AIR FORCE ACADEMY COLO. (KOAA) — Newly confirmed Air Force Secretary Dr. Troy Meink told Air Force Academy graduates Thursday they were being commissioned as officers at a time of transition for the military. Meink was the Class of 2025 commencement speaker.
It was the first time many of the graduates, and much of the general public, have heard from Secretary Meink following his May 13 confirmation by the Senate in a 74-25 vote.
As the civilian leader and 27th Secretary of the Air Force, Meink is responsible for overseeing the U.S. Air and Space Forces and their annual budget that exceeds $200 billion.
“You are joining the Department of the Air Force in transition,” Secretary Meink said in his speech. “For the past 25 years, we have been focused on low intensity conflict in the Middle East, but no longer. This administration has made its national security focus crystal clear. Number one, defend the homeland. Number two, deter China in the Indo Pacific.”
Meink brings a military background to the role, entering the Air Force in 1988 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program (ROTC) at South Dakota State University.
His recent roles before becoming secretary had a large focus on space, which has become a priority for the Trump Administration with the president’s recent push for a Golden Dome anti-missile defense system.
“We are at the forefront of designing and building the President's Golden Dome for America Initiative,” Meink said in his commencement speech. “And if our nation should call, we are ready at a moment's notice to deploy, to fight and to win, anytime, anywhere, with the most advanced systems on the planet.”
Conspicuously absent from the secretary’s speech, though unsurprisingly omitted, was any mention of recent controversy surrounding the Air Force Academy and its reported plans to slash civilian faculty and staff before the fall semester.
However, Meink did mention making the American military and Academy graduates more lethal in his speech multiple times. It’s a term that’s been favored by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump as they work to reshape the military.
“Class of 2025…the Indo Pacific will be your generation's fight, and you will deliver the most lethal force that this nation has ever existed, or we will not succeed,” Meink said on Thursday.
Moving forward, Colorado Springs won’t stray far from Meink’s leadership as he now has the task of deciding where U.S. Space Command will be headquartered.
President Joe Biden kept Space Command in Colorado Springs, reversing President Trump’s first term decision to move it to Alabama.
But, Alabama politicians have recently said the announcement to move Space Command will come once the Air Force Secretary is confirmed. None of that discussion, of course, was mentioned in his commencement speech.
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