3-2-1 Contact: SecAF Relies on Face-to-Face Engagement

STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON 

9 November 2015

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Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James talks about the importance of taking care of people, mission readiness and the service’s continued modernization.  (U.S. Air Force video/Andrew Arthur Breese)

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Three decades of experience in defense-connected leadership taught Secretary of the Air Force Deborah Lee James that face-to-face engagement is the best way to get the pulse of an organization. As the Air Force’s department head, direct contact has become the center of the secretary’s three-prong communication process: visiting bases around the world to gather information on issues that matter to Airmen on the front lines executing the mission; meeting with commanders and staff for decision making; and collaborating on policies with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

James talks with Airmen during a recent visit to Beale AFB. James relishes her time talking with Airmen because it is an essential part of her decision making process. (Photo // Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

Leading the smallest and busiest Air Force since its inception in 1947, James is responsible for 664,000 Airmen and their families, as well as the Air Force’s annual budget of more than $139 billion.
“It’s been my experience that the best way to find out what’s really going on in your organization is to lead by walking around,” James said. “I do this as an important supplement to information I receive in briefings at the Pentagon.”

Senior Airmen Tamika Bedasie and Leigh Starks, from the 9th Operational Support Squadron share a laugh with James while she test the fitting of her pressure suit. James is being fitted with the pressure suit before her flight to an altitude of 70,000 feet in a U-2 Dragon Lady. (Photo // Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

Hearing from Airmen
There’s no substitute for face-to-face meetings, she said, adding that she gets input from many sources – from senior advisors, general officers and chiefs, to the most junior Airmen — officer, enlisted and civilian.
“This helps me to make better decisions — to help tell the Air Force’s story and to fight for our resources and key policies,” she said. “Base visits let me look Airmen and families in their eyes, feel their joy in serving, hear their concerns, help solve their problems, give them updates directly, and hopefully encourage them along the way.”

Senior Airman Courtney Lee, from the 9th Medical Group talks with James during a recent visit to Beale AFB. During her visit, James took time to meet and talk with several junior enlisted and officers as well as the base’s senior leadership.  (Photo // Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

During her tenure, James has kept a hectic travel schedule, which has taken her to bases from Alaska to Afghanistan.
During one visit to Beale Air Force Base, California, over the summer, James met with groups of Airmen in the dining facility. No matter the issue, the secretary insists her staff follow up to provide answers to Airmen’s questions.
Another part of her base visit is a one-on-one meeting with the sexual assault response coordinator. The SARC serves as an installation’s single point of contact for integrating and coordinating sexual assault victim care services. James asks about what is going well, what their concerns are and what other support or resources they may need.
While at Beale AFB, James received a demonstration of the 9th Reconnaissance Wing’s high-altitude mission — she flew to 70,000 feet in the U-2 Dragon Lady to gain a better understanding of the unique intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions it executes.

Veronica Valdez advises James of changes to a speech during a flight from Beale AFB to Los Angeles. On her 50-minute flight, the work didn’t stop for James and her staff, as she reviewed bullet background papers, speeches and biographies preparing her for the next meetings and answered the emails that filled the inbox during her meetings. Once on the ground, she quickly stepped to a waiting vehicle and was off to the next stop. (Photo // Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

“I was there to get a firsthand perspective of the high-altitude ISR enterprise,” James said. “More than 60 years of operational and tactical experience reside in the U-2 community. ISR continues to be the number one most-requested capability of combatant commanders.
“I want Airmen to understand that their mission is vital to not only delivering airpower worldwide, but (also to) our national security. The unique operating environment engages all five senses and the demanding mission requirements are accomplished by a team of professionals keenly focused on the task at hand. The challenges and dedication of these Airmen could best be understood in person.”
Whether it’s an immersion visit, a small group session or an all call with Airmen, James’ message has remained the same since becoming secretary in 2013; she emphasizes her three priorities of taking care of Airmen, balancing today’s readiness with tomorrow’s modernization, and making every dollar count. Ensuring Airmen know what she’s focused on and getting their feedback on those priorities is important to her, she said.

James discusses a few topics with senior Air Force leadership and her staff Aug. 24, 2015, at Pentagon in preparation for a press briefing. James’ ability to talk with Airmen globally allows her to gather information on the state of the Air Force, which she then uses to help develop and provide policy changes to help better the Air Force. (Photo // Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

Informed decision making
From her office at the Pentagon, the secretary’s schedule on a typical August day is once again packed. Filled with briefings and meetings on topics as diverse as acquisition program updates and personnel boards, she also made time to provide a recording for the “Little Blue Book” mobile application. The “Little Blue Book” was recently updated and provides Airmen with the core values, codes and creeds that guide them in their service in the profession of arms.
James’ schedule may drive her day, but the Airmen and the stories they share are always at the front of her mind. Often those stories are about the challenges of balancing families and Air Force requirements.
Working with her staff and other senior leaders, the Air Force developed some initiatives to help, such as the post-pregnancy deployment deferment policy. The policy increases the deferment from deployment, short tour or dependent-restricted assignment, and temporary duty to one year, unless waived by the service member.
James acknowledges this is not the only issue on Airmen’s minds that needs addressing, but if she is able to address one issue at a time, moving the ball forward, then that’s success in her mind.
In addition to taking care of Airmen, her other priorities, balancing today’s readiness with tomorrow’s modernization and making every dollar count, help focus her during budget prioritization meetings and acquisition program updates.

James collaborates with senior Air Force leadership and her staff in a meeting to prepare for the State of the Air Force press briefing Aug. 24, 2015, in the Pentagon. (Photo // Jeffrey Allen)

Collaboration with Congress 
Just as the secretary listens to Airmen and meets with commanders and senior leaders, she equally makes time for lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
The secretary’s experience serves her well when it comes to this part of the job. Her experience on Capitol Hill, including her decade on the House Armed Services Committee staff, when she earned the nickname “Sledge” for her direct and unrelenting approach to her job, allows her to understand how decisions on the Hill are made. Secondly, her ability to speak honestly and plainly comes in handy during discussions on crucial funding issues. Finally, her comfort level with direct contact, which is just as important with decision-makers as it is with her staff and Airmen, keep her engaged and working hard to inform the Hill on the issues that matter to the Air Force.

James explains the effects that preparing for and operating under a continuing resolution has on the Air Force to U.S. Congressman Steve Womack. James’ relationship with members of Congress is vitally important when dealing with critical funding issues facing the Air Force. (Photo // Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

“There are some who shy away from engagements on the Hill, and she doesn’t shy away from them,” said Col. Sam Grable, the director of Air Force appropriations and budget liaison. “She wants to be engaged and works hard with her staff to make sure they carve out time in her schedule so she can be engaged on the Hill, whether it’s an emerging issue like BAH or getting to know members and working with the Air Force Caucus in the House and Senate.
“It’s all about relationships,” Grable said. “Work on the Hill doesn’t get done without those relationships.”

James provides an update with Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Welsh III on current Air Force operations during a press briefing Aug. 24, 2015, in the Pentagon. (Photo // Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

And while all of these relationships are vital to getting her job accomplished, it always comes back to the Airmen.
“Getting to serve alongside of, and advocate for, the 664,000 Airmen and families of the Air Force is something I take very seriously,” James said. “Being Secretary of the Air Force is the honor of my professional life.”

James enjoys having photos taken with the Airmen she meets during her visits around the Air Force. Meeting and talking with Airmen is important to James because it allows her to speak directly with them, hear their concerns and answer any questions they may have. (Photo // Master Sgt. Jeffrey Allen)

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2015/11/3-2-1-contact/#sthash.62Eblq6s.dpuf

Civil War Moments: Retired Officer and Son Bond Best While Re-creating Historic Battles

STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON // PHOTOS BY STAFF SGT. ANDREW LEE

14 December 2015

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Music from a fife and drums rang in the ears of a father and son as they sat around the campfire. Brian E. Withrow and his14-year-old son, Josh, talked with fellow re-enactors, also clad in Union blue, the night before their first re-enactment at the Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
Now and then, the discussion turned to times on the battlefield when the re-enactor could almost feel as if he was actually walking in the boots of a Civil War Soldier.
Fifteen years later, the Withrow duo are back in camp at the same Virginia battlefield, except the son is now a 29-year-old re-enactment veteran, and the father plays a commanding general’s assistant chief of staff . What hasn’t changed is their shared love of history, and the one thing that has kept them returning to re-enactment battlefieldsis the search for those special times when they feel almost transported back in time. They call those times “Civil War moments.”

Union forces re-enactors fire a row of cannons toward the direction of the Confederate forces during the re-enactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek near Middletown, Virginia. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

“An example was at the 145^th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, and we were doing the battle through the cornfield,” said Brian, a retired lieutenant colonel and munitions officer. “It was early morning, still dark, with just the glimpses of light coming up. There was a mist over the field. The artillery was firing, and I could see the blasts from their muzzles.
“In front of me, the very first wave of federal soldiers was given the command to go into the cornfield. For that brief moment, there were no telephone poles, no vehicles. There was just the cannon fire and musketry fire with one of the just-right conditions and glimpses that give you that moment of, ‘Wow! That must have been what it was like.’”

Two Confederate re-enactors hold patrol before the Battle of Cedar Creek near Middletown, Virginia. Hundreds of re-enactors throughout the country participated in the 151st anniversary of the battle. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

An interest in U.S. history from his youth led Brian to consider the re-enactment hobby when he was stationed at the Pentagon in 1997, with the numerous Civil War battlefields in Maryland and Virginia. Josh shared the love of history, so the two attended re-enactments together as spectators until his father asked him if he would like to try the hobby with him. They watched the 136^th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of Chancellorsville in Virginia in 1999, and after talking to re-enactors in the 3^rd U.S. Infantry, Company B, they decided to join the unit.
Josh was still two years away from his 16^th birthday, so he wasn’t able to carry a weapon at their first re-enactment at Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park later that year, but as it turned out, he was right where the action was. In the Battle of Cedar Creek in the fall of 1864, forces led by Gen. Jubal Early over-ran federal forces, although Union Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan later made his famous ride to lead a rout of the Confederates, which helped the Union crush the resistance in the Shenandoah.
“I was too young to carry a gun, and I didn’t have any shoes that would fit me, so I had to stay in the tent while my dad went to take the field,” Josh said. “But, of course, the battle came to me. I was sitting there inside the tent, while there were two rows of infantry firing at each other around me, and it’s lighting up with the gunpowder. It was so dark outside, and all you could see were the flashes of the muzzles of the guns. It was just one of the coolest things I’d ever seen, and we were thinking, ‘We are going to keep on doing this.’”

Two Confederate re-enactors hold patrol before the Battle of Cedar Creek near Middletown, Virginia. Hundreds of re-enactors throughout the country participated in the 151st anniversary of the battle. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

Brian’s interest in re-enacting began with a question about his ancestors’ role in the Civil War. Through his research and participation in re-enactments, he was able to correct what the family believed about an ancestor who fought and died in the war. For years, the family’s oral history showed that George Dugan, a private in the 10^th Illinois Infantry, died in a Confederate prison in Andersonville, Georgia. By the time he’d participated in the 150^th anniversary re-enactment of the Battle of Bentonville, North Carolina, Brian had learned he actually died in action there, a fact he didn’t know when he attended the same battle as a private 10 years earlier.
“I now have a personal connection,” Brian said. “Not only had he died there, but fortunately for my family line, he had a son who ended up being my great great-grandfather.”
A glance at the uniforms in a closet in the family home in Stafford, Virginia, shows the variety of ranks Brian portrays in his hobby. He plays the role of Union Soldiers, as well as those from the Revolutionary War, from the ranks of private all the way up to the commanding general of the Union Army. After he retired from the Air Force, Brian let his beard grow, which coupled with the cigar he often has in his mouth in camp, gives him a resemblance to a U.S. history legend, Gen. (and former President) Ulysses S. Grant.

Pvt. Joshua Withrow (middle) and other members of the Union provost take moment to warm by the fire and talk about previous re-enactments they’ve attended. Joshua got into re-enactments with his father when they attended an event in 2000. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

While on the board of directors that created the Stafford Civil War Park, Brian portrayed a colonel in the 55^th Ohio Infantry at the grand opening in 2013, and spectators saw the beard and cigar and mistook him for Grant. The mistaken identity kept happening at subsequent reenactments and historical events, even to the point where Confederate re-enactment forces “captured” him, thinking they’d caught the overall Union commander. He was eventually asked to portray Grant for the 150^th anniversary re-enactments in 2011 and 2012.  Brian impersonates the famous general for the Civil War Impressionists Association in annual events at the National Mall in Washington and at numerous Civil War historic sites.
“I’m still a private in Company K of the 3^rd U.S. Infantry, so I still go out and do events as an infantry private,” Brian said. “Then again, I can put on three stars, and I can be the commanding general. I can play a private or the general-in-chief with equal enthusiasm.”
When he began the hobby, Brian had no interest in portraying an officer. He was still on active duty, and he wanted to experience a taste of a Union private’s daily life. However, after his Air Force retirement six years ago, he had an opportunity to join the Army of the Potomac headquarters staff as a guidon bearer for the command officer, which was appealing to him because of his love for horses, and in the past year he’s served as the commander’s assistant chief of staff.

Retired Lt. Col. Brian Withrow has gone to most of the major Civil War reenactments and other historical events since 1997. During that period, he has participated in his hobby from ranks ranging from private to general within the Union forces. Withrow plays a mounted staff officer in the role of the assistant chief of staff to the commanding general in 3rd U.S. Infantry, Company B. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

The night before the re-enactment at Cedar Creek, Brian was also promoted to brigadier general and will transition into the role of the staff’s commanding officer.
Serving as an officer in a Civil War re-enactment unit is obviously completely different from an active-duty career. For example, there is no Uniform Code of Military Justice to keep them bound to the unit or to commander’s orders. Still, Brian has found common ground between the two. Safety, self-aid and buddy care, and survival training, as well as his logistics knowledge from a career in munitions, have all come into play at different times in the field. Also, Soldiers in the 19^th century operated on a code that wasn’t too different from the Air Force Core Values.
“From my research, I can’t say that they had what they called core values,” he said. “But clearly, in particular, the Soldiers who had been trained formally through the military academies during that time period, had a value system based on personal honor and morality. I think those attributes defined what it meant ideally to be a good Soldier then, and those traditions from our early American military experience are what evolved into what we call our core values now.”

Union and Confederate forces fire at each other during the re-enactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek. Hundreds of re-enactors came to participate in the two-day event for the 151st anniversary of the Civil War battle in Virginia. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Andrew Lee)

For just a few days, re-enactors like the Withrows not only try to help re-create historic battles, but also get a taste of the living experiences Soldiers on both sides endured in the Civil War. Along with the bonding experiences when they swap war stories and glimpses of their lives with fellow re-enactors, they also sometimes experience some harsh conditions. They faced below freezing weather at the Battle of Sailor’s Creek in April, and there was the other extreme, where they faced temperatures above 100 degrees with elevated humidity at the 150^th Battle of First Manassas in July 2011.
“We got just a little taste of some of the environmental conditions these Soldiers went through,” Brian said. “The difference was we came out and may experience some of those conditions for a weekend. That gives you an appreciation for the fact that these guys did this week on end, month on end, on forced marches of 10 to 15 miles, summertime and wintertime. Again, we get this little glimpse, just a little taste of what they may have experienced.”
These days, it is difficult for both father and son to make every battle as they were able to do when Josh was younger. He’s not able to attend most re-enactments because of his schedule as a legislative affairs manager for Freedom Works in Washington. Since his father retired, his schedule as a government employee at Fort Belvoir also keeps him busy. But their love of the hobby remains as strong as it was around that campfire 15 years ago. Hearing the fife and drums still sounds sweet to their ears.

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2015/12/civil-war-moments/#sthash.LWXCVpxW.dpuf

Forward From Vietnam: Air Force Success Late in War Set Stage for Future Airpower

STORY BY // RANDY ROUGHTON

19 January 2016

Operation Niagara
Besieged U.S. Marines at Khe Sanh, Vietnam, watch as a U.S. Air Force F-4 makes close air support strike over the area. (U.S. Air Force photo)

When Dr. Wayne Thompson began working on his book “To Hanoi and Back”about airpower in the Vietnam War, he anticipated a focus on an unsuccessful air campaign in an unpopular war. But as the historian dove into his research, his work soon evolved into a history of how the Air Force learned lessons that it used to dominate the airspace decades later.
Thompson began paying close attention to the bombing of North Vietnam after he joined the Air Force History and Museums Program a decade after he was an Army draftee assigned to an Air Force intelligence station in Taiwan during the Vietnam War. The more he learned about air operations, particularly late in the war, the more the now retired historian saw his project as a positive side of the Air Force’s role in Vietnam.
“When I began to study these events, I thought I would write about one of the saddest portions of the Air Force’s history, but, gradually, I came to take a more positive view of the Air Force’s experience in Southeast Asia,” Thompson said. “The struggle for Southeast Asia helped to transform the Air Force from an almost total focus on potential nuclear warfare against the Soviet Union into a more varied and flexible force wielding increasingly sophisticated conventional weapons.”

North Vietnam: Rolling Thunder
By 1968, typical USAF combat rescue packages included strike aircraft, aerial refuelers and rescue helicopters. (U.S. Air Force photo)

Although the Air Force sustained 1,741 combat deaths and lost 2,255 aircraft in the Vietnam War, statistics show a less costly air war than commonly believed. The Air Force flew more than twice the number of sorties as the Army Air Forces flew during World War II, yet had only a 0.4 loss rate per 1,000 sorties, compared to 9.7 during World War II and 2.0 in the Korean War, according to “The Air Force in the Vietnam War,” published by the Air Force Association and the Aerospace Education Association.
The war also provided a proving ground for new technologies, which Thompson described in “To Hanoi and Back.”
“While the bitterness of many who had served in a frustrating war was exacerbated by declining Air Force manpower and budgets, the service pursued new technologies stimulated by the Southeast Asian experience – new fighter aircraft, new radar aircraft, new means of countering enemy radar, new means of operating in darkness, and new guided weapons,” Thompson wrote.

Focused on nukes

Before the U.S. began combat operations in Vietnam, the Air Force was built around Strategic Air Command with a focus on the potential of nuclear war with the Soviet Union or China. It wasn’t well-prepared for a conventional or unconventional war in Southeast Asia, Thompson said. The emphasis shifted from the big bomber aircraft to fighters such as the F-4 Phantom, F-100 Super Sabre and F-105 Thunderchief.
The Air Force wanted to use the B-52 Stratofortress against 94 targets throughout North Vietnam because of its all-weather capability, large bombload and radar, and could have attacked in early 1965 without being hampered by clouds or surface-to-air missiles. Weather in North Vietnam severely limited bombing with any other aircraft from December through March. However, Johnson decided against the Air Force’s recommendation and restricted B-52s to targets such as depots and transportation routes near the border of South Vietnam and Laos.
The president was concerned about the threat of China entering the conflict, based on what happened during the Korean War.

North Vietnam: Rolling Thunder
F-105 crews played a key role in ROLLING THUNDER. (U.S. Air Force photo)

“The Air Force leadership thought that was silly, that the Korean War analogy was wrong,” Thompson said. “What the Air Force was recommending was to start bombing the targets we knew about quickly, partly because it makes a big difference on the ground, but also because it could make a big difference in Hanoi’s thinking.
“With the B-52s, we could still go in bad weather around-the-clock, and with radar, we could do serious bombing, but the Johnson administration wouldn’t allow us to do that in the heartland of North Vietnam,” he continued. “So that left us to work with the fighters, which were fairly short-range, daylight and fair-weather aircraft.”
Air Force leaders asked to use the fighters to take out North Vietnam’s air defenses to eliminate the potential to develop surface-to-air missile sites. The administration refused because they didn’t want any bombing near the government in Hanoi for political reasons. Pilots were also often frustrated by the limitations on airstrikes, with prohibited zones 10 nautical miles in diameter at Hanoi and 4 miles wide at Haiphong and restricted zones extending 30 and 10 miles wide, respectively

 Start of combat ops

U.S. combat operations in Vietnam began with the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, when a U.S. destroyer exchanged fire with North Vietnamese torpedo boats. On March 2, 1965, the Air Force’s role escalated with Operation Rolling Thunder, a systematic but frequently interrupted bombing campaign designed to discourage North Vietnamese aggression,interdict supplies heading south and boost morale in South Vietnam.
When President Lyndon B. Johnson halted the bombing of North Vietnam in time for Christmas Eve, many pilots had mixed emotions. The Air Force had established a policy of pilots and electronic warfare officers returning stateside after they reached their 100^th mission over North Vietnam until all similarly rated aviators served their tours, said retired Col. Bob Krone, former commander of the 469^th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base in Thailand.
Halting Rolling Thunder meant an interruption in pilots reaching that magic milestone.

South Vietnam: A USAF F-100 of the 90th Tactical Fighter Squadron leaves the target area after dropping napalm on a suspected Viet Cong target, March 1966. U.S. Air Force Photo.

“The U.S. Air Force’s 100 missions over North Vietnam policy was unique in history. It had never been official policy before, nor has it been since the Vietnam War,” Krone said.
After Krone’s 100^th mission on June 3, 1966, he was selected as a fighter pilot member of a new office at Headquarters Personnel at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, and later helped the National Museum of the Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, create the “100 Mission Exhibit” that opened in 2009.
“The policy was based on the high risks of flying into the North Vietnam air defense system, which was judged to be very dangerous,” he said. “Many pilots did volunteer for second tours, and many of those became casualties.”
To reach their 100th mission, pilots faced MiG-17 and 21 fighters, surface-to-air missiles and a combination of anti-aircraft artillery and automatic weapons. On Nov. 15, 1965, the 469^th TFS lost its first pilot two days after it arrived in Thailand. Krone assumed command of the squadron on April 24, 1966, after Lt. Col. Bill Cooper was killed over the Phu Lang Thuong Bridge.
“Those of us who reached the 100 counters were the lucky ones,” Krone said. “Thirty-five percent of all the F-105D/F pilots and electronic warfare officers who flew in the Vietnam War between 1965 and 1968 did not reach the 100^th mission.”
The 100-mission policy ended as Rolling Thunder began winding down in March 1968. During the operation, U.S. aircraft dropped 643,000 bombs and inflicted about $300 million of damage on North Vietnam, but lost 900 aircraft and failed to achieve any of Johnson’s strategic objectives.

New approach

In the spring of 1972, President Richard M. Nixon responded to the overt North Vietnamese invasion of South Vietnam by ordering Operation Linebacker I, an aerial interdiction campaign against North Vietnam. After B-52s bombed fuel storage tanks at Haiphong and fighter-bombers hammered a tank farm and warehouse complex outside Hanoi, the Nixon administration extended the aerial interdiction campaign throughout all of North Vietnam.
Linebacker was a considerably less gradual campaign than Rolling Thunder. Bombing throughout North Vietnam disrupted the flow of supplies and reinforcements to the south. Thompson said the use of newly developed laser-guided bombs was effective, especially against bridges. Among the more than 100 bridges destroyed by 2,000- and 3,000-pound laser-guided bombs during Linebackerwere the Thanh Hoa Bridge and Hanoi bridge over the Red River.

Secret War: Green Hornets, Dust Devils and Blackbirds
On alert at Ban Don, South Vietnam, in July 1970. From locations along the borders with Cambodia and Laos, the US Air Force helicopters covertly inserted reconnaissance teams, which included local peoples like the Hmong, along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. (U.S. Air Force photo)

In December 1972, Nixon ordered the most intense bombing of the war, Operation Linebacker II, to force the North Vietnamese into negotiations for a cease-fire agreement. Linebacker II intimidated the North Vietnamese by making unprecedented use of B-52s at night and in bad weather to attack rail yards and other targets near Hanoi. By Dec. 29, the 700 nighttime sorties flown by B-52s and 650 daytime strikes by fighter and attack aircraft persuaded the North Vietnamese government to return to the conference table.
In 1972, 200 B-52s were operating in Southeast Asia, up from 60 in Guam and Thailand in 1967. The use of B-52s and laser-guided bombs made a difference in the effectiveness of bombing operations in 1972, Thompson said. Guided bombs could do more damage than hundreds of unguided bombs exploding in the area around a target.
Two decades later,the lessons the Air Force learned in Vietnam proved victorious in the skies above Iraq when Operation Desert Storm kicked off in January 1991. Six weeks of bombing enabled U.S. and coalition ground forces to push the Iraqi army out of Kuwait in four days, with fewer than 200 American Soldiers killed in action, Thompson said.
“With guided bombs, you can make every bomb count,” Thompson said.“We already had rudimentary laser-guided bombs by the end of the Vietnam War,but by the time we got to the Gulf War, we had laser-guided bombs which we could use at night and could be carried by a stealth fighter. That meant we could basically bomb any target that we knew about, no matter if it was in Baghdad or elsewhere, from opening night. That was a big step forward.”

North Vietnam: Rolling Thunder
Specialized RB-66s helped F-105s bomb in North VietnamÕs frequently poor weather conditions. (U.S. Air Force photo)

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2016/01/forward-from-vietnam/#sthash.xzLxiKYm.dpuf

Forever An Airman: At 77, the only Vietnam POW Four-Star Still Has the Spirit He Had in His Combat Missions

STORY BY // RANDY ROUGHTON PHOTOS BY // STAFF SGT. DAVID SALANITRI VIDEO BY // ANDREW ARTHUR BREESE

25 January 2016

An interview with General Charles G. Boyd. At 77, the only Vietnam POW four-star still has the spirit he had in his combat missions.
U.S. Air Force video // Andrew Arthur Breese

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Retired Gen. Charles G. Boyd reached into his left pocket and pulled out two silver dollars, which were tied to a superstition he habitually practiced as a fighter pilot in Vietnam.
“There they are,” he said. “I can’t tell you why I did that, but I never went anywhere, particularly on a mission, without those two silver dollars.”
Boyd lost them when he was shot down on his 105^th F-105 Thunderchief mission.  He was subsequently captured by the North Vietnamese and remained a prisoner of war for 2,488 days, but he replaced the silver dollars soon after he was finally released in 1973.
Although his days of flying combat missions are long gone, Boyd, the owner of three Bronze Stars and three Purple Hearts, still has the fighter pilot’s heart for adventure, just like the silver dollars in his pocket. At the age of 77, he loves to ride one of his BMW motorcycles or fly his T-34 Mentor — the same plane he flew in pilot training — from the small airport near his home in Virginia. The pride of being an Airman never left Boyd, the only POW in Vietnam who became a four-star general.
“It’s part of my soul. It’s who I am,” Boyd said. “I could always imagine the freedom, the release of gravity to fly like a bird, even though I hadn’t actually flown an airplane myself until I got into Air Force pilot training. But somehow that picture emerged and developed in my mind before I actually flew an airplane.
“When I did fly, it pretty much reinforced what I had imagined, except it had a greater reality to it. There was a sense of power, freedom, maneuvering and liberty. To this day, I have found nothing else in life that scratches that particular itch.”
Six months into his combat tour, Boyd was shot down on April 22, 1966, over Laos. He spent seven years as a POW at the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the Hanoi Hilton. After his release during Operation Homecoming in 1973, Boyd declined to discuss his experiences for years because he was interested in looking forward, not back to the small cell in Hanoi.
“I made a significant effort in my life, and I think fairly successfully, to put that all behind me,” Boyd said. “I said, and I meant, when I was released and came home in 1973, that I wasn’t going to spend the rest of my life as a returned POW and nothing more. I’d lost about a fifth of my life at that point, and I didn’t want to waste anymore feeling sorry for myself or fussing over what otherwise might have been.”
Instead, he focused his energy on a new direction for his life. During his captivity, he’d learned much of the Spanish language through the tap code that was the communication lifeline for POWs in Vietnam. So he decided to build on what he learned and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the University of Kansas, both in Latin American studies. He also progressed in his Air Force career, with assignments as 8^th Air Force commander at Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana; Air University commander at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama; and deputy commander in chief of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany. Boyd was promoted to four-star general on Dec. 1, 1992, and retired after 36 years in 1995.
Three years later, Boyd served as executive director of the U.S. Commission on National Security/21^st Century. Today, he’s chairman of the Center for the National Interest, a public policy think tank in Washington, D.C.
Boyd credits his competitive spirit for his survival of seven years in captivity. Just as he still carries those two silver dollars, that spirit has never left him.
“Fighter pilots are competitive guys, and they don’t like to be defeated, and that goes beyond just flying airplanes,” Boyd said when his alma mater, the University of Kansas College of Liberal Arts and Sciences gave him the 2013-14 Distinguished Alumni Award. “To let the enemy get the best of you was not in our psychological makeup, I think, and fighter pilots do business alone. So I think you can handle solitary confinement, for example, better than some.”

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2016/01/forever-an-airman/#sthash.eNXNpR3c.dpuf

'The Code:' Topic of F-105 Pilot's Talk With Survival School Instructor Became Lifeline for POWs in Vietnam

STORY BY // RANDY ROUGHTON | PHOTOS BY // STAFF SGT. ANDREW LEE VIDEO BY // JIMMY D. SHEA

27 January 2016

Profile of retired Col. Carlyle Harris, a former POW in Vietnam who is credited with introducing the tap code, which the prisoners used to communicate. (U.S. Air Force Video // Jimmy D. Shea)

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Questions consumed Capt. Carlyle S. “Smitty” Harris’ mind in the early days of his eight years as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam.
Harris’ thoughts focused mostly on his pregnant wife and two children back home near Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, Japan. Harris also wondered how the POWs could maintain any semblance of leadership and morale without a way to communicate with each other.
For eight long years of captivity, the questions lingered and gnawed at his mind.
Within five months after he’d joined the 67^th Tactical Fighter Squadron in Thailand, Harris launched his second F-105 Thunderchief mission on Thanh Hoa Bridge April 4, 1965. After Harris hit his target, his F-105 was hit by anti-aircraft fire, and he was forced to eject. About 20 people from a nearby village immediately captured the pilot, and he was quickly surrounded by almost 50 villagers armed with hoes, shovels and rifles. Just as he was about to be shot, an elderly man stepped in because of the government’s orders to capture American pilots alive. Harris remained in captivity for 2,871 days, much of it at the Hoa Lo Prison, which POWs nicknamed the Hanoi Hilton.
After Louise Harris learned her husband was missing, she remained at their home in Okinawa with their two young daughters, Robin and Carolyn, until after their son Lyle was born. Six weeks after Lyle’s birth, she took her family to Tupelo, Mississippi, where her sister lived. Even before she received her first letter from her husband from Vietnam, Louise believed he was alive and made certain the children kept the faith, too. As Lyle grew older, he’d tell his mother, “There goes Daddy,” when an airplane flew overhead.
Shortly after his capture, Harris was placed in a cell in the Hoa Lo Prison, also known as the “Hanoi Hilton,”with four other POWs, and, at that time, he remembered a conversation with an instructor at his survival school training. The instructor had told him about a tap code Royal Air Force POWs used during World War II, and Harris taught the other four POWs the code. Their captors put them back in solitary confinement a few days later, but that only helped them spread the code throughout the seven-cell area, and ultimately, to POWs throughout North Vietnam.
“As we were moved to other camps away from Hanoi, someone always took the tap code with them and was able to pass it on,” said Harris, who retired from the Air Force as a colonel in 1979 and spent the next 18 years working in business, law and marketing in Mississippi. “So no matter where you went in the POW system in North Vietnam, if you heard a tap, the guy on the other side of the wall would respond with two knocks in return, and you’ve started the communication process.”
At the Hanoi Hilton and other POW camps in Vietnam, the tap code was not only a means to communicate with each other, but it also became a lifeline. In the code, the alphabet was arranged on a grid of five rows and five columns without the letter K, which was substituted with C. The first set of taps indicated which row the letter was on, and the second represented the column. So one tap followed by another tap meant the letter A, and a tap followed by two taps indicated B.
As soon as a POW returned from interrogation, he would begin tapping the wall to communicate what happened. When a prisoner returned from a particularly brutal interrogation, as soon as the guard turned the key and left the block, he’d hear a series of taps that communicated three letters: G, B and U for “God bless you.”
When Harris was being interrogated, for strength to resist demands for information, he thought back to his squadron commander in the 67^th TS, Lt. Col. James R. Risner.
“While I was being interrogated the first couple of weeks, when it was pretty darned intense, I thought so much about Robbie Risner,” Harris said. “Mentally, I put Robbie Risner on a stool right beside me. It was my greatest effort to not do or say anything that he would not approve of. That really helped me.”
Risner was later captured, and confirmed the birth of Harris’ son after another POW first relayed the news through the tap code.
As the U.S. began its withdrawal from Vietnam, almost 600 POWs returned home in 1973, and Harris was finally released on Feb. 12. As he looked forward to his reunion with his family at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, one question remained in his mind: the reception with his children after eight years of captivity, especially the 8-year-old son he’d never met.
When Harris stepped into the quarters where his family was waiting, Robin and Carolyn squealed and ran to his arms. “Oh, thank you, Lord,” he said, “they haven’t forgotten.” But when he saw Lyle for the first time, his son didn’t hug him back. However, about a half-hour later, as his father opened his arms, Lyle ran across the room and fell into his embrace.
After eight years, Harris had the answers to all of his questions.

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2016/01/the-code/#sthash.ddVWwosg.dpuf

Missing In America: Grassroots Group Searches For Homeless Vets on LA Streets

STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON // PHOTOS BY STAFF SGT. ANDREW LEE

3 February 2016

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Vet Hunters is a group of Air Force, Army, Marine and Navy veterans who find homeless vets and link them with resources to get them off the street. (U.S. Air Force video by Jimmy D. Shea)

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The homeless military veteran lives mostly in homes made of tarp or tent among the rest of the Skid Row population in downtown Los Angeles. Some of the city’s homeless walk on bare feet or torn socks. Others are missing teeth or limbs. Many reveal vacant expressions of people living for years without all their basic needs met.

CLICK TO VIEW PHOTO GALLERY

Life among the city’s homeless has been described as “running in quicksand” – once a person lands on Skid Row, it’s almost impossible to escape without a hand to pull you out. Fortunately, there’s such a hand reaching for the city’s homeless veterans, no matter the service.
A stocky-built Army veteran searched from behind dark sunglasses as he stepped carefully around the makeshift homes. Some of the people continued sleeping, others talked, and a few engaged him in short conversation. Most of them had often seen Travis Goforth and his companions, easily recognizable in their brightly-colored Vet Hunters Project T-shirts, to know they were not the police. They are the Vet Hunters who search LA streets, underpasses and camps outside of the city for homeless veterans.

Vet Hunter Travis Goforth walks up to the living area of fellow Army Veteran Joqu David on Skid Row. Goforth went to check on him after meeting him the previous day. One of the Vet Hunters’ most important messages they try to convey to every veteran they encounter is that someone cares about them.

“Any veterans here?” Goforth continually called out until he finally found one at the corner of Fifth Street and Gladys Avenue. Within just a few minutes, Joqu David shared an all too familiar story of addiction and homelessness after his military career from the corner where he lived with everything he owned.
“It’s camping,” David said with a shrug. “It’s just like Iraq out here.”
“It’s rough going through a program, brother. I’ll tell you that flat out,” Goforth told him. “But are you tired yet? Tired of using? Walk down there and tell them that.”
The veteran stepped forward to the sidewalk from his makeshift home and hugged Goforth. He’d understood one of the most important messages Goforth tries to convey to every veteran he encounters: Someone cares about them.

Raymond Anthony Capla, an Army veteran, panhandles on roads in central San Gabriel Valley, California, which is also near the place he stays: under the bridge of Ramona Boulevard. Capla served in the Army from 1977 to 82.

“When a veteran reaches out, it’s when they’re at the end of their last rope,” Goforth said. “They’re at that point where they’re either going to change their life, or they’re going to end their life. It helps me to understand because I was once there. I wanted to quit. It taught me when to look for that desperation, and when to reach out and say, ‘Hey, I got you. Come with me.’”
Follow through
Unfortunately, homeless veterans don’t always follow through even after meeting an advocate, such as a Vet Hunter. David promised Goforth he would attend an event just a few blocks away that would have led him to resources, including treatment for his addiction, and get him off the street. But he didn’t show and wasn’t on his corner when Goforth returned several times to find him. Still, the Vet Hunter continued to go back to that corner, determined to find his fellow veteran again.

Stoney Burke, a 64-year-old veteran, plays a guitar at his home after he was found by the Vet Hunters, including Travis Goforth and founder, Joe Leal, in a desert camp in Duarte, California. He has been homeless for more than three years.

Miles from Skid Row in a desert camp outside LA in Duarte, a gray-bearded, shirtless man smoked a cigarette as he lay underneath the shade of a massive tree in a homemade bed he set up on a grocery store fruit stand and bicycle. Several Vet Hunters, including Goforth and Vet Hunters Project founder Joe Leal, had just found Stoney Burke, a 64-year-old veteran in the camp with the San Gabriel Mountains behind it. A few days earlier, Burke moved his bed closer to the dirt road from his original shelter in a circus tent after a close call with a Mojave rattlesnake. Another homeless person in the camp recently died from a snakebite, and Leal promised to get snakebite kits to the camp’s mayor. Mayors serve as the points of contact between the Vet Hunters and people who live in their camps.
“I can tell my story to anybody, and they would believe me if they were a veteran,” Burke said. “If I tell it to somebody who’s not a veteran, it’s so unbelievable, they will never believe me. If he’s a veteran, I respect him from the get-go. I know what he’s been through; he knows what I’ve been through.”
The life on Skid Row may be like quicksand, but many people provide resources to the homeless in the downtown LA site. In the camps, they’re mostly on their own and rely on each other. It’s even bleaker for the homeless trying to get by under the shelter of overpasses.

Julio Cesar Sandova, Travis Goforth and Johnny “The Mayor,” walk under a bridge and through a dried-up aqueduct in El Monte, California. Vet Hunters often do a lot of leg work when going place to place to find homeless vets, because they’re not able to reach many locations by vehicle.

“The difference out here, as you can see from how some of these people are living, is there’s no assistance from the city,” said Julio Cesar Sandoval, an Air Force and Navy veteran who retired as a communications squadron first sergeant in 2014. “Instead, the cities are trying to bounce them back and forth from one to the other because they don’t want them in their city. There are no resources out here at all. So whatever they get, they get from panhandling and standing on the streets asking for assistance. It’s definitely a harder way to survive out here in this environment versus downtown LA.”
Saving lives
Whichever setting veterans are struggling to survive in, the Vet Hunters are driven to find them. To Goforth, a homeless veteran is a brother left behind. Early in Operation Iraqi Freedom, he served as a sergeant in the 137th Quartermaster Company with Leal. On Nov. 15, 2003, their friend, Master Sgt. Kelly Bolor was among 17 service members killed when two UH-60 Black Hawks crashed in Mosul, Iraq. The loss sent Goforth spiraling into alcoholism, drug abuse and on the brink of suicide. Twice, he was about to end his life when an anonymous friend sent a short, but effective message. The first time, Goforth climbed to the top of a mountain where he didn’t believe anyone could reach him because he didn’t think there was cellphone service.
“Right after I stuck the gun to my head, my cellphone went off,” Goforth said. “I couldn’t see my caller ID, and all I heard on the other end of the line was a voice saying, ‘Somebody loves you.’ It stopped me. So I climbed back down the mountain and got rid of the gun. But I still kept doing what I had been doing – drinking and doing dope.
“On my next suicide attempt, I was about to drag my knife up my arm in the backyard of my son’s mother’s house. Right when it hit my arm, my phone went off again, and I got a text message: ‘Somebody loves you.’”
Goforth tried to kill himself one last time, but the rope he used to hang himself snapped in two. So he called his father who took him to the Salvation Army, where he finally found addiction treatment. When he reached the point of making amends and offering himself in service to others, Goforth reached out to his old friend, and Leal told him about the Vet Hunters Project.

Travis Goforth, a Army veteran, is a member of the Vet Hunters. Goforth travels throughout Los Angeles and its outskirts to search for homeless veterans to assist. He often goes with a team of two or more to search anywhere through any terrain, from downtown LA to the San Gabriel Mountains.

Leal founded Vet Hunters in 2010 as a grassroots organization that worked to prevent homelessness among veterans and their families. Leal describes Vet Hunters as a “search and rescue operation.” They find homeless veterans in alleys, abandoned buildings, streets, and under bridges and provide them with necessary information, resources, and supplies.
“I believe that through our daily actions and events, it helps bring us closer to seeing a day where the word ‘homeless’ will never be followed by ‘veteran,’ Leal said.
For years, Los Angeles County has had the nation’s largest concentration of homeless veterans, with the last count at more than 6,500 of the almost 58,000 across the nation. The city’s homeless veteran population increased 6 percent in the last two years. But LA’s overall homelessness rose 12 percent in both the city and county since 2013, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
As winter approaches, the Vet Hunters have other concerns because the temperatures get cold enough in Southern California to endanger the health of people living outdoors 24/7. So, the advocates are often out until early morning hours distributing blankets, jackets, socks, and other clothing items, and even covering up some of the homeless where they lay. While they are specifically looking for military veterans, they also help others while out searching.

Vet Hunter Mayra Galicia talks to a small group of homeless individuals on Skid Row to see if they’re veterans or if they know of any homeless veterans nearby. The Vet Hunters Project is a non-profit organization with volunteers who go out into the community and help veterans who have been misplaced through homelessness.

The life is particularly rough for female veterans. Suicide, a major risk for homeless veterans, is an elevated one for women. According to the Los Angeles Times, female veterans commit suicide at almost six times the rate of other women, based on a government analysis of almost 174,000 suicides in 23 states between 2000 and 2010.
One factor contributing to the problem for women is they often will not identify themselves as veterans and they only ask for help as a last resort, said Kristine Hesse, a women’s veterans outreach director for the National Veterans Foundation. She is a retired Air Force master sergeant who moved to LA after her discharge in 2012.
“Almost 60 percent of veterans are separated with no job and no place to live,” Hesse said. “We just assume we will be able to find a job and a place to live with no problems, and that’s not the case at all.”
Military connection
Fortunately, Vet Hunters has an advantage many other groups don’t. As fellow veterans, they share a common culture and speak the same language as the people they’re searching for. But one major obstacle is that homeless veterans may be accustomed to unfulfilled promises. People are constantly finding them on the streets and telling them they will be back or will make a connection that will help get them and their families to a safe place, only to never see or hear from them again. So Vet Hunters make following up on a connection with a homeless vet a priority.

Vet Hunter Travis Goforth thanks and shakes the hand of a homeless man after getting details of the whereabouts of other homeless veterans on Skid Row. Skid Row is a 54-block area of Los Angeles with thousands of homeless individuals.

“My goal is, at the minimum, to instill hope in each veteran that I run into,” Goforth said. “I want to, at least, have a message of hope that says, ‘You’ve seen me, you’ve met me, and you will see me again.’ The maximum effort that I can put out there is to make them believe that I was once where they are, and if you want help, let’s go.
“Because I know that when I was there at that moment, I couldn’t grasp the fact that people were actually trying to help me. I thought they were trying to tell me that I was some dirt bag because, in my mind, I was a dirt bag.”
The ultimate goal is to get every veteran off the street, but there’s also another important byproduct of Vet Hunters’ search and rescue operation. Even if they can’t immediately convince a veteran to leave the street life many have become comfortable with, they hope they will at least learn they can trust them during the most desperate times.
“I want to make sure that each vet knows that they’re not alone,” Goforth said, “that they have a brother they can reach out at any moment and say, ‘Hey, man, I’m having a bad day.’ That’s when I blow up their phone.”

A group of Vet Hunters including the founder, Joe Leal, are led by a homeless woman, taking them to the residence of a homeless vet in a camp nearby in Duarte, California.

Goforth continued to return to the corner of Fifth Street and Gladys Avenue to find David. He eventually learned that the missing veteran had finally sought treatment in an addiction rehabilitation program. Although his efforts to find him were unsuccessful, Goforth’s message to him was not. That message was simple: “Somebody’s got to love you more than you’ve learned to love yourself.”

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2016/02/missing-in-america/#sthash.smmUtKRT.dpuf

An Original Rosie: Elinor Otto Keeps Moving, Even After Almost 50 Years in Plane Production

STORY BY RANDY ROUGHTON // PHOTOS BY STAFF SGT. ANDREW LEE

8 February 2016

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Elinor Otto was one of the original Rosie the Riveters, the thousands of women who took on jobs for men deployed overseas during World War II. She worked on airplanes for almost 50 years until she was laid off in 2014 at the age of 95 from the Boeing Company plant in Long Beach, California, where she shares a house with her grandson.
(U.S. Air Force Video by Jimmy D. Shea)

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“Whether rain or shine, she’s part of the assembly line. She’s making history, working for victory…”
Long before he learned the role his grandmother played in history, Elinor Otto was John Alexander Perry’s role model. Whenever he had a decision to make, he asked himself one question: “What would grandma do?”
Aside from being the inspiration for her son and grandson, there have been two constants in Otto’s life. She simply cannot sit still for long, and she loves working on airplanes.

Elinor Otto was one of the original Rosie the Riveters, the thousands of women who took on jobs for men who went overseas during World War II. She worked on airplanes for almost 50 years until she was laid off in 2014 at the age of 95 from the Boeing Company plant in Long Beach, California.

“If she had an outlet you could plug into her, you would never sleep again,” Perry said. “There’s nothing about her that’s normal. She just goes and goes and goes and doesn’t stop. She is truly the Energizer Bunny.”
Otto was one of the original the Riveters, the thousands of women who took on jobs for men deployed overseas during World War II. She worked on airplanes for almost 50 years until she was laid off in 2014 at the age of 95 from the Boeing Company plant in Long Beach, California, where she shares a house with her grandson.
“Everything with me is an adventure,” said Otto, who’s now 96 years old. “That’s what life is – one big adventure.”
Perry then pointed to a photograph of his grandmother as a young woman and smiled wistfully.
“See, she was beautiful,” he said. “People wanted grandma to be an actress.”

Elinor Otto was one of the original Rosie the Riveters who replaced men who went overseas during World War II. She worked for Ryan Aeronautical Corporation in San Diego for 14 years until she was laid off. Almost a year later, Otto moved to Long Beach to work for Douglas Aircraft Company, which merged with McDonnell Aircraft and later with Boeing. She was laid off again in 2014 at the age of 95 from Boeing shortly before completing a total of 50 years working on aircraft.

Manual labor
But Otto had no interest in an acting career because she had a destiny – an important one for not only her life, but also for the then-fledgling Air Force and nation.
“I had to work on airplanes,” she said. “They used to ask me, ‘Why do you want to do a man’s job?’ I said, ‘Because you get a lot of exercise, you’re on your feet and move around.’ That’s what I like. I just don’t like jobs where you just sit still all the time.”
Co-workers and visitors would marvel at the sight of Otto at work, moving her hands and stomping her feet along with the vibrations of the riveting gun. But not everyone initially accepted women in jobs usually reserved for men.
“Of course, the men resented hearing that women were going to be working with them, at first,” Otto said. “But after we proved ourselves and proved to them that we were able to keep the schedules up and get the jobs done right, they started respecting us, and we all cooperated together.
“Some of the guys would say, ‘You’re working too hard. You’re making us look bad.’ But I would say, ‘Well, go to work then!’”
Eventually, the men saw that the women worked as hard and as effectively as they did. In fact, the women were often selected to handle the rivet guns because their work was more precise, Otto said.

Elinor Otto holds her rivet gun that she used for the majority of her career to put pieces of military aircraft together. She worked on airplanes for almost 50 years until she was laid off in 2014 at the age of 95 from the Boeing Company plant in Long Beach, California.

“They told us, ‘You women handle the rivet gun. Don’t let the men do it,’” she said. “They wouldn’t let the men do that because we were more careful. With the sets we had to make, it was so easy to make a ding on the skin, and they would have a hard time fixing it.
“Things were smaller then – smaller parts and rivets. Now we need guns that are so heavy. But I could do that, too. I would say, ‘I’m not as frill as I look,’ because I’d been doing it for a long time. I had to tell some of them that I’d been doing this work since before you were born. You had to fight your way sometimes with the men.”
During the war, Otto made 65 cents an hour, which didn’t go far, since she paid $20 a week to board her son while she worked. To motivate themselves before heading to work, Otto and her female co-workers would sometimes sing along with the song, “Rosie the Riveter” by the Four Vagabonds on a .78 rpm phonograph. She still knows the words today: “Whether rain or shine, she’s part of the assembly line. She’s making history, working for victory…”
After the war, Otto worked as a car hop and other equally unsatisfying jobs before she returned to factory work in 1951. She worked for Ryan Aeronautical Corporation in San Diego for 14 years until she was laid off. Almost a year later, Otto moved to Long Beach to work for Douglas Aircraft Company, which merged with McDonnell Aircraft and later with Boeing.
By the end of 2014, when the Air Force ended its relationship with the Long Beach plant, Otto had worked on every Boeing C-17 Globemaster III they had. Throughout her half century working on planes, whether on the C-17, KC-135 Stratotanker, or the Douglas DC-8, McDonnell Douglas D-9 and D-10, Otto’s fast-paced style never changed, mostly because it was the way she worked since childhood. But she admits there was also another reason.
“When I would sit down, they were about ready to call the paramedics,” she said. “They thought that maybe something was wrong with me.”

Rosie pride
Interest in the Rosies peaked a couple of decades later, with the renewed popularity in the “We Can Do It” poster during the women’s rights movement in the 1970s and ‘80s.
“We didn’t know we were doing anything important,” Otto said. “We thought we were just working people, working together for a purpose. We had no idea that this was ever going to happen, that we’d get all of this attention about it. Otherwise, I think I would have taken more pictures.”

Over the years, Elinor Otto has collected many Rosie the Riveter memorabilia items and they’re displayed throughout her house. Many of today’s Rosie the Riveter images come from the iconic “We Can Do It” painting from J. Howard Miller in 1942.

At the age of 12, Otto’s grandson learned about her role during World War II only after he was given a history project on the Rosie the Riveters in junior high school. His father Ronald Arthur Perry told him to write about his grandma.
“Everyone at that point wanted to meet her and talk to her,” John Perry said. “I kind of got swept to the side and grandma was famous.”
Perry and his father introduced Otto to the world through the “Keep the Spirit of ‘45 Alive” group and the Weider History Group, and soon all of the major networks and newspapers were calling. Otto decided on NBC for her first major interview.
“After I was on The Today Show, I walked out in New York City, and here comes everybody. ‘Oh, there’s a Rosie!’ Everybody wanted a picture on their cellphones,” she said. “I think it’s cute, all this stuff they do.”
The awards and recognition also kept coming her way. In 2014, Otto received the Lillian K. Keil Award for Women’s Contributions to the Military from the American Veterans Center for her contributions as a Rosie the Riveter during the war.
“There really are a lot of Rosies left,” Otto said. “Most of them are still healthy, but they didn’t work until they were 95. They weren’t that crazy. In my day, if I were to see an old lady like me working in there, I would have said, ‘What is that old bag doing over there?’ I am so grateful that anybody even cares.”

Elinor Otto reads a memory book that was presented to her by Boeing, recognizing the teams that worked on the C-17 Globemaster III. During her long career, Otto worked on every C-17 Boeing had.

The forced retirement, especially so close to reaching the 50-year milestone of working on airplanes, hurt Otto deeply. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she watched the last C-17 tip its wing goodbye before it left the Long Beach plant for a four-hour flight to Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina.
“The layoff hurt her,” Perry said. “For a long time, she was not grandma. She moped around the house trying to fill her day because she was so used to getting up and going to work. I shed some tears on that, too.”
Since her retirement, it hasn’t been easy for Otto to stay busy but she does the best she can. Her friends and co-workers remain special to her, especially after so many attended the graveside service for her 71-year-old son who died in 2013. So many of her Boeing friends showed up that Otto thought they were coming for another funeral.
Once a month, Otto meets with her former Boeing co-workers at a Long Beach restaurant by the marina in Shoreline Village. Carol Hill, who was in charge of product distribution at the plant, looks up to Otto for her longevity and never-stop attitude.

Throughout her career, Elinor Otto worked on airplanes for almost 50 years until she laid off in 2014. By the end of 2014, when the Air Force ended its relationship with the Boeing Long Beach plant, Otto had worked on every Boeing C-17 Globemaster III they had.

“She’s my idol,” Hill said, “to have worked that long and still have all of her faculties. This woman is remarkable. She was this little person working those big riveting guns, just standing on her stepstool.”
Otto may not be holding her handy riveting gun as she closes in on her 100^th birthday, but she shows no signs of giving up on the motto that got her so far as a Rosie and as a person.
“I just believe that people have to keep moving,” she said. “People are staying healthy longer, and they get bored and want to get out and do something. You don’t want to sit around and do nothing. You can fall apart that way. So just keep moving. That’s the secret to life.”

- See more at: http://airman.dodlive.mil/2016/02/an-original-rosie/#sthash.JyAQZfGM.dpuf