Here’s the full text of the message Secretary Panetta released Friday after swearing his oath of office as the new secretary of defense: “Today, I was honored to take the oath of office to become the 23rd Secretary of Defense.   I am mindful of the great responsibility the President has entrusted to me, and […]

President Obama on Thursday surprised Secretary Gates by presenting him the highest U.S. civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, at Gates’ farewell ceremony outside the Pentagon. “Bob, this is not in the program, but please stand,” Obama said, and then ordered the reading of Gates’ citation. Here’s the full text, per the White House […]

PARIS — For the civil and commercial airline industries, this has apparently been a banner year at Le Bourget. Every morning, the competing show dailies report ever-more sales of all those other aircraft, the ones without laser-guided weapons, or low-observable characteristics — the ones outside our purview here at Buzz. For the defense scene, however, the […]

PARIS — Here’s the video that Lockheed Martin showed to journalists on Tuesday, in which F-35 test pilots extolled what they said were the many virtues of the jet and the program.