RAF MILDENHALL, England -- Eagle Eyes is an Air Force program designed to turn every Airman into a sensor to prevent terrorism in the future. 

It's based on similar successful programs in Israel and Ireland. It's also a direct response to the events of 9/11. 

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations is the lead agency for the program, and prompt reporting of all kinds of suspicious incidents is essential to the program's success. Everyone is reminded that it's impossible to tell when an event can turn out to be the piece of the puzzle that suddenly "connects the dots" and enables security personnel to engage and save lives. 

Below is a list of things of which to be aware:

Surveillance: People standing around observing things, people looking through binoculars and taking notes, drawing maps or taking pictures.

Solicitation: Being approached at a gas station (or mall, airport or library) and asked about the base; getting a fax, e-mail or telephone call asking for troop strength, the number of airplanes on base, deployment procedures, how a trash-collection truck gets on base, the location of the headquarters building or other information.

Tests of security: A person grabs the base fence and shakes it to see how long it takes for police to respond. A driver approaches the front gate (without ID or a car sticker) and pretends to be lost or to have taken a wrong turn, just to learn the procedures of how he or she is dealt with and how far into the gate he or she can get before being turned around. A person places a "smoke bomb" near the fence or throws it over the fence to learn how quickly police respond, and what effect it has on front-gate operations.

Acquiring supplies: That includes noticing the movement or acquisition of any of the tools terrorists use, such as fake IDs, guns, ammunition, military uniforms, explosives, detonators or timers.

Suspicious people who don't belong: This is hard to define, but people know what looks right and what doesn't . If a person just doesn't seem like he or she belongs, there's probably a reason.

Dry run: People moving around from place to place without any apparent purpose and doing it, perhaps, many times. That may involve taking notes and timing things. An example is the 9/11 hijackers, who are now known to have actually flown on those exact flights several times before actually crashing them. 

Their purpose was to practice getting their people in position ... working out arrival times, parking, ticketing, going through security, boarding and other processes. By taking note of everything around them they were conducting surveillance, but they were also doing a dry run. 

Deploying assets: That includes moving people and supplies into position before acting. Look for people loading vehicles with weaponry or explosives, or parking that vehicle. It also includes people in military uniforms (who don't look right) approaching an installation or getting into a vehicle. It can also include people who seem out of place. An example of that is the attack on the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. 

When the explosives-laden truck pulled up to the fence, and the driver ran away, a spotter on the roof recognized it as suspicious activity. He began pounding on doors, rousting people out of bed and getting them out of the building. Because of that, he saved many lives - and it's all because he recognized the "deploying assets" element.