax County near Falls Church, Virginia, while the company's contracts were managed from its office at Alliance Airport in Fort Worth, Texas. DynCorp provided services for the U.S. military in several theaters, including Bolivia, Bosnia, Somalia, Angola, Haiti, Colombia, Kosovo and Kuwait. It also provided much of the security for Afghan president Hamid Karzai's presidential guard and trained much of the police forces of Iraq and Afghanistan. DynCorp was also hired to assist recovery in Louisiana and neighboring areas after Hurricane Katrina. The company held one contract on every round of competition since receiving the first Contract Field Teams contract in 1951.
The Sixth Fleet is a numbered fleet of the United States Navy operating as part of United States Naval Forces Europe-Africa. The Sixth Fleet is headquartered at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy. The officially stated mission of the Sixth Fleet in 2011 is that it "conducts the full range of Maritime Operations and Theater Security Cooperation missions, in concert with coalition, joint, interagency, and other parties, in order to advance security and stability in Europe and Africa." The current commander of the Sixth Fleet is Vice Admiral Thomas E. Ishee.
The United States Central Command is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the U.S. Department of Defense. It was established in 1983, taking over the previous responsibilities of the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force (RDJTF).
The United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), located in Doral in Greater Miami, Florida, is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for providing contingency planning, operations, and security cooperation for Central and South America, the Caribbean, their territorial waters, and for the force protection of U.S. military resources at these locations. USSOUTHCOM is also responsible for ensuring the defense of the Panama Canal and the canal area.
Camp Lemonnier is a United States Naval Expeditionary Base, situated next to Djibouti–Ambouli International Airport in Djibouti City, and home to the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) of the U.S. Africa Command (USAFRICOM). It is the only permanent U.S. military base in Africa. The camp is operated by U.S. Navy Region Europe, Africa, Southwest Asia; CJTF-HOA is the most notable tenant command located at the facility as of 2008.
The United States Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government of the United States charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the U.S. government directly related to national security and the United States Armed Forces. As of June 2022, the U.S. Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world, with over 1.34 million active-duty service members, including soldiers, marines, sailors, airmen, and guardians. The Department of Defense also maintains over 778,000 National Guard and reservists, and over 747,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.87 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the Department of Defense's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security".
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Europe District, (NAU) provides both installation and contingency support to U.S. forces throughout the United States European Command area of responsibility. Headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany, the district, which is part of the North Atlantic Division, covers a widely dispersed geographic area from Western Europe across Eastern Europe, including Russia, down to Israel and throughout most of the African continent. Work is executed from offices in Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Romania, Italy, Spain, Kosovo, Israel, Bulgaria, and Georgia. In 2009, the district completed more than $1.2 billion in projects including $648 million in military construction projects. The bulk of this work included Army and Air Force Family Housing units, forward operating sites in Eastern Europe, and training and operations facilities.
Joint Task Force-Bravo is a forward-based expeditionary joint task force operating as U.S. Southern Command's (USSOUTHCOM) lead forward element in the Central America (CENTAM) region to promote stability and security and counter transnational and transregional threat networks (C-T3N). JTF-Bravo operates out of Soto Cano Air Base, Honduras, located 10 miles south of the city of Comayagua and 50 miles north of the capital city of Tegucigalpa.
The Seventeenth Expeditionary Air Force was a numbered air force of the United States Air Force located at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. The command served the United States Air Forces in Europe during 1953–1996 and United States Air Forces Africa during 2008–2012. Upon reactivation on 1 October 2008, it became the air and space component of United States Africa Command. In this capacity, Seventeenth Air Force was referred to as U.S. Air Forces Africa (AFAFRICA). 17 AF was reformed in April 2012 to become the 17th Expeditionary Air Force, sharing a commander and headquarters with the Third Air Force. As of March 2022, the Third Air Force is USAFE-AFAFRICA's sole numbered air force, with the 17 EAF having been inactivated in July 2018.
The United States Africa Command is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, headquartered at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. It is responsible for U.S. military operations, including fighting regional conflicts and maintaining military relations with 53 African nations. Its area of responsibility covers all of Africa except Egypt, which is within the area of responsibility of the United States Central Command. U.S. AFRICOM headquarters operating budget was $276 million in fiscal year 2012.
A forward operating site (FOS) or forward operating location (FOL) is a U.S. military term for facilities, defined as "a scalable, 'warm' facility that can support sustained operations, but with only a small permanent presence of support or contractor personnel as opposed to a FOB or MOB. A FOS will host occasional rotational forces and many contain pre-positioned equipment." These sites were established as the Pentagon began to address regional threats primarily in Africa and Latin America following its 2004 global posture review.
Main operating base (MOB) is a term used by the United States military defined as a "permanently manned, well protected base, used to support permanently deployed forces, and with robust sea and/or air access". This term was used to differentiate major strategic overseas military facilities versus smaller, less secure or temporarily manned contingency tactical locations such as forward operating bases, forward operating sites or cooperative security locations. The differentiation was established as the Pentagon began to address regional threats primarily in Africa, Asia and Latin America following its 2004 global posture review.
The structure of the United States Navy consists of four main bodies: the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, the operating forces, and the Shore Establishment.
The 621st Contingency Response Wing is a United States Air Force rapid response expeditionary wing, based out of the McGuire Air Force Base entity of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey and Travis Air Force Base, California highly-specialized in training and rapidly deploying personnel globally to quickly open airfields and establish, expand, sustain, and coordinate air mobility operations during a variety of contingency operations.
The 404th Air Expeditionary Group is a provisional United States Air Force unit assigned to the United States Air Forces in Europe. It is attached to Seventeenth Air Force [Air Forces Africa], stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
Joint Interagency Task Force South is a United States multiservice, multiagency task force based at Naval Air Station Key West, Key West, Florida.
Hispanics in the United States Air Force can trace their tradition of service back to the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), the military aviation arm of the United States Army during and immediately after World War II. The USAAF was the predecessor of the United States Air Force, which was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947, under the National Security Act of 1947. In the U.S., the term Hispanic categorizes any citizen or resident of the United States, of any racial background, of any country, and of any religion, who has at least one ancestor from the people of Spain or is of non-Hispanic origin but has an ancestor from Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Central or South America, or some other Hispanic origin. The three largest Hispanic groups in the United States are the Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Cubans. According to the U.S. Census Bureau the estimated Hispanic population of the United States is over 50 million, or 16% of the U.S. population, and Hispanics are the nation's largest ethnic minority. The 2010 U.S. census estimate of over 50 million Hispanics in the U.S. does not include the 3.9 million residents of Puerto Rico, thereby making the people of Hispanic origin the nation's largest ethnic or race minority as of July 1, 2005.
Saber Strike is an annual international exercise held since 2010 by the United States Army Europe (USAREUR) focused on the Baltic States. The exercise spans multiple locations in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and involves approximately 2,000 troops from 14 countries.
Rodney D. Lewis is a retired United States Air Force major general who last served as the deputy director for force protection of the Joint Staff and the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization. He previously served as the Director of Strategy, Posture, and Assessments of the Air Force.
