Joint military exercises with South Korea were “indefinitely suspended” this summer as part of the agreement to get North Korea to denuclearize, but Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown said PACAF is continuing to plan for future exercises.

Brown told reporters at the Air, Space and Cyber Conference on Wednesday that the command is constantly assessing its airmen, equipment and capabilities.

“We will work with [United States Forces Korea], Seventh Air Force and Pacific Command to determine what the impact is,” he said.

There’s no hard timeline for recommendations on how to move forward with exercises, but Brown said PACAF is looking at ways to continue to train.

Even though North Korea has been “quiet” lately, “the threat actually still exists,” he said.

“There hasn’t been a ballistic missile launch for a number of months now,” he said. “The intent has gone down, but the capability still exists.”

Airmen will continue to do routine preparedness training and do what they’ve done in the past so they are ready for any eventuality.

“You never know if diplomatic aspects can come off the rails at some point,” Brown said.

On Wednesday, leaders from North and South Korea leaders announced a number of agreements they hope will be the initial steps toward a lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un said he would permanently dismantle his main nuclear complex – but only if the United States agrees to take corresponding measures, according to the Associated Press.

The new head of Air Mobility Command is focusing on four key areas to improve the survivability of mobility aircraft and gain persistence over the battlefield.

Gen. Maryanne Miller, who took the controls Sept. 7 when Gen. Carlton Everhart retired, told reporters at the Air Force Association’s annual Air, Space and Cyber Conference that the Illinois-based command is looking at four categories of survivability improvements:

• Situational awareness of the battlefield
• New countermeasures to operate in a combat environment
• Self-defense systems
• Disciplined signature management

“Looking at each one of these categories will help advance the survivability for our platforms in the threat environment,” Miller said Tuesday.

Miller is carrying forward work that was done under her predecessor. Early this year, AMC completed an assessment about how to improve the survivability of aircraft in contested environments. The “High Value Airborne Asset” study recommended improvements to communications, situational awareness and self-protection systems.

There are many different technologies to consider and develop for self-protection. including light armor, signature management tech and high-energy lasers. Former AMC commander Gen. Carlton Everhart often talked about his desire to put lasers on mobility aircraft, beginning with the KC-135, and the command has also been working to improve secure communications, notably on the C-17.

The service needs integrated situational awareness capabilities that provide all aspects of pertinent battlefield information.

New sensors will help the command better understand everything that’s happening within the battlefield. As Air Mobility Command looks at how best to build that situational awareness, it could mean building sensors onto the aircraft or new air frames to meet those requirements.

“Given the threat environment, it’s probably a little bit of both,” Miller said.

With signature management, or detection avoidance, Miller said AMC is looking at new air frames that will have common cockpits, advanced propulsion systems, payload, offload, range, speed and fuel efficiency.

Miller said the command is figuring out if modifications can be made on current air frames or if new ones need to be built.

“We’re really trying to take advantage of signature management properties associated with each air frame itself,” she said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Transportation Command and the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation organization within the Office of the Secretary of Defense have been assessing the number of tanker aircraft, airlift aircraft and sealift ships needed to meet future combatant commander requirements.

The study, known as the Mobility Capabilities and Requirements Study, is expected to be completed this fall.

“America’s air refueling fleet is the most stressed of our air mobility forces,” Gen. Darren McDew, then-commander of USTRANSCOM, told the House Armed Services Committee earlier this year. “The combination of an aging fleet, increasing demand, and global tanker distribution puts a significant strain on this scarce national resource.”

“Our ability to deploy decisive force is foundational to the National Defense Strategy. The size and lethality of the force is of little consequence if we can’t get it where it needs to go when we want it there,” said McDew.

The rate of change in technology requires quick innovation to overcome threats, Miller said.

The force needs aircraft that are “able to survive, integrate and operate in DoD forces in current and future threat environments.”

Miller said the key is understanding the threats of the future and modifying or building a plane that allows the Air Force to operate through that threat environment.

Lt. Gen. Richard Scobee, who assumed command of AFRC after Gen. Maryanne Miller moved to Air Mobility Command, told reporters on Wednesday that the command is set to grow by 200 airmen this year.

However, the command is still short about 1,400 full-time maintainers.

“We’ve struggled with the maintainer piece because as our economy has improved there are a lot of job opportunities out there,” Scobee said on the final day of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference outside Washington..

The three-star said he’s focusing on three things: recruitment, retention and relocation.

“I want to give people a community to serve in that best suits the needs of their family,” he said. “And I want to pay them commensurate to what they could get — or close to it — on the outside. You can never make exactly in the military what you could on the outside, but I need to get close enough to incentivize people to stay.”

Scobee said the command is working to steadily increase the number of maintainers. This includes moving some full-time maintainers into different units.

Scobee said he’s focused on giving citizen airmen the best pay and benefits package possible to entice them to join and stay in the Air Force Reserve.

“So we’re trying to bring that AGR pay status, that full-time pay status, into our maintainers as well because … we’re trying to ensure we give airmen pay statuses that best suit their needs,” he said.

AFRC is working with the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Air Force secretary’s staff, as well as with members of Congress, in an attempt to improve reservists’ pay and benefits.

“We have … to work with Congress in order to change some of the legislation,” Scobee said.

In addition to monetary incentives, Scobee said predictability is a huge factor in keeping airmen happy.

“What we’re trying to do is get a battle rhythm of how often entire organizations are on the hot seats of deployments,” he said.

Letting airmen know when they’ll go to training or be deployed will help them balance their civilian lives with their employers and families.

“If I can give you predictability when you’re going to all these things, now you have a calendar,” he said. “When I create an environment that has pain in it, retention goes down.”

At the end of August, Chinese officials complained bitterly after U.S. Air Force aircraft entered one of China’s self-declared air defense identification zones. China’s defense ministry said it scrambled jet fighters and took other measures in response to operations by U.S. Air Force B-52 bombers in the vicinity of the South China Sea.

U.S. Air Force officials said two B-52H Stratofortress bombers departed from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and participated “in routine training missions” on Aug. 27 and 30.

Since taking command of U.S. Pacific Air Forces July 26, Gen. Charles Brown has spent half of his time on the road, getting acquainted with the area of responsibility and building relationships with commanders from other U.S. military services in the region, as well as with the officials of partner nations. Brown said he’s already been out to Japan, Australia, Alaska and Korea.

“The first priority for me, personally, is to get a better understanding of our area of responsibility across the Indo-Pacific,” Brown told Air Force Times.

Part of PACAF’s strategy is to “rethink how we think about the Pacific,” he said. “We’re not looking to make any major changes, but how do we adjust based on the current environment.”

There’s now a greater focus on China and the Pacific, based on the National Defense Strategy, Brown said, especially with China practicing long-range bombing runs that could reach U.S. targets like Guam.

Because the president has nixed large-scale exercises on the Korean Peninsula for the foreseeable future, routine preparedness training there may be more important than ever, given the unpredictable nature of North Korea’s leadership.

“For us, really, it’s how do we make readiness for all types of activities,” he said. “How we actually train ourselves and train with our partners.”

PACAF, he said, must ensure it’s making the best use of its resources to be effective, while also trying to avoid conflict. But he believes PACAF is well-postured, thanks to what previous commanders have done in response to the volatile situation in North Korea.

One advantage of moving to the Pacific, he said, is that the component commands are all in Hawaii. When he commanded U.S. Air Forces Central, the headquarters of the services were spread out. For that reason, there’s an opportunity to work closely together in Hawaii.

“If there’s one key thing I learned out of [working at CENTCOM], it’s that relationships matter,” Brown said. “The relationships you build at the senior level really do matter to be able to get things done.”

Several countries in the Pacific region have representatives either at CENTCOM’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida, or at PACAF’s headquarters at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.

“For example, I was just in Korea with a senior national representative from the Tampa headquarters, and we had met before,” he said. “Same with Japan.”

Brown said he has come to realize is the importance of staying in touch with partners, especially understanding where common interests lie and working together to protect those interests.

PACAF’s previous commander, Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, offered one piece of advice, he said, and that was to carefully balance the relationships with partners and relationships with the staff.

“What I mean by that is how much you travel,” Brown said. “His goal was to be back at our headquarters about 50 percent of the time. Sometimes, he said, that was kind of tough to do with the demand to meet with partners in the region.”

Because of what previous commanders have done in response to the rising tensions with North Korea, Brown believes the command is the best postured it has been in years to respond to any contingency.

It put even more focus on the area from the Air Force in general and led the PACAF staff to be more introspective on how the command does things.

“I’m excited to take the opportunity and build on that,” he said.

Gen. Carlton Everhart, who has overseen AMC since 2015, said his best advice to those in the Air Force is to not get discouraged.

“Keep at it — be tenacious, be bold, be innovative,” Everhart told Air Force Times. “And if you do that and stay with it, it will pay out rewards in the long run.”

The four-star general has never been afraid to suggest “wild ideas and see what takes hold and what will stick.”

“I think those wild ideas sometimes are informed wild ideas, just to see what I can get back in response,” Everhart said. “And that allows us to be able to explore future things.”

Air Force Times spoke with Everhart the week before his retirement ceremony at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

Q: What are you working on in the days leading up to your retirement?

A: The biggest thing that’s on my plate right now is setting up [Gen. Maryanne Miller] for success. As an outgoing commander, you always worry about, “Did I leave any rock unturned? Did I leave any exposure that can hurt the command or anything like that? … If you look at what we have done and what we continue to do … as far as how we are supporting all the combatant commanders, the sorties that we’re flying … Air Mobility Command is in great shape.

Q: What advice do you have for Gen. Miller?

A: I would ask her to continue to fuel the innovative spirit of our airmen and leverage industry. We have made a concentrated effort just to open up our airmen and [take a look at their ideas]. Then allow them and allow us to work hand in hand with industry, because industry is so much at the forefront of a lot of things. Look at what we just recently [proposed] with SpaceX and potentially sending cargo into space or moving it through the space medium.

I’d ask her to … continue to champion and provide for airmen and their families and the capabilities they deserve. In other words, keep listening, keep understanding what the airmen need, and try to bring those needs to the forefront where our national leadership can take a look at them … and try to meet some of those challenges.

Q: What are you most proud of during your time at Air Mobility Command?

A: I’m so proud of what our airmen do. Just plain and simple, our mobility airmen, they make the mission go. … We had four hurricanes, we launched about 1,600 sorties, 16,000 passengers, delivering 48 million pound of cargo, and that was just to aide. … We’ve opened up key airfields in Iraq and in Syria, and we delivered over 1 million pounds of munitions. This is all against [the Islamic State terrorists]. You look at operations like Enduring Freedom or Freedom’s Sentinel or Inherent Resolve … they conducted over 70,000 air-refueling missions. … We transferred about 3 billion pounds of this critical fuel.

Q: What challenges have you faced?

A: When you start a new initiative, trying to get that to where it takes hold and then it gets approved – or not approved, but it gets accepted. And you know me, I’ll throw out wild ideas and see what takes hold and what will stick. … And so what I would ask our airmen is, don’t get discouraged. … I would ask them also to continue to be honest. You know, the way I do things, I’ll ask an airman, “Hey, give me your opinion about something.” … And then you listen. You have to listen to what they say, and it may solve your problem straight out.

Q: What are some challenges you think future airmen will face?

A: Nuclear adversaries is the first thing that comes to mind. So we need to keep with a strong force. I think we need to continue to keep an eye on the budgetary situations that we have. It’s all about balancing. … The biggest challenge that you’re asking me is trying to predict the future. The problem is that’s the challenge – it’s the uncertainty. So as long as we’re prepared, as long as we’re ready, then we’ll be able to fight, you know, at any time our nation calls and answer that call with maximum effectiveness.

Q: Do you hope to be involved with the Air Force in the future?

A: I would like to pay back to the Air Force what it gave to me. … Where I could talk to young kids about who we are, what’s our heritage, what’s our nature, what is it like to fly? It’s just to pay it forward.

Instead, it goes on your teeth. Yes, your teeth.

California-based Sonitus Technologies is working with the Defense Department to implement the Molar Mic, a miniaturized traditional headset that clips to a user’s back teeth, according to the news release.

The device ditches the need for ear pieces, microphones and wires on the head.

The custom mouthpiece clips onto the user’s back teeth and contains a tiny microphone and speaker-transducer for hearing, the company said. The device uses the teeth and jawbone as a new path for hearing.

Molar Mic is supposed to help communication continue even in extreme conditions that might normally break down radio communication between troops. By placing the device on the teeth, it uses the person’s body to block external noise while reducing gear weight on the user’s head.

The Defense Department contracted Sonitus Technologies for a multiyear, $10 million deal to finish development of the Molar Mic, according to the company and Defense One.

Pararescuemen with the California Air National Guard’s 131st Rescue Squadron in California tested prototypes of the device during rescue operations when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston last year.

“Sonitus Technologies is honored to bring this game-changing technology to our country’s elite military, making them safer and more effective by enabling them to communicate clearly — even in the most extreme situations,” Peter Hadrovic, CEO of Sonitus Technologies, said in the release. “The voice interface sustains communications in dangerous and challenging environments. The Molar Mic is the first in our family of solutions that conventional approaches are unable to address.”

Tech. Sgt. Don Sardin was found on Tuesday, according to Stars and Stripes.

Sardin was assigned to the 1st Special Operations Squadron, 353rd Special Operations Group. The squadron operates the MC-130 Combat Talon II aircraft.

The cause of death hasn’t been determined, but Stars and Stripes reported that foul play isn’t suspected.

“It is never easy to say goodbye to a fellow Air Commando,” Col. Kenneth McAdams, the group’s deputy commander, said in a statement. “We will all miss Don dearly. He dedicated his life to the service of his nation.”

The incident is under investigation.

More than half of the eligible 30,651 airmen were selected this year, making it the highest rate in 16 years at 51.12 percent. The selection rates were 42.25 percent and 44.3 percent in 2016 and 2017, respectively.

The staff sergeant promotion rate increased “because of the requirements to provide capabilities to a growing force,” according to an Air Force Personnel Center news release.

The Air Force has already brought its active-duty end strength up from 313,000 to 325,100. The proposed fiscal 2019 budget aims to add another 4,000 active-duty airmen and 700 more guardsmen and reservists.

Of those 15,669 airmen who were selected for promotion, 11.7 percent had “Promote Now” recommendations, 29.7 percent had “Must Promote” recommendations and 58.5 percent had “Promote” recommendations, the release said.

See the full staff sergeant promotion list here: 18E5 Staff Sgt Worldwide Selects

It’s also available on the Enlisted Promotions page on the AFPC website, the Air Force Portal and myPers.

The selected airmen will be promoted, starting Sept. 1, according to their promotion sequence number.

The last time selection rates were this high was in 2001 and 2002 when the service picked nearly 65 percent and 63 percent of eligible airmen for staff sergeant, respectively. The number of selectees is also the second-highest in 16 years. In 2016, the Air Force chose 16,506 for promotion to staff sergeant, but other than that, this year’s selection will be the highest since 2002.

Reporter Stephen Losey contributed to this report.

Fortunately for you, Urban Outfitters has your peacocking needs covered! And for only $30, you can purchase your very own “Rothco Reflective Physical Training Belt.”

Match it with your favorite skinny jeans, a scarf and a snow beanie for that perfect summer look that screams, “I don’t care if it’s 104 degrees out and I’m burning alive — I’m fantastic!”

Traditionally used during on-base runs to avoid being hit by cars before or after dark, the trendy new PT belt from Urban Outfitters will make sure you also avoid being hit by compliments.

The store even decided to advertise the monstrosity on a model wearing all black, because nothing says dark and mysterious like having your entire orbital sockets pummeled into submission by a walking highlighter.

Clearly, normal belts are just not hacking it anymore in the civilian sector.

Perhaps people are forgetting where waistlines exist, devolving mentally to the point of utter anatomical ignorance, and the belt allows for a quick glance downward and an excited exclamation, “Oh yeah!”

If only Christopher Walken could resurrect beloved Saturday Night Live character “The Bruce Dickenson” to give us a “I gotta have more glow belt” phenomenon.

Is no military item sacred enough to avoid being flipped into a fashion statement? Do sports not already shove enough digital camouflage into the face of every consumer?

“Buy this $900 digi camo NFL hoodie to support our troops with .001 percent of the proceeds!”

What’s next? Casually wearing a Marine dress blue jacket with a Navy cover for the purpose of style?

Oh wait.

First Lt. Daniel Ruth was found on Thursday at his home in Rapid City, South Dakota, according to the Rapid City Journal.

Ruth was assigned to the 37th Bomb Squadron, which operates the B-1B Lancer.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with Daniel’s family and friends,” Col. Eric Hresko, 28th Bomb Wing vice commander, said in a news release. “We are deeply saddened by this loss to our Ellsworth family.”

The 25-year-old, originally from Pennsylvania, appears to have died from self-inflicted wounds, according to a report in the Capital Journal, citing local police sources.

The incident is under investigation, and it has not yet been determined if his death was an accident, the newspaper reported.