Gen. James "Mike" Holmes has headed Air Combat Command since March 2017, after a career commanding at every level and on the staffs of Headquarters, Air Force; European Command; and Pacific Air Forces. He spoke with Editorial Director John Tirpak on April 20 about ACC's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, future plans and weapons, and interservice coordination. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Q. How is the COVID-19 situation different than the 2013 sequester, when the Air Force had to stop flying? A. We want to be really careful about giving up things that we can't make up, because of limited capacity. An example is our Weapons School. If we don't graduate a Weapons School class, we don't have the capacity to double up in the future. That's a class of advanced, expert tacticians that we would never get back. So, we took all the things that the Joint Force depends on us to provide, and we've tried to find ways to keep them going, within the constraints of the [Centers for Disease Control] and [Office of the Secretary of Defense]-directed social-distancing measures. So far, I think we've been successful.
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