 Headquartered at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, its higher headquarters is the Air Education and Training Command (AETC) at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.It is one of six war colleges within the U.S. Department of Defense's Joint Professional Military Education (JPME) Phase II Education Program for commissioned officers.The Air War College was founded in 1946 by the United States War Department (subsequently merged with the Navy Department to form the Department of Defense) as a U.S. Army Air Forces program at what was then Maxwell Field.