This from TNT Husky beat reporter Todd Milles:

As a way to recognize Sunday's killing of four Lakewood police officers, the Huskies are offering four free tickets to Saturday's Cal game to all active police, military and fire department personnel. 

They can walk up to the ticket window on the northeast plaza Husky Stadium on game day to receive the tickets, or call the UW ticket office (206-543-2200) ahead of time.

The McChord USO and Seatac USO in partnership with McChord Force Support will be collecting non-perishable food items for our military families for the December Holidays.  The deadline for collecting the items for the December Holidays will be Friday, December 11^th. 

The food boxes will be placed in both the Seatac USO Center, McChord USO and various McChord Services Buildings starting December 2,2009 until December 11, 2009.

The following items are being requested:

Dry Stuffing

Canned Vegetable

Gravy

Canned Cranberry Sauce

Instant Potatoes

Canned Yams

Canned Olives

They will then be distributing the items to military families through the Family Readiness Groups, Key Spouses and 1SGs.

For any questions, contact Tracye Kakely, McChord USO Manager at 253-589-8772 or e-mail:  Tracye@usopsa.org

Four reservists from the 446th Airlift Wing have earned 2009 Fourth Air Force Lt. Gen. Leo Marquez awards in their respective categories.

• Civilian manager - Ralph Myers, 446th Aircraft Maintenance Group
• Senior NCO Aircraft Maintenance - Master Sgt. Brian Goodin, 446th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron
• NCO Aircraft Maintenance - Tech. Sgt. Anna Jezek, 446th AMXS
• Airman Aircraft Maintenance - Senior Airman Joshua McCabe,446th AMXS

The award is presented to maintainers who have demonstrated the highest degree of sustained job performance, job knowledge, job efficiency and results in the categories of aircraft, munitions/missile and communications-electronics maintenance.

Retired Lt. Gen. Leo Marquez, now 77, visited McChord in April to partake in the 62nd Maintenance Group’s Knuckle Buster award ceremony.

After serving at McChord as a maintenance officer in the 325th Fighter-Interceptor Wing in 1962, Marquez later became commander of the 325th Organizational Maintenance Squadron in 1964.

“I fell in love with maintenance guys here at this base,” Marquez said on his visit.

In this week's Northwest Airlifter:

• Spanaway resident Ed Shadle, a former Air Force maintainer, has assembled a team of local aviation minds and a modified F-104 Starfighter in an attempt to break the land speed record of 763 mph.
• Airmen from the 5th Air Support Operations Squadron at Fort Lewis are utilizing a new simulator to practice calling in air strikes and talking to pilots before deploying.
• McChord was recently assigned a new command chief, Chief Master Sgt. Greg Warren, who replaces Chief Master Sgt. Cary Hatzinger, who recently retired. 

The TNT reports that plans to memorialize the four Lakewood police officers shot a week ago today will start at McChord AFB and travel tot he Tacoma Dome where 20,000 people are expected to attend.

Aircrews from the 446th Airlift Wing flew some unique cargo recently. Read more about it here.

The memorial to honor the lives of four Lakewood City Police officers shot and killed Nov. 29 at a coffee shop near McChord started the day at McChord Air Force Base.  The photos below were posted online following the brief kick-off ceremony at the Air Force base.

Air Force Magazine released a story on the future of the C-17 today.  Here's an excerpt:

Since 2007, DOD has been laboring mightily on a new mobility capability study. An explicit goal of this study is to determine airlift needs in future years. The C-17 is the only long-range airlifter still in production, so one would have thought it was safe, pending the study's completion.

One would have been quite wrong. For the better part of a year, top Washington figures have tried hard to kill the C-17, well in advance of the conclusion of the study. That is nothing if not strange.

Current plans call for the Office of the Secretary of Defense and joint-service US Transportation Command, the prime contributors of this new assessment, to complete it this month. Yet influential government officials such as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates have pressed an anti-C-17 offensive for months.

McCain: The US has "more than necessary strategic airlift capacity" and should not buy C-17s.

Gates: The Pentagon "does not need additional C-17 aircraft."

The question is, how could either of them possibly know?

The Buffalo Bills cheerleaders will sign autographs and hand out posters from 10:30 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Dec. 12 at the McChord B/X. 

If you miss them on McChord, head over to the Fort Lewis P/X from 3 to 5 p.m.

Nearly 2,000 emergency services vehicles from all over the U.S. and Canada gathered at McChord Dec. 8, lining up for the miles-long funeral procession for the slain Lakewood police officers. One airman from the 446th Maintenance Squadron stood at attention for nearly four hours as the procession exited the flightline. Read more here.