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Troy Meink: “78 years ago last week the Air Force was formed.”

Featuring: Troy Meink, Secretary of the Air Force | National

The State of the DAF | 2025 Air, Space & Cyber Conference

Published October 6, 2025 | Video Starts at 05:13

But super impressive and I'm going to chat a lot about that as we go into it. But there's a couple of airmen that I also want to thank as probably, I'm certain Everybody knows here. 78 years ago last week the Air Force was formed. 1947 as part of the celebration, we had an air show out at Andrews, I think a week ago last Friday. (05:13–05:21)

CLAIM

Asserts the anniversary of the formation of the Air Force.

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.

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Troy Meink

“The US has air dominance. I think the 15, 50 odd to 1 kill ratios, the best bombers, the best fighters in the world.”
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“The US essentially dismantled the fourth largest army in the world [during Desert Storm] with very light casualties.”
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“We're launching probably an order of magnitude more than we did when I first started an acquisition.”
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“The Air Force doesn't have a recruiting problem. We met our recruiting goals three months earlier this year.”
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“Dick flew 35 B17 missions over Europe.”
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“Alan flew C47s across Europe, including over Normandy.”
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“Space Force wasn't stood up until many, many, many, many years later [after the V2 rockets].”
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“12 years later from Sputnik, we were landing on the moon.”
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“Space power is being threatened the same, if not more than air power.”
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“We still have the best trained force in the world.”
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“Chinese development timelines were a fraction of ours.”
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“The only way we're going to maintain our advantage is we have to innovate and we have to innovate faster than our adversaries.”
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“The Air Force is under the largest level of modernization in its history.”
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“Some missions didn't exist five years ago [in the Air Force and Space Force].”
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“Every single mission area that the Air Force and the Space Force have to do or in the progress or in the midst of being modernized.”
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“10, 15 years ago, some of our adversaries started to weaponize space and weaponize space aggressively.”
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“We didn't start the race to weaponize space, but we have to make sure we can continue to operate in that domain going forward.”
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“The US has a huge advantage [in launch capabilities] whether it's small, medium, heavy, super heavy lift vehicles.”
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“We built some of the best munitions on the planet.”
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“The challenge we're having right now is how do we scale those [munitions] cost and schedule wise to deliver the mass that's needed.”
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“Some of these programs are just not executing well. We have to improve our execution.”
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“We again have some of the best, the best aircraft, even though they're being coming under challenge, under threat from some of our…”
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“I knew there was a readiness challenge. I didn't appreciate how significant that readiness challenge was.”
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“We simply don't have the parts to do that [maintain aircraft readiness].”
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“We need to make sure we are applying the resources we have for weapons system sustainment and readiness to the right and highest priority…”
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“We need to make sure we're investing our money in the systems that are capable of operating in an environment that we expect them to operate…”
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“We need to work with the contractors, the government, the contractors make the right investments to improve the serviceability and…”
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“There's a lot going on in the Space Force. You know the 2000 mile screwdriver to work on the satellite. There actually is such a thing…”
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“The challenges we've had with building on infrastructure, the high cost you pay in the long schedules from a military construction…”
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“We have the best trained, best morale workforce, any military probably in the history of the Air Force.”
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“We will be maintaining aircraft probably that are 100 years old on the path we're on.”
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“I have zero concern about the ability of the department to employ combat power.”
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“We have the best trained, most talented workforce I think the Air Force department of the Air Force has ever had, Space Force, Air Force…”
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“The challenge I see is how do we make sure they have the tools at the mass and scale that we need to be successful in maintaining our…”
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