'The Mighty War Wagon:' KC-135's replacement is near, but 50-year-old aircraft still has a few years left to carry AF fuel

An F-16 Fighting Falcon is refueled by a KC-135 Stratotanker during a cross-country flight. The KC-135 also provides aerial refueling support to Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allied nation aircraft.

About 20,000 feet above Valdosta, Ga., Capt. Matthew Swee and Master Sgt. Nancy Primm complete their checklists to prepare their tanker to link up with six A-10 Thunderbolt IIs for a training refueling mission.

KC-135 Stratotankers like the one flown by the 6th Mobility Wing crew from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla., will eventually be replaced by the KC-46A Pegasus. But the 50-year-old airplane the old Strategic Airlift Command alert crews nicknamed “The Mighty War Wagon” still has some years ahead of it and planes to fuel.

“I think the latest generation of tanker crews have kind of lost that concept of ‘The War Wagon,’ because the majority of crew members never sat on alert for SAC. The majority of those boom operators have retired, so the concept of ‘The War Wagon’ and what it was designed to do has been kind of lost over the years,” said Master Sgt. Ernest Burns, the superintendent of a 418th Flight Test Squadron detachment that is testing the KC-46 in Seattle.

Early in his career, Burns was a boom operator with many of the SAC alert crewmembers who came up with the nickname because of the KC-135’s original mission.

“The nickname stems from what the KC-135 was designed to do. It was designed to re-fuel a SAC bomber, specifically the B-52 (Stratofortress), to go to war. So that was where ‘The War Wagon’ came from, it was designed to go to war, to re-fuel the B-52.”

Tech. Sgt. Stephen Shin inspects KC-135 Stratotanker nose gear doors before taking off a training mission. Shin is a crew chief with the 927th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

The KC-135 has been at the core of the Air Force’s aerial refueling mission for more than five decades. The first one flew in 1956, and the Air Force received the latest models nine years later. In the past 13 years, the tankers flew 33,500 sorties and refueled more than 135,000 aircraft with more than 12 billion gallons of fuel, according to Air Force statistics. In addition to refueling, KC-135s have also been used in command post and reconnaissance missions. Life-cycle upgrades, including communications, auto-pilot and surveillance equipment, to the KC-135R/T models expanded their capabilities and made them more reliable.

In 1993, MacDill AFB lost its flying mission when the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission moved the F-16 Fighting Falcon mission to Luke Air Force Base, Ariz. But it began to change with the arrival of the 6th Air Base Wing a year later, followed by the refueling mission in 1996, said 6th Air Mobility Wing historian William R. Polson.

“MacDill was chosen as the site for the KC-135 air refueling mission, in part, because tankers flew fewer flights than the fighters and were less noisy, the tankers were more compatible with the aircraft of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the tankers were compatible with the predominant types of aircraft using the nearby busy airports in Tampa and St. Petersburg,” Polson said.

The 1995 BRAC sent the Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont., refueling mission with 12 KC-135s to MacDill AFB, and the 6th ABW became the 6th Air Refueling Wing, Polson said. In 2005, the Defense Department’s streamlining effort moved four more KC-135s from Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., to MacDill AFB. The base’s active-duty and Reserve KC-135 crews continue to support aircraft in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility with about 1 million pounds of fuel daily, Polson said.

Senior Airman Rowdy Moore washes a KC-135 Stratotanker. Moore is assigned to 6th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

Before Swee, Primm and the rest of their crew took off to meet the A-10s from Moody Air Force Base, Ga., Staff Sgt. Estefano Estrada, Airman 1st Class James Wild-Garcia and other 6th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron members prepared the KC-135 for the mission. As they drew near to the area where they would link, Primm began talking to the pilots and observing how they were flying their aircraft. Handling multiple planes requires the boom operator to become somewhat of a conductor, said Primm, a 91st Air Refueling Squadron boom operator and 6th Operations Support Squadron combat support flight superintendent.

“Aerial refueling is an aerial ballet,” said Primm. “It also takes on the aspect of the boom operator becoming something of a conductor, in that I’m telling this musician that his piece is coming up, and this is how I want you to play it. Once this person has played his piece of music, I’m going to direct him over here, and I’m going to direct you. So I become somewhat of a musical conductor.”

Even as the two planes draw near at 232 mph, Primm keeps her conversation to her pilot at a minimum, maybe telling him over her radio, “He is flying a little low,” or “He is flying a little to the right.” She learned the lesson of both minimal words and a moderate tone from an experienced pilot during boom operator training at Altus Air Force Base, Okla. “I try not to be a chatty Cathy because after a certain point, they’re going to start to tune me out, not because they want to, but because their brains can only handle so much,” she said. “So if I keep my updates to a minimum, then when I do start talking, they’re going to be listening to what I have to say.”

When the planes are linked for refueling, Primm is sometimes close enough to read the pilot’s name tag, she said.

The boom of KC-135 Stratotanker is connected to an A-10 Thunderbolt II during an aerial refueling mission. Once connected, fuel is transferred from the KC-135 to the A-10.

Once the KC-135 disconnects from aircraft it refueled, there isn’t a lot of emotion, whether they just completed a training mission or have given gas to a fighter aircraft in a war zone. All attention is still on the plane, and on the checklists that help make each mission successful and safe.

“Traditionally, we do this a lot, so it’s pretty routine for us because we train every day,” said Swee, a 6th OSS instructor pilot. “In terms of thoughts, what you’re doing is making sure all your safety checklists are complete, that you’re thinking ahead of the airplane, what the weather is down-track and trying to anticipate any issues that might come up while you have airplanes roughly 10 to 12 feet apart like we do.

“As you’re flying through the air, a lot of times you have to overcome turbulence that’s associated with flight, and you have additional air dynamics created from two airplanes interacting with each other,” he said. So, emotions don’t really come into play. There are plenty of things in terms of checklists and safety checks, and basic air traffic control that keep you busy.”

Burns is working on the developmental test for the KC-46A with Boeing and the 418th FTS detachment in Seattle. The new tanker’s first flight is scheduled for this summer in Washington, but Burns believes the KC-135 will be around for a few more decades.

“If you think about it, that airplane first flew 50 years after the Wright Brothers,” Burns said. “It’s really amazing how technology kind of went from the Wright Brothers to the KC-135 in just those 50 years. The first KC-135s rolled off the assembly line in 1955, and the last one was made in 1964, and they’re still around, very capable and reliable.”

From a pod in the rear of a KC-135 Stratotanker, Master Sgt. Nancy Primm connects a refueling boom and transfers fuel to an A-10 thunderbolt II during a training mission over Valdosta, Ga. Primm is a boom operator with the 6th Mobility Wing at MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

    

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Panama City Police Officer Recalls Famous Sheriff

This is an office not unlike one of any other law enforcement official. On one wall are the various medals and awards Lt. James Sauls has earned during his 24 years with the Panama City Beach Police Department.
There’s also a plaque with the words, “A Bad Day Fishin’ Beats a Good Day Workin’, combined with deer and fish trophies and even one of a mountain lion.
But what sets Sauls’ office apart is what is located on the wall to the left of his desk: a replica of legendary Buford Pusser’s stick, popularized in the “Walking Tall” trilogy, and a photograph of the legendary Tennessee sheriff and Joe Don Baker, the actor who portrayed him in the first motion picture.
Sauls befriended Pusser during his many trips to Panama City Beach with his family in the late-1960s before the first “Walking Tall” was released in 1972.
“I got to know him after he talked to one of our officers, and every year after that, he would give me a call and look me up,” Sauls said. “He was a big man, but really friendly. You felt like you had known him all your life. I don’t think he ever met a stranger.”
Pusser was a McNairy County, Tennessee sheriff who became a legend for his efforts fighting bootleggers, gamblers, prostitutes and cutthroats who profited for years along the Tennessee and Mississippi state lines.
He was shot at least eight times, stabbed seven times and killed two people during his six years as sheriff. His wife Pauline was killed in an early-morning ambush on Aug. 12, 1967. Finally, an automobile accident claimed Pusser’s life as he was returning from California and preparing to play himself in “Walking Tall, Part II.” Bo Swenson eventually starred in the final two films in the series.
Sauls recalls that after “Walking Tall” was released, that Pusser told his Northwest Florida fans that the movie overplayed much of the events in his life.
The last time Pusser was in Panama City Beach, Sauls said he felt something was wrong, that he might never see him again. He had planned to bring his daughter back for Labor Day, but was killed in the wreck.
“I had a strange feeling that somebody who had been through what he’d been through, something was going to happen to him,” Sauls said. “to this day, I don’t know why.”

Braves' Smoltz Savors '91 Season

John Smoltz calls 1991 the greatest year of his life, both athletically and personally.
The 23-year-old right-hander pitched in the pennant-clinching victory over the Houston Astros and the seventh game of the National League championship series as the Atlanta Braves drove toward the World Series. And to top it off, two months ago, his wife gave birth to their first child.
Yet, as happy as Smoltz has been lately, one question gnaws at him as he and his teammates look forward to beginning spring training later this month in West Palm Beach, Fla.: What would happen if he pitched as well during the entire 1992 season as he did in the second half of 1991?
Smoltz almost lost his spot in the starting rotation, as he won only two of his 13 decisions in the first half of the season. But following the All-Star break, he was a different pitcher. He went 12-2 with a 2.62 earned run average to help Atlanta to a 94-68 record, an improvement of 29 victories over 1990.
With the help of a personal psychologist to help his mental approach, Smoltz didn’t lose a decision after Aug. 15. He recorded the two clinching victories for the Braves in the pennant race and pitched well enough to win the seventh game of the World Series. Smoltz left a scoreless game in the eighth inning, and Minnesota’s Jack Morris beat the Braves 1-0 to give the Twins the world championship.
In the past two seasons, Smoltz is 5-24 in the first half of the season and 23-4 in the second. This tale of two seasons in something Smoltz would like to put behind him.
“I wonder what could happen if I put together two second halves in the same season,” he said. “But very few guys do that because it’s so tough to do. It’s a 36-game season. The reason I believe it’s so tough to be dominant all year is you go through 18 games in the first half of the season and 18 games in the second half, so you’re realistically starting all over after the All-Star game. This year, I’m not setting any major goals as far as numbers. I just want to retain the same focus all year.”
Whenever the subject of the Braves’ 1991 season comes up, the word miracle isn’t far behind. But everything didn’t fall neatly into place as Atlanta made its trip to the World Series. The Braves endured injuries to David Justice and Sid Bream and lost lead-off man Otis Nixon to a drug suspension during the final stretch.
Yet, the one constant was pitching. In addition to Smoltz’s 14-13 record, Cy Young winner Tom Glavine was 20-11, 20-year-old Steve Avery won 18 games, and Charlie Leibrandt won 15.
The Braves hope to find a fifth starter this spring, and it is expected to be either Pete Smith, Armando Reynoso or Mike Bielecki, a winter acquisition from the Chicago Cubs.
“We believe we have the core of personnel in place to be a contender at the very least,” said Atlanta manager Bobby Cox. “We think we have a pitching staff that compares favorably with any in the game. (The starters) went virtually all of 1991 without missing a turn. That took some luck, sure, but it also reflects their top-flight conditioning and work ethic.
“Maybe they can’t do it again, but I think they can put up similar numbers.”
Smoltz agrees with Cox. But he expects Braves’ pitching to be better than it was in 1991.
“I think it can be better,” he said. “We’ve got the best five starters in the game. The bullpen is solid. We’ve become one of the best-run teams in baseball, and it’s taken us a long time to get to this point.
“We’ve got the maturity, experience and some awesome talent coming back. To my knowledge, nobody else will have that.”
The Braves acquired Smoltz from the Detroit Tigers on Aug. 12, 1987. He was called up from Triple A-Richmond the following season. Since coming to the major leagues, Smoltz has compiled a 42-29 record.
Smoltz’s best year got even better last week. He agreed to a one-year contract with the Braves to avoid arbitration. Smoltz was asking for $1.75 million, but signed for $1.525 million.
“It’s really been a different kind of off-season than it’s been in the past,” Smoltz said. “It’s been the greatest year of my life so far. When we won the division, I thought that was the best thing that could happen to me. Then, we won the pennant, and I thought that was.
“I thought the game after we won those World Series games in Atlanta. Then, my son was born, and that beat everything.”

Overcoming Adversity: MS Victim Realizes Dream of Coaching Baseball

Houston County High School’s baseball team hasn’t hit a lucky streak in Bill Lovrich’s first season at the school. But the coach tells himself wins will come.
He also knows the mere fact that he’s back on the baseball field is a victory itself.
The 34-year-old Lovrich has multiple sclerosis.
“Every morning, I wake up and check to see if my eyes open and if my hands work,” he said. “If they work, I say, ‘Thank goodness. The day’s going to be good.’
“Every day is an adventure.”
But the days are also often long. His wife Annette said Lovrich usually gets out of bed at 5:10 a.m., leaves their home near Wicksburg at 6:20 for work in Columbia, and there are nights he doesn’t get in until after 11:30 p.m. He also must give himself injections of Betaseron every other day.
Lovrich played baseball at Jacksonville State University and comes from a family of baseball coaches. His father Frank, a former vice president of Troy State University at Dothan, was also head coach at JSU. His brother Marty is an assistant at Auburn University at Montgomery.
About one-third of Americans, including comedian Richard Pryor, have been diagnosed with MS. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, often disabling disease of the central nervous system, according to the Multiple Sclerosis Society Alabama Chapter in Birmingham.
Symptoms may be mild, such as numbness in the limbs, or severe, causing paralysis or loss of vision. Most people are diagnosed between the ages of 20 and 40.
The diagnosis was tough for Lovrich’s family, especially his brother and his wife. But it as Annette Lovrich who helped bring her husband out and take a positive attitude toward his disease.
“I was driving my family crazy,” he said. “She was the one who helped bring me out of my depression.”
“He went through almost a three-year period of really being negative,” Annette said. “Basically, I just told him I wasn’t going to let it control my life, and he needed to take a different outlook.
“He had to have adequate time to go through all those emotions to deal with it. But there also comes a time when enough is enough. After all of the changes in our lives from the time he began teaching and coaching, he’s gotten back to being more of the person I originally got to know.”
Lovrich’s problems began in October 1995 when he felt numbness in his left arm while working on the Cubmobile Derby for the recreation department. By the next morning, the sensation had spread across his chest and back, and he thought he might be suffering a heart attack or stroke.
Doctors first thought it might be a pinched nerve, then maybe carpal tunnel syndrome, but the symptoms worsened as the couple was on the way to spend Christmas with Annette’s family in Boone, N.C.
Neurologist Dr. Alan Prince was the first to mention MS, and the diagnosis was confirmed by Dr. John Whitaker at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Kirklin Clinic.
“I didn’t know what my future was,” Lovrich said. “I thought I might be in a wheelchair. I certainly never thought I’d be coaching again.”
 Although Lovrich feels fortunate to have the relapse remitting form of the disease (meaning the symptoms go from active to dormant), his diagnosis eight years ago forced him into a career change. He had to give up his job in the recreation department, which demanded he spend much of the day in the heat, and decided he wanted to teach.
So Lovrich went to Montgomery and shared an apartment with his brother while he worked as an AUM baseball assistant coach and earned his master’s degree in 1996.
“That was when he became like a big brother to me,” Lovrich said.
He first landed substitute teaching jobs in Headland and Enterprise before he took a teacher-coach position at New Brockton. There, he led the Gamecocks to its first winning season in its baseball history. He moved on to Columbia last year.
Lovrich describes himself as an intense coach. In his first year at Houston County, the team defeated Ashford for the first time in several years, although the season has gone somewhat sour since.
But Lovrich is learning to keep the game in perspective. The past couple of years have taught him that.
“I like to let the team know it’s not life or death,” he said. “There was a time when I was playing when I thought the game was life or death and had to learn it’s just fun.
“When you’re young and an athlete, you think your body’s going to last forever. Now I listen when my body tells me it’s time to slow down. Even though I’m pretty healthy, I know something can go wrong at any time. It’s like a time bomb – you just don’t know when it will happen.
“So I want to be positive, upbeat and be the best teacher, coach and husband I can be.”

Lessons from Space: Retired Pilot Col. Eileen Collins Relates Shuttle Concepts to Everyday Life

The year 1978 was almost as big a year for the space program as it was for disco. That was the year NASA officials hired their first space shuttle
pilots and also opened the field to women.
Retired Col. Eileen Collins was one of four women who were chosen that year for
undergraduate pilot training at Vance Air Force Base, Okla.
Eleven years after Colonel Collins completed her pilot training, a Seattle Times article called her “as hot a property as the Air Force had.” She eventually became the first woman to pilot and command a space shuttle.
Despite Skylab’s demise and Voyager’s rough start that year, 1978 proved to be a pivotal year for NASA and the 21-year-old training pilot who would accomplish so many firsts for the space program during her 16-year career as
an astronaut. While that year was the beginning of a string of firsts
during her Air Force and NASA career, Colonel Collins never considered anything impossible because of her gender, dating back to reading about famous pilots as a child. She assumed no woman had done it yet because none had tried.
She would try.
“About a week before I got there, NASA sent some of their shuttle astronauts to Vance for parachute training,” Colonel Collins said. “I remember reading
about it because it was in all the newspapers: ‘the first women astronauts at Vance Air Force Base.’
“That was when I thought I was learning to be a pilot, so there was no reason I couldn’t apply for a pilot’s job on the shuttle. That was the first year
I had a no-kidding, realistic chance at becoming an astronaut. Everything prior to that was just a pipe dream. So, 1978 was a real turning point for men and women at NASA.”
Interest in airplanes and astronauts began early for Colonel Collins, who grew up in Elmira, N.Y. She remembers her mother getting her out of bed when she was 12 to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon in 1969. In fourth grade, she read a Junior Scholastic article about the Gemini program.
As a teenager, she read books about Amelia Earhart, Jackie Cochran and Women’s
Airforce Service Pilots, but also books about male pilots, particularly those in combat.
“I would read about the military side of flying, mostly because there was so much written about it,” she said. “I just couldn’t get enough, not just of flying, but also of POWs and how the war was fought. I had this interest in military history and strategy.”
After Colonel Collins completed pilot training, she stayed at Vance as a T-38 Talon instructor pilot. Three years later, she volunteered for duty in combat fighters: the F-106 Delta Dart, F-15 Eagle and A-10 Thunderbolt II, but she had to revise her wish list because of the combat exclusionary law, which limited women’s participation in combat.
She flew the C-141 Starlifter at Travis AFB, Calif., and left in 1989 for Edwards AFB, Calif., where she became the second female pilot in the Air Force
Test Pilot Program. Before long, NASA officials selected her as an astronaut. Colonel Collins always believed her experience in the T-38 and C-141 gave her a major advantage with the selection board.
“I can’t emphasize enough how extremely important it was for me,” she said. “The T-38 is a high-performance jet aircraft trainer. You can
do acrobatics, formation and instrument flying. It’s the real thing. It has an ejection seat. You can kill yourself if you make bad decisions, or if the
aircraft has a malfunction and you’re not prepared to handle it. I got to talk on the radio, fly and navigate, all at the same time. That training is critical for flying in space.
“The C-141, on the other hand, while it wasn’t flip upside-down acrobatics,
the important thing about a crew airplane like that is you learn to manage a mission and you manage a crew. As an aircraft commander, your position is very important, not just to make sure the mission is safely completed, but you
have to lead your crew and manage your mission. When the astronaut selection board asked me that question, I tried to be as humble as I could, but if you think about the shuttle mission, it’s actually closer to the C-141 mission than it is to flying a fighter.”
Colonel Collins first piloted a space shuttle in 1995 on Space Transportation
System-63, a mission that involved a rendezvous and close-approach flight test of Discovery and the Russian space station Mir. She received the Harmon Trophy
for completing the historic mission as the first female shuttle pilot and returned to space two years later as pilot for STS-84 on Atlantis.
In July 1999, Colonel Collins became the first female shuttle commander on STS-93 with Columbia, which deployed the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the third of NASA’s four major observatories. She and her crew had to deal with two serious
incidents in the first few seconds of the mission.
“The first one was a hydrogen leak in one of our engines that started prior to liftoff,” Collins said. “The second problem was five seconds after liftoff. We had an electrical short that was due to all of the shaking. One of the wire
bundles had been rubbing against a screw head during maintenance, and some of the insulation was worn off.
“The wire-to-metal contact caused an interruption of power that caused some
of our water pumps to slow down and the two main engine controllers completely failed. The short was intermittent, so the power came back and the pumps restarted, but once a main engine controller fails, it’s gone. Fortunately, there are two main controllers on each engine, so we didn’t lose an engine. But we lost the redundancy of the controllers and that scared a lot of people. The shuttle was grounded for six months until they fixed these problems.”
After the Columbia disaster that killed all seven astronauts in 2003, NASA grounded the shuttle program for more than two years. In July and August 2005, Colonel Collins commanded the Return to Flight mission on STS-114 that tested a series of shuttle safety improvements, inspection tools and fuel tank
modifications, and restocked the International Space Station. She also became
the first astronaut to fly the shuttle through a complete 360-degree pitch maneuver so astronauts on the space station could photograph the shuttle’s underside to ensure there was no debris-related damage that could destroy the
shuttle upon re-entry into the earth’s atmosphere.
Although the mission was successful, a large piece of foam still fell from the tank. The shuttle program was grounded for another year until NASA engineers completely corrected the problem.
“The big decision was whether the shuttle was ever going to fly again,” Colonel
Collins said. “To me, the answer was obvious: the shuttle should fly again. The mission of the shuttle was to build the space station and resupply the space station. Now, we’ve done that; the space station is 99 percent built. The shuttle will stop flying now because the mission is essentially over.”
As when Colonel Collins was named the first female shuttle commander, she faced
a whirlwind of media interviews before the Return to Flight mission. However, the tone had changed because of the nation’s concerns over the space program after the destruction of Challenger in 1986 and Columbia 17 years later.
“Back in 1999, when I became the first woman commander, and in 1995, when I
was named the first woman shuttle pilot, a lot of it was kind of hokey,” Colonel Collins said. “‘How does it feel to be the first woman?’ ‘What do people think?’ It was a lot of fluff, and I didn’t like doing that.
“But when we got the Return to Flight mission, people at that point didn’t care if it was a woman commander or not. Things were much more serious. It was all about, ‘Did we learn from the accident?’ ‘Are we getting the shuttle back
into space and are we going to get it back safely?’.
“I knew there was a need to get our message out to the country [about] what we
were doing, so I did every media request I could possibly do. We just had a horrible accident, and that changes people. It changed me.”
Since she retired from NASA in 2006, Colonel Collins has maintained a presence in the space program. She serves as chairperson of the NASA Advisory Council Space Operations Committee and has remained busy on the consulting and speaking circuit, along with spending time with her husband and their two children.
Colonel Collins also hopes to
write her autobiography soon and thinks the timing is right, as the shuttle program comes to a close. One of her biggest concerns, whether she’s sharing
her expertise as a space shuttle expert on the major news networks or speaking to audiences, is whether or not lessons were learned from
the Challenger and Columbia tragedies.
“Many of the lessons learned from Challenger were forgotten, leading up to the Columbia accident in 2003, which is why NASA needs to keep teaching those lessons,” Colonel Collins said. “I don’t care if you’re working in science, aeronautics, Earth observation or human space flight, you’ve got to learn
those lessons. They are very good lessons and apply to your family life, as well as your school or work life, even if you aren’t in the space program.
They are also very heartbreaking lessons.
“These lessons include being a better listener and approaching your job with a
sense of humility, relying on your co-workers, thoroughly testing all the hardware and creative thinking. Yes, foam can break a heat shield. We thought there’s no way this light piece of foam could break a heat shield, but it can if it’s going fast enough.
“Those are very big lessons I think we need to make sure we learn.”

PTSD: Facing the Monster

The sound of a helicopter hovering above a Boston park snapped Maj. (Dr.) Derek Speten's thoughts from a relaxing day with his family back to a trauma bay in Iraq. For Capt. Kevin Lombardo, the sight of blood on his face in a recurring nightmare convinced him his mind was still struggling to cope with witnessing a deadly rocket attack on a Humvee. Master Sgt. Justin Jordan found himself disassociating for hours and driving 20 mph on an Albuquerque interstate.
Their symptoms and triggers may vary, but all three men were among the many Air Force members who have experienced post-traumatic stress disorder after returning from deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Something's going to trigger it," said Dr. Speten, commander of the 66th Medical Group Diagnostics and Therapeutics Flight at Hanscom Air Force Base, Mass. "That trigger could be a smell or a sound. You might hear a helicopter or the backfire of a muffler and see somebody jump to the ground and lie there for a second. Other people may laugh and think it's funny, but the thing that's not funny is that person has gone back to their trauma."

When Dr. Speten first saw the two Soldiers who were brought to the Joint Base Balad hospital trauma bay after being hit with an improvised explosive device Feb. 14, 2007, he initially thought his patient's wounds weren't as severe as the other patient's. The Soldier had third-degree burns, but he'd applied tourniquets to his companion's leg to keep him alive until they could reach the trauma bay.

When Dr. Speten looked into his patient's throat, he saw the Soldier was severely burned internally. the doctor's head trauma surgeon decided the burns weren't survivable, so the patient was moved to end-of-life comfort care. While they know they're easing the patient's suffering, playing a role in end-oflife comfort care is usually traumatic for any medical professional, Dr. Speten said.

"It's psychologically devastating to most people who are involved in it because you're in the career field to save people, not to euthanize patients out in the combat zone," he said. "You want to save everybody. The problem you have is you don't get that opportunity all the time. You just have to remind yourself you're not the reason they're there."

Before the patient was moved, he told Dr. Speten he didn't want doctors to cut off his wedding ring. Because the doctor didn't yet know the severity of the injuries, his main concern was the risk of cutting off circulation and losing the finger. This would haunt him later after he returned from Iraq.

"Before I looked into his throat and saw what his airway looked like, I would've thought he was going to come out of that trauma bay," Dr. Speten said. "The guilt factor came in for me when I had to stop him in midsentence. I told him we needed to secure an airway and he could tell me everything once he woke up. The problem was he didn't wake up."

Thirteen months after Dr. Speten treated the IED victim, on March 12, 2008, Captain Lombardo responded to an attack on an armored Suburban near the main gate at Contingency Operating Base Adder in Iraq. The attack killed three of the five Soldiers in the vehicle, but Captain Lombardo, an Air Force security forces officer serving as provost marshal for the base, saved one of the two survivors. He moved Army Sgt. Joel Tavera a safe distance from the truck, put a tourniquet on his leg and talked with him for the next half-hour to keep him conscious.

Later, Captain Lombardo dealt with the aftermath of the attack, including a memorial service for the three Soldiers killed in the explosion. Several months after he'd returned to his home station at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., he began to feel the emotional repercussions of seeing three comrades die so violently. The captain felt guilty because he wasn't able to save all five soldiers. He knew he was suffering from PTSD symptoms, but he was concerned the stigma would put his security clearance and ultimately his job in jeopardy. Recurring nightmares of blood streaming down his face, explosions and soldiers dying convinced him to get help.

"The smell, sounds, sights, touch and even taste are still there from that day," said Captain Lombardo, now the Security Forces Academy director of operations at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. "You go from being in Iraq to the normal day-to-day setting on an Air Force base. Physically, I was fine, but I knew I wasn't as mentally sharp as I was."

Recent Air Force efforts to address PTSD include the Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Application for Post-traumatic Stress, now available at mental health clinics at Andrews, Eglin, Elmendorf, Lackland, Langley, McGuire, Travis and Wright- Patterson Air Force bases. The virtual-reality program addresses the patient's avoidance to re-visit violent and other unpleasant memories from their trauma. In a controlled setting with a therapist's guidance, patients put themselves back among the sights, sounds and smells of the original trauma with either a scene of a foot patrol in an Iraqi city or a Humvee convoy in Afghanistan or Iraq. Therapists can add in sounds of helicopters, explosions and dogs barking and even smells such as burning rubber, body odor, diesel fuel, and weapons firing.

"The intent is to be able to utilize a variety of senses whenever you're doing the exposure," said Dr. Kellie Crowe, director of Wilford Hall Medical Center's PTSD Clinic at Lackland. One of the PTSD clinic's missions is to train psychology interns in PTSD treatment, so they can treat it at their next duty station and in Afghanistan and Iraq, Dr. Crowe said.

"Some people are unwilling or unable to do the imagining part that's necessary," she said. "The virtual reality assists those people in bringing back those senses. Avoidance is the primary symptom that maintains PTSD. This kind of puts it right there in front of them and allows the therapist to work with them to start abating that emotional distress."

Sergeant Jordan's PTSD service dog, an English bulldog named Dallas, helps him fight the avoidance behaviors he's learned are part of his PTSD. Before he became the Air Force Inspection Agency's lead checklist program manager at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., the sergeant worked on numerous mortuary affairs cases at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.

"On my last deployment, I sent 71 guys home in a box," he said as Dallas slept at his feet on the floor. "You just have to put it into a place in the back of your brain."

The one death Sergeant Jordan couldn't compartmentalize happened in September 2007 when a friend was killed in a forklift accident on base. He sought help and was treated with a form of rapid eye movement therapy. He thought he'd put his PTSD behind him after he left his mortuary affairs duties for the AFIA assignment, but within months after arriving at Kirtland, he witnessed a shooting at a building just outside the base gate. Two people were killed and four were wounded before the shooter killed himself.

"It reverted me right back to where I was, and the flashbacks were worse," Sergeant Jordan said. "I was driving home 20 mph down the highway because I was positive the tires were going to pop. It seems silly and juvenile, but you could be sitting right next to me and tell me, 'Dude, everything's going to be fine.' It wasn't going to be fine to me. This was about to happen now.

"The overwhelming thing that I think we all have in common is the unwillingness to want to have PTSD. Everyone of us expresses guilt because as young men and women, we're taught to suck it up and quit being less of a man or woman. With PTSD, that's impossible."

Just as the original traumatic events that trigger PTSD and the symptoms vary, each patient responds differently to treatment. The two most common effective types of treatment, according to a number of PTSD experts, are cognitive processing and prolonged exposure therapy. The WHMC PTSD Clinic staff predominantly has used these approaches with the approximately 170 patients who have been treated.

Cognitive processing allows patients to understand how their thoughts about what happened can intensify their symptoms. Often, this helps patients who somehow blame themselves for a traumatic event. Through exposure therapy, patients learn to change how they react to painful memories.

"Both therapies are exposure-based," Dr. Crowe said. "Prolonged exposure has the individual access the memory, both in imagining while in a session with the provider, but also in real life, where they go out and do homework assignments to start re-engaging in things they were avoiding, like restaurants and movie theaters. That allows them to build confidence in reintegrating back into the things they enjoy.

"The face of PTSD has changed so much. PTSD is treatable, and we have evidence-based treatments to support that. Generally, there's not a career impact just from seeking treatment. The career impact comes when the symptoms get out of control. It would be unfortunate for someone to get to that point when there are treatments available."

Sergeant Jordan has found that his PTSD service dog, which was trained through the Paws and Stripes nonprofit organization, helps him curtail his symptoms before they can get out of control. He received permission from the AFIA commander to bring Dallas to work each day. Dallas has her own area near Jordan's desk and will tug on his shirtsleeve several times an hour to keep him from "zoning out."

"She can sense my brain chemistry," Sergeant Jordan said. "When it changes, if I'm having an attack, she'll climb in my lap or bark at me because it scares her. She won't let me stay in that situation. A lot of times, I have to keep her calm, so I can't go to that place."

Both Dr. Speten and Captain Lombardo benefitted from cognitive processing therapy as they gradually accepted their PTSD. With Dr. Speten, the breakthrough came when he found a therapist who'd actually experienced life in a war zone. They also each found something they considered special outside of counseling that had a direct impact on their recovery.

Captain Lombardo built a friendship with the Soldier he saved and found himself inspired by Sergeant Tavera's attitude through his long rehabilitation and numerous surgeries. Through his own therapy, Captain Lombardo learned the blood on his face in his recurring nightmare belonged to Sergeant Tavera. On the day of the attack, a firefighter poured a bottle of saline over his head and hands to wash blood from his face after the sergeant was taken from the scene.

"His inspiration and fight made me realize I needed to stop second guessing myself for that day," Captain Lombardo said. "Obviously, you have that line with officer and enlisted. The line's still there with us, but it merged a lot on March 12, 2008, just as the line did between Army and Air Force. He's my new wingman, and I'm hopefully his battle buddy now."

Dr. Speten took the wingman concept to a new level after losing his patient in the Balad trauma bay. When he learned the Soldier had been an avid runner who dreamed of running the Boston Marathon, Dr. Speten decided to run the race in his honor. The doctor trained for more than a year and competed in seven smaller marathons before he finished the Boston Marathon in April 2010. Whenever training became tough, he thought of the Soldier who'd not only endured a horrific attack before succumbing to his injuries, but helped save the life of his companion by applying tourniquets to his partially severed leg.

"Whenever I thought about quitting, I just thought about what this person went through," Dr. Speten said. "Then, [my discomfort] became almost insignificant. It actually made me feel better and I think it was part of the healing process."

After Dr. Speten completed the race, he mailed his Boston Marathon jersey, T-shirt and medal to the Soldier's family. He continues to run races in honor of fallen service members and often runs with his 5-yearold son in a stroller in some of the smaller events. He believes this also has helped his recovery.

"Whenever you get deployed, your family's on the back burner, and when you come back, it's nice to be able to do something that allows you to be involved with them," Speten said. "He doesn't need to know why right now. He understands that we run, and we'll give the medals to people who are deserving of them. Every time we do this, it gets people out there to know that there are people still coming back. These are people who had goals and dreams, and they're not just going to go away. Just because that person is no longer here to compete it doesn't mean somebody else can't pick up the torch and carry it for them."

One thing Airmen returning home from deployments can learn from stories like those of Dr. Speten, Captain Lombardo and Sergeant Jordan is to be proactive about their own treatment. Active-duty members can request an evaluation at their mental health clinic and have rights to confidentiality as long as they do not pose a threat of injury to themselves or others, Dr. Crowe said.

Simply because Airmen haven't identified symptoms yet doesn't mean they escaped unscathed from trauma they experienced or witnessed. The worst thing they can do is to try to hide their challenges for fear of losing their career, family and friends. After finding the help they needed, Captain Lombardo found peace when he learned the source of the blood in his disturbing dreams and Dr. Speten is no longer afraid of helicopters.

"It's a scar," Dr. Speten said. "Somebody's put holes in me, and you can't cover them up. The holes are still visible, but it doesn't affect how I live the rest of my life."

'Angel Is Next:' Ex-Air Force One Pilot Recalls Crew's Response to Threats on 9/11

Retired Col. Mark Tillman knew two commercial airliners had crashed into the World Trade Center when he took Air Force One into the sky above Sarasota, Fla., the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. But soon President Bush’s Air Force One pilot heard the warning Vice President Dick Cheney gave the president, and three words began the series of evasion flights throughout the country that day:
“Angel [the presidential airplane’s call sign at the time] is next.”
“It’s a big sky, so for anybody to attack us, you’re normally thinking it’s going to be somebody on the ground with some kind of man-powered rocket or some kind of fighter coming in to shoot you down,” Tillman said. “But on this day, it was in your own country. On Sept. 11, it was America.”
The president’s staff and Air Force One crew learned later that it was a false alarm, but at the time Tillman was taking no chances. Information at the time was that there could be as many as seven to 10 hijacked airliners.
President Bush learned that American Airlines Flight 11 had crashed into the North Tower before a scheduled stop to promote his education bill at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. When Chief of Staff Andrew Card told the president, “A second plane has hit the World Trade Center. America is under attack,” Tillman was watching the events unfold on TV on board the Boeing VC-25.
“That’s when the staff starts getting into gear, advising the president of what is going on,” Tillman said. “You can actually start hearing the radios between the Secret Service, the staff and a lot of agencies around the world.
“I have to assume the worst. I assume the president was about to be under attack, so we got everything ready with the plane. All I was trying to do was make sure that when it was time to get the president on board, I knew exactly where to take him, how much gas, the right support, as well as the right firepower to make sure the president would be safe the whole time.”
Air Force One left Sarasota at about 9:55 a.m., with an armed guard at the cockpit door while Secret Service agents double-checked identities of passengers. Just before departure, Tillman saw a man at the end of the runway with a video camera, so he took the VC-25 in the opposite direction.
“Air Force One, you have unidentified aircraft behind you,” Jacksonville Center told Tillman as he made his ascent above Florida. “They’ve shut their transponder off, they’re above you and descending into you.”
But as Tillman turned toward the Gulf of Mexico, the plane didn’t follow. It turned out to be just an airliner that had lost its transponder.
“But the whole day was like that,” he said. “The whole day, there were threats that weren’t really threats, but you still had to counter them. On that day, we were concerned somebody had followed us, and we were the next target. We were told Air Force One was going to be next, so we had to counter that.”
The president decided not long after that false alarm that he wanted to be on the ground so he could address the American people. The staff considered Pope Air Force Base, N.C., but decided instead to leave the East Coast for an Air Combat Command or Strategic Air Command base. Tillman and military aides chose Barksdale Air Force Base, La., because of the high security due to the B-52 Stratofortress mission. Air Force One radio operators notified the Barksdale command post at the last second, and the wing commander had to prepare the base within minutes to receive the president.
“The Air Force rocked that day,” Tillman said. “They did everything perfect, but that’s the beauty of the Air Force. You don’t need to get the [crisis action team] together and spend hours working a checklist. When something happens, everybody knows what their job is to make it happen. That’s what they did that day, and not only there, but all across the country.
“Offutt Air Force Base [Neb.] did the exact same thing. Andrews Air Force Base [Md.] knew they had to receive the president of the United States. They’re used to doing it every day for the president, but on that day, it was different. On Sept. 11, there was an actual threat against the president.”
After leaving Barksdale, the fighter support Tillman requested arrived at 11:30 a.m., with four Texas Air National Guard F-16 Fighting Falcons from the 147th Fighter Wing based at Ellington Field in Houston. Air Force One landed at Offutt, but took off again at 4:33 p.m. after staff determined the situation in Washington had settled down enough to bring the president back.
“Everybody on the plane was preparing for what needed to be done for the country,” Tillman said. “What a lot of people don’t understand was on Air Force One, the president had all of his top leaders with him. He had the ability to connect with any of the military leadership. He had his chief of staff and Secret Service with him. Everything was on board in a self-contained package, so he could make a lot of great decisions for the country on board, and that was what the president was doing.”
As Air Force One made its journey across the Midwest, the Texas ANG F-16s were joined by other fighters, including F-16s from Andrews and Langley Air Force Base, Va., as the president’s plane approached Washington. Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, one of the pilots from the D.C. Air National Guard, gave the president a thumbs-up from just off Air Force One’s wing.
“I can’t speak for the president, but for me to look out and see a fighter pilot right there with you, that’s the classic Air Force mission,” Tillman said. “You’ve got the fighter on your wing, and he’s protecting the president of the United States. It just doesn’t get any better than that.”
But Tillman made a 360-degree turn over the Shenandoah Valley to allow the Texas fighters to catch up because he wanted the F-16s from President Bush’s home Guard unit to lead Air Force One into Andrews.
“My message since Sept. 11 has been the military trains day in and day out,” Tillman said. “But we don’t train for airliners hitting buildings, and we don’t train for fighters to escort Air Force One. It’s the beauty of the U.S. Air Force and the military as a whole that we can adapt to all the changes that can occur.”
During the next seven years, Tillman returned President Bush to New York numerous times, including for Sept. 11 anniversary ceremonies. But he wasn’t able to attend Ground Zero himself until after he and the president retired following President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009.
“Everyone needs to go there to see that and remember the thousands who were killed that day,” Tillman said. “The procedures that President Bush, his administration and the military have put into place have saved us, and the same with President Obama and his folks.
“But no one can forget what happened on Sept. 11. A lot of people were killed, not only in the towers, but also at the Pentagon, and that was unacceptable. We’ve got to be ready, and we will continue to be ready, but we lost a lot of our brothers and sisters that day.”

Scrambled on Sept. 11: F-15 Pilot Saw All Three Axioms of a Fighter Pilot at Work as He Patrolled the Skies

The voice of a Boston Center controller came across Maj. Martin Richard’s F-15 Eagle radio on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.
“There’s something going on in New York,” the controller said. “I think you guys need to get back to your base.”
Richard confirmed what the controller told him on his squadron operations frequency, and soon his radio was buzzing with communications.
“It sounds like we are at war,” Richard said to his wingman as he turned his formation of F-15s from the Whiskey 105 training area over the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Long Island, N.Y., and headed back to Otis Air National Guard Base, Mass.
As a 102nd Fighter Wing pilot, Richard was no stranger to working alerts. The wing at Otis ANGB under Air Combat Command had been on alert for more than 35 years and worked closely with the Northeast Aerospace Defense Command and the Northeast Air Defense Sector, now the Eastern Air Defense Sector. During the Cold War, F-15s from Otis were regularly sent to intercept and escort Soviet bombers that drifted up and down the East Coast. Since the Cold War, they were used mainly for drug interdiction missions. The last three scrambles Richard responded to were for a U.S. Coast Guard jet, Navy destroyer and a fish-spotting airplane.
On Sept. 11, Richard was on his way to a routine Defensive Counter Air Mission in the Whiskey 105 area. Instead, his new orders were to intercept and identify aircraft above New York, and if they didn’t respond, be prepared to shoot down.
“I flew for seven hours, but it seemed like I flew for 45 minutes,” Richard said. “What I remember most is the picture of arriving over New York and having the whole lower Manhattan covered in smoke and haze, and thinking that we thought the towers had fallen over on their side, and there had been massive casualties. For the next six or seven hours, we were just running intercepts on planes and helicopters they needed to identify.”
Richard, now a lieutenant colonel and chief of combat operations for the 102nd Air Operations Group at Otis, included many of his observations of Sept. 11 in his business leadership book, “Scrambled – The Secrets of High Pressure Leadership I Used on Sept. 11, 2001. The recently released 10-year edition of Richard’s book includes a forward by 9/11 witness Gil Sanborn, who was nearby in World Financial Center 3 during the World Trade Center attacks and is now an investment banker in New York.
He also shares how the three axioms of the fighter pilot were put into action above the nation’s skies that day. Those axioms are: Speed is Life, Lose Sight, Lose Fight, and Check Six.
“With the first one, our mission was to get airborne as quickly as possible,” Richard said. “I remember thinking at the time I didn’t know what I was going to be able to do, but I really just wanted to get up in the air because that’s where I needed to be.
“With Lose Sight, Lose Fight, there was just so much going on that morning, and we had so many bogus intelligence reports that it really made us focus on our objective at hand, which was regaining air superiority over the country. Check Six was just that mutual support thing. We really worked together well, even though we were in different aircraft, to sort of get the big picture, which was what NORAD needed from us.”
For the first five years after 9/11, Richard wouldn’t look at anything related to the terror attacks. He didn’t even learn until after the fifth anniversary that he lost a colleague at United Airlines that day. Now that 10 years have passed, he is mostly concerned that Americans don’t forget what happened a decade ago, and for the troops still in harm’s way. He also thinks back to his thoughts when the fighter pilots were told they needed to be ready to “take further action” if the pilot didn’t respond after they were intercepted.
“We all knew what that meant,” Richard said. “I can remember vividly thinking I’d been in combat before, but I didn’t want to do what they were asking me to do. But when I got to Manhattan and saw the destruction, a switch flipped inside me, and I told myself, ‘You have to now. You don’t have a choice. This has to stop. Period.”

Flying the Cadillac: Reserve NCO Shows Off PT-17's Aerobatics for Air Show Passengers

Navy pilots called the PT-17 Stearman “The Yellow Peril.” Former President
George H.W. Bush considered it one of the most challenging planes he flew
during World War II. Army Air Corps and Navy pilots trained in the planes, and fewer than 3,000 remain today. But an Air Force Reserve technical sergeant chose to buy one of the blue and yellow two-seat biplanes because of their acrobatic versatility and their history.
Tech. Sgt. David Brown in his PT-17 was the first to fly over the U.S. Air Force Memorial during its dedication ceremony on Oct. 14, 2006. He discovered
the plane after first flying the Piper J-3 Cub, Piper L-4 Cub and 1929 Fleet Biplane in the Flying Circus Air Show in Bealeton, Va.
“All of those were kind of cramped on the inside,” Sergeant Brown said. “Then, I had a chance to fly the Stearman, and it was literally like jumping into a
Cadillac out of these other aircraft.
“The Navy called it ‘The Yellow Peril’ [because] cadets would sometimes wreck them when they would land a little crooked,” Sergeant Brown said. “A new pilot without a lot of experience will land in a crosswind, flip off the runway, and the next thing you know, you’re upside down in a ditch, and you don’t know what happened.
“But the fact that it is challenging makes it an airplane that’s respected in the aviation community.”
The medical materiel craftsman with the 459th Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Joint Base Andrews, Md., paid $12.50 for his first ride in a PT-17 at the Flying Circus when he was in high school. He’s been with the Flying Circus himself since he first joined the show as a ground crew member in 1975 and now t akes passengers for about 10 minutes of loops, spins, rolls and hammerheads,
a maneuver in which he pulls the plane upward and stalls in mid-air before making a steep, spiraling descent.
“When we pull away, I get [passengers] on the microphone and talk to them about what we’re going to do,” Sergeant Brown said. “I find out if they have any flight experience and if they’re a thrill-seeker or not, so I’ll know what to expect.
“If I get somebody who’s a little apprehensive, I’ll take it easy on them. I always tell them, ‘You’re in control of the flight. This is your ride and I want you to enjoy it.’ I want them to come down and say, ‘This is the best thing I ever did. I want to come back and do it again.’”
Sergeant Brown earned his private pilot’s license in 1979 and first entered
active duty after he earned an ROTC commission, but was denied pilot training because his eyesight didn’t meet Air Force standards. Instead, he served
four years on a Titan II missile crew in the 373rd Strategic Missile Squadron
at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., and received his discharge in December
1986, just before the missile system was deactivated the following year.
Next, he tried to land a job with the commercial airlines, but opened Brown
Aviation after he earned his flight instructor’s certificate. He gives open cockpit rides and flight instruction, while working at his full-time job as an area maintenance engineer with the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Sergeant Brown joined the Air Force Reserve as a staff sergeant in 1996, 10
years after leaving active duty as a first lieutenant.
He flies with the call sign, “Air Show,” but calls his plane, “No Bucks,
No Buck Rogers,” a reference to a line in the movie, “The Right Stuff.”
Sergeant Brown bought his first plane, a 1946 Aeronca Champ, while still on active duty and later bought a Jungster 1 biplane. In 2002, he bought his PT-17 for $75,000.
“I jokingly say the Air Force would never let me fly one, so I had to go buy
my own,” Sergeant Brown said. “My first official mission was when I flew
over the [Air Force] Memorial. I said to myself, ‘I had to wait a long time, and I had to buy my own Air Force airplane to do it, but I’ve got my first mission here.’”
Retired Gen. John P. Jumper, Air Force chief of staff at the time, wanted a PT-17 as the first airplane in the lineup, Sergeant Brown said.
Organizers discussed using Ross Perot Jr.’s Stearman, but due to the logistics
of flying it from Texas, they searched the Washington area and found
the sergeant through the Stearman Restorers Association.
Just flying into Andrews alone turned into an adventure. Sergeant Brown filed
his flight plan with Potomac Approach, but when he pressed the button to talk
to air traffic controllers, it broke and swung on a wire under the panel. He
peeled off his gloves, grabbed the wire and flew the plane with his elbow on
the stick while he held the two wires together to talk on the radio.
“Every time I would hear the guy, I’d put my elbow on the stick and put the wires together to talk to him,” Sergeant Brown said. “I did that all the way to Andrews with no co-pilot in the airplane. I said to myself, ‘Please don’t call me while I’m on the approach because I can’t land this airplane and hold the wires together at the same time.’
“When I landed on the runway, I switched the radio to ground control, and the guy in the tower at Andrews told me, ‘For the oldest airplane on the field, you sure have the clearest radio.’”
While he wasn’t able to fulfill his dream as an Air Force pilot, Sergeant Brown
is proud of the role he plays in introducing air show passengers to his historic airplane and his work as a reservist in an aeromedical squadron. He especially felt the importance of his job while on annual tour with his squadron at Ramstein Air Base, Germany.
“That really hit home with me when we were working on a trailer with medical supplies that were going to Afghanistan to set up a field hospital,” he said. “I knew that [trailer] wasn’t going to be opened again until somebody needed it in a combat situation. When it got over there and they opened this thing up, they were going to be saving soldiers’ lives with this
equipment.
“I’m not flying [F-16 Fighting Falcons], but I’m in a flying unit, I still get to ride on the aircraft occasionally and I’m still associated with the best Air Force in the world.”

Glacier Girl: WWII P-38 Lightning Marks 20 Years since Recovery from Greenland Glacier

In 1981, with their equipment covered in ice and snow, two Atlanta men prepared to fly home in disappointment after a second expedition to retrieve a squadron of World War II airplanes buried in a Greenland icecap. But then Pat Epps and Richard Taylor heard Norman Vaughn whistling. The 76-year-old had participated in an equipment salvage operation by dogsled after the airplanes had to land on the icecap almost 40 years earlier. Taylor couldn’t believe Vaughn’s chipper mood while they were forced to leave the icecap no closer to finding the lost squadron than when they landed.
“I said, ‘Norman, don’t you understand? We failed at this thing,’” Taylor said.
“He stood at attention and said, ‘We didn’t fail. We went as far as man can go. We went into the teeth of the gale, and the only way we fail is if we quit.’
“I thought there was a lesson there. If you don’t quit, you never fail.”
Eleven years and five more expeditions later, Epps’ and Taylor’s Greenland Expedition Society crews raised four .50-caliber machine guns and a .20 mm cannon from a P-38 Lightning, a World War II American fighter aircraft, that had been under ice for 50 years. This summer marks the 20th anniversary of the raising of the plane that became known as Glacier Girl.
In July 1992, crew members raised the P-38 piece-by-piece through an icy tunnel from beneath 265 feet of ice. The late Roy Shoffner, who also supplied major financial backing for the 1992 expedition, restored the P-38 in Middlesboro, Ky., and on Oct. 26, 2002, Glacier Girl flew for the first time in 60 years. Rod Lewis, founder of Lewis Energy Group, bought the historic plane and gave the P-38 its new home at Lewis Energy in San Antonio. A California recovery team is still working to retrieve the five remaining P-38s, using a Russian-built Antonov AN-2, the short takeoff and landing PZL 104 Wilga 80 and a radar detection probe.
During World War II, the P-38 was invaluable in the Pacific, with a range that allowed it to fly long distances and return safely to base. The Japanese described the plane as two airplanes with one pilot, while the Germans called it “der gabelschwanzteufel,” or the fork-tailed devil. P-38s were involved in the April 18, 1943 mission that shot down and killed Admiral Isoruku Yamamoto, the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941.
On July 15, 1942, the Army Air Forces 94th Fighter Force’s six fighters and two bombers were forced to land on the Greenland glacier. The planes were part of Operation Bolero, a massive buildup and movement of Allied aircraft from the United States to Europe. The squadron flew a day earlier from Goose Bay, Labrador, Canada to Sondre Storm on the western coast of Greenland. They were flying over Greenland’s ice-capped mountains and the Denmark Strait and were headed to Reykjavik, Iceland, and eventually to Scotland. But the weather turned foul quickly, with temperatures falling to below minus-10, and the planes had to land on Greenland’s frozen glacier.
An Army Air Force ski and dogsled team rescued the 25 crew members huddled inside the two B-17 Flying Fortresses three days later, but the eight planes remained for five decades, covered by ice and snow.
In August 1980, Epps and Taylor heard about the lost squadron in a bar at a remote land strip during a stop on the way home from buzzing around the Arctic in a single-engine plane. Other pilots thought the two were crazy, but Epps, an Air Force veteran and 1998 Gathering of Eagles honoree, and Taylor, a U.S. Army Airborne during the Korean War, are both self-ordained adventurers. They thought nothing of taking a one-engine plane in extreme climates, even going as far as rolling the North Pole.
When Epps and Taylor began discussing the idea of resurrecting the lost squadron, they had no idea it would take seven expeditions and 11 years, let alone more than $2 million to bring up just one plane.
“[The airplanes] would be sitting on top of the ice. All we had to do was brush the snow off of them and bring them up,” Epps said. “We were totally convinced we were going to fly them all off the icecap. I was stuck to the project like Br’er Rabbit got stuck to Tar Baby.”
Epps began negotiating with Russ Rajani and Roy Degan, who had salvage rights to the planes. The men first brought the story to Epps in 1978, but he wasn’t interested then.
“That’s not my kind of business,” he told them. “I’m not into war birds. I service business aircraft, sell them gas and sell them hangar space.”
But a wealthy visitor to Epps Air Service at Atlanta’s DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in the spring of 1981 galvanized his interest in the planes, more specifically the P-38s. A new Learjet 25 pulled on the ramp, and Epps made a point of telling its owner how much he admired his plane.
“Yes,” Charlie Gay told him, “but I’ve always wanted a P-38.”
“He unwittingly started our search for the lost squadron,” Epps said.
So in 1981, Epps and Taylor went with Rajani and Degan on the first Greenland expedition with a pair of rented magnetometers, which detect iron and steel beneath the surface. However, they were surprised to see no signs of the planes, and a second trip that year was marked by bad weather that covered their equipment with ice and snow, although the 1981 expedition provided Vaughn’s inspiration to keep trying.
Two more expeditions followed in 1986 and 1988, when GES hired Austin Kovacs of the Cold Regions Research Laboratory and Dr. Helgi Bjornesson, a geophysicist with the Science Institute at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik. Bjornesson had developed his own ground penetrating radar and told Epps and Taylor the planes were 5,000 feet from where they’d thought and 80 meters beneath the surface. They’d moved more than a mile from where they landed in 1942.
“When Helgi said the planes were 80 meters deep, I said you mean 80 feet?” Taylor said. “He said, ‘I know the difference between feet and meters.’ He was right, and that was really disheartening. We found the planes, but they were unbelievably deep. But having found them gave us credibility, and we had the first tangible evidence they were there.”
In 1989, the GES team had a twin-engine airplane for the first time with Don Brooks’ Douglas DC-3 with skis. Bobbie Bailey of Our Way Inc., designed, fabricated and packaged the probes, casing, drill shaft and keyhole saws that enabled the crew to retrieve pieces of the B-17 about 250 feet deep. Brooks built a 4-foot device called a thermal meltdown generator that melts the ice by circulating hot water through copper tubing coiled around it. The device allowed the crew to bore a hole through the ice to the planes. But its lack of a guidance system led to the device that became known as the Gopher.
They reached the B-17 the following year when they joined forces with Angelo and Remo Pizzagalli’s construction crew from Burlington, Vt. Bailey designed and fabricated the Gopher that allowed them to reach the plane, but they found the B-17 too damaged to retrieve. Still, the 1990 expedition left Epps and Taylor encouraged.
“The 1990 expedition was the pinnacle of all the work that we did because at that point, when we went back, we knew the right radar to use, and we found the planes in an hour, where before, it had taken us five years,” Taylor said.
“In 1990, we got down to the B-17, and the top of it was crushed down 5 feet. We thought at the time it was disappointing. But from my perspective, we had solved the technical problems. We had met and solved the scientific challenges and gotten down to the plane.”
Financing was a major problem throughout the first six expeditions, which cost about $1.3 million, Epps said. So GES struck a deal for the 1992 expedition with Shoffner, who was an Air Force F-89 Scorpion pilot in Alaska during the late 1950s. He eventually paid 70 percent of the cost of the 1992 expedition, and they would split whatever they brought up from the ice.
Bailey designed a third Gopher, which helped the crew raise Glacier Girl during the four-month expedition. Crew members had to carve a cave-like room around the plane so they could dismantle it before bringing it to the surface. Bob Cardin was the expedition’s project manager and supervised the raising of the 21-foot, 7,000-pound fuselage section with Shoffner after Epps had left with parts of the P-38 for Oshkosh, Wis., to raise more funds. Cardin christened the plane Glacier Girl over a bottle of Regal the day they brought the plane to the surface. A helicopter flew the center section of the P-38 to Kulusuk, Greenland. It was taken by barge to Denmark, then to Malmo, Sweden, before a cargo ship took it to Savannah, Ga.
Cardin also served as the project manager for Glacier Girl’s restoration after GES sold their share of the plane to Shoffner. He once called the P-38 “maybe the finest restoration of any war bird ever done.”
“This was a total team effort,” said Cardin, now a flight operations director for Lewis Energy. “No one person could have done that. We went to Greenland to preserve a nice part of our heritage. If someone doesn’t preserve the war machines that were used to preserve our freedom, when all of our veterans are gone, there won’t be anyone there to tell the story.”

Nighttime on Base: As You Sleep, Many Airmen Are on Duty

While most Airmen sat down for dinner with their families last night, Staff Sgt. Joshua Parrish worked on the fourth A-10 Thunderbolt II of his shift on the flightline at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.
Elsewhere on base, Staff Sgt. Nathan Claridge and Senior Airman Lucas Tripp began patrolling the Yuma area for the 355th Security Forces Squadron. Meanwhile, at the Brooke Army Medical Center at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, 1st Lt. Crystal Barron watched over babies in the neonatal intensive care unit.
These are just a few of the many Airmen on duty through the night year-round. They patrol base streets, care for the sick and injured, maintain and fly airplanes and work extended hours in deployed locations around the world. Because of their nighttime responsibilities, these Airmen often miss their children’s school events, time with their spouses, eating dinner with their families and other family activities.
“The military never sleeps,” said Master Sgt. Brent Brady, a 55th Maintenance Squadron production superintendent who works the swing shift at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. “So many people outside the military, and some even in the military, don’t realize it.
“We’re fixing aircraft, changing engines and tires and tons of other maintenance on these planes to keep them ready for their sorties. People on night shifts in the Air Force are constantly working hard. About the only thing we’ll ever see when we leave, while people are sleeping safely in their own beds, are the security forces and gate guards. Other than that, the base is quiet.”
The Davis-Monthan flightline can be lively where Arizona Air National Guard Maj. Windy Hendrick works a 24-hour shift as an F-16 Fighting Falcon pilot on alert several times a month.
“This base is not quiet at night at all,” said Hendrick, an F-16 instructor pilot with the 162nd Fighter Wing at the Tucson International Airport. “The A-10s have a heavy night schedule, so they’re flying often at night. There are HC-130 [Kings] and rescue squadrons based here, not to mention the [Drug Enforcement Administration], and the Border Patrol has helicopters out of Davis-Monthan. The 563rd Rescue Group’s HH-60 [Pave Hawk] Reserve unit is also here, so it’s really busy.
“You’ll have moments of nice, peaceful quiet, interrupted by a complete adrenaline rush.”
The interruption for F-16 pilots at the Davis-Monthan alert facility hits whenever they hear the sound of the klaxon accompanied by a series of flashing lights. When she hears the loud warning horn, Hendrick doesn’t know if it’s for a practice, as it was earlier in the day, or for a real-world emergency until she’s sitting in her jet waiting for the scramble order.
“You can’t go outside the confines of the facility because you have a requirement to take off within a certain amount of time,” Hendrick said. “But it’s just that sort of detachment that is a constant reminder that any second the klaxon could go off, and you could be airborne. As comfortable as it is for us to spend our time here, the facility itself is a reminder of how important it is and the threats that are out there.”
It can get even louder elsewhere on base, at the 358th Aircraft Maintenance Unit, where Parrish is in the middle of his 3 to 11 p.m. shift. The swing shift is normally when the bulk of the unit’s maintenance is done. Every time a jet lands, it undergoes an intake and exhaust inspection, Parrish said.
“It’s loud because you’ve got the engines running,” said Parrish, a dedicated crew chief. “Once it gets quieter out here, that means it’s time for us to go home.”
The maintainers know to be vigilant when working at night. The wind usually gets stronger at night in the Tucson area, so maintainers will see a lot of what they call “Tucson tumbleweeds” – trash bags blowing across the flightline. Anyone working outside at night also has to be conscious of Arizona’s wildlife. They sometimes see scorpions, tarantulas and even black widow and brown recluse spiders. Lighting is also a concern, especially when working inside an A-10 engine.
One difference Airmen in all career fields have in common when working at night is they’re often trusted to make decisions because there isn’t as much supervision as there is during the day.
“On swing shift, they kind of trust you to do your job the right way without having to look over your shoulder,” Parrish said.
While many families watched “Dancing With the Stars,” the NICU was the complete opposite from Parrish’s work environment. The unit, which was at Wilford Hall Medical Center before its recent move to BAMC, was nearly silent as the nurses watched over the babies and the occasional parent sat with his or her child. The average weight for the babies in NICU was 3 pounds, but they had been as small as 15 ounces, Barron said.
“The best way I can explain the day vs. night comparison is it’s a little quieter, which is better for the babies,” she said. “They can get the nocturnal sleep pattern going on when it’s quieter at night and not as busy as it is during the day.”
The NICU nurses face one disadvantage when they rotate to the night shift. The doctors usually make their rounds during the day, so the day shift nurses have opportunities to give their input on the plan for the babies’ care. Nurses on the night shift don’t often have the same chance.
“A big issue is not feeling like I am part of the plan of care for the babies,” she said. “The doctors round in the morning and determine the plan. Most times, [they ask] for nurses’ input. So I don’t get this opportunity at night; doctors during the night don’t want to make changes.”
One of the biggest adjustments Barron has to make when she works through the night is with her own children. She juggles appointments, flight and squadron meetings, her children’s activities and her own sleep during the day after working the previous night.
“It’s like you’re always sleeping to them, even though we’re only working three days one week and four the next,” Barron said about the Panama schedule the hospital uses. “They don’t really get the concept of you’re up all night, so you have to sleep during the day.”
About the time most parents put their children in bed, Hendrick was spending some of her time in the alert facility’s small gymnasium, with its basketball and volleyball courts and full-strength training and aerobics area. She’s a major proponent of the Total Force Fitness for the 21st Century initiative created by Navy Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“They’re now really starting to understand that our health and wellness is influenced by many different aspects,” Hendrick said. “Obviously, we cannot control some of them. We can’t control the fact that we may have to scramble and launch within minutes from a complete sleep.
“There are things we can control. For instance, not only does exercise and eating right help you stay physically ready, but I also  use mindfulness for helping to reduce stress and focus my attention. What I find is I’m essentially more alert in my sleep. So even though it’s a sound sleep and very restful, I’m able to come out of that sleep a lot quicker, and I’m more ready to take off in the minutes we have available to do that and perform my mission to the best of my ability.”
Last night, as most Airmen slept, Parrish was approaching the end of his swing shift with the 358th AMU, and Claridge and Tripp continued their patrol of the Davis-Monthan streets.
If they get sleepy, the security forces members roll down the windows of their patrol car or drink coffee. Often, it hits them about midnight of their 12-hour shift.
“Night shift is all I’ve ever worked stateside,” Tripp said. “I like it because it’s quieter, and if you do get called to something, it’s actually something you should’ve gotten called for.

“It’s always different. Weekends are obviously busier in housing because people are out barbecuing and drinking. But throughout the rest of the base, there’s really not all that much happening because all of the squadrons and buildings are closed for the most part.”
About 3 a.m., Parrish walks his wife to her car as she leaves for her job, even though he left work about 11 p.m. the night before.
“I’m up at 3 in the morning anyway,” he said. “My wife works from 4 a.m. to noon, so I get to see her about an hour to an hour and a half, then I’m at work. If I was on day shift, I’d be getting home about 3, and we’d be spending the afternoon and night together.”
When morning comes, Airmen on the night shift get their much-needed rest, which they often juggle with mandatory appointments, physical training and family commitments. They do their best to re-charge in time to be ready for their next night on their schedule.
Airmen on nighttime duty miss this time with their families, but know their sacrifices help keep operations on base running safely and smoothly. They leave it in the hands of the day shift and return home to rest so they will be ready for the next night.

Pre-K9: A Litter Prepares for Military Working Dog Training

This Belgian Malinois puppy isn’t content to be a household pet. She wants to work. You can take her for a long walk, but don’t put away the leash. She’s ready to go again. She creates problems to solve by putting her toy in a corner, but don’t try to get it for her. This dog wants to solve the problem herself. Rrespect, the military working puppy in training even drinks water with the toy in her bowl, not taking her eye off it for more than a few seconds. The toy is her prey.
Rrespect was one of eight puppies born June 2 at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Breeding Program at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. Names of puppies like Rrespect and her siblings in the “R” litter begin with repeated letters to indicate they were bred through the program at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.
“I like to think of her like a smart child,” said Sarah Dietrich, Rrespect’s foster parent. “A smart child’s not going to be happy to sit at the computer all day. These dogs are the smart children, and they want to explore every corner of everything. You can see her future in her.”
Lackland is known as the dog mecca for all service branches, said Tracy Shaw, the breeding program contract manager when the “R” litter was born. DOD’s breeding colony provides one-third of all dogs procured for military working dog training and produces at least 100 puppies each fiscal year. Each litter size can range from two to 15 puppies. Eight of the 12 puppies in Rrespect’s litter survived a cesarean-section birth.
One of the foster parents’ most important responsibilities is helping their dogs become accustomed to the sights and sounds they’re likely to experience as military working dogs. Rrespect became accustomed to the sounds of other animals, people talking and other sounds as she accompanied Mrs. Dietrich to work every day at a local pet store.
Two weeks before the puppies’ birth, 341st Training Squadron dog trainer Bernie Green had to euthanize her retired Maryland State Police dog, Rruuk, because of cancer. She fostered one of the “R” litter puppies, and he was named after Rruuk. He accompanied Ms. Green daily on the training trailer with the adult dogs, so he visited detection training labs, aircraft and vehicle training lots and office buildings, and walked up and down stairways before he began his own training.
Staff Sgt. Samuel Durbin often took Rrigatoni to his job at the security forces armory at Lackland.
“When she is at work with me, we walk or ride everywhere, and she goes into any building on base,” Sergeant Durbin said. “She has a following at most places we go and demands a crowd everywhere. I’m very thorough on taking her into every kind of environment. She will go into any building, jump on anything she can reach, and has very few fears. If I go somewhere, she doesn’t want to be left behind.”
From Rrespect’s and the other puppies’ third through 16th day of life, breeding program puppy development specialists evaluated their reflexes and responses with early neurological stimulation exercises. The Army developed biosensor exercises to improve its dog performances in what became known as the “Super Dog Program.” Biosensor exercises affect the neurological system by kicking it into action earlier than would normally be expected and is believed to cause improved cardiovascular performance, stronger heartbeats and a greater resistance to disease and stress.
“We’re looking to find out what stresses the puppies and evaluate their responses,” Ms. Shaw said. “You introduce the stress, and the body recognizes it as conditioning.”
The handlers give Rrespect and her siblings five exercises that last from three to five seconds each. First, the handler gently tickles the puppy between the toes with a cotton swab. Next, the handler holds the puppy with both hands so its head is directly above its tail, then holds it firmly with both hands so its head is pointed toward the floor. The puppy is then resting in both hands with its muzzle facing the ceiling before the thermal stimulation when it is placed feet-first on a damp, cool towel.
The eight puppies live in the whelping barn until they reach 8 weeks and puppy consultants administer the puppy aptitude test. The military developed the test from similar civilian tests that evaluate dogs for social attraction; social and elevation dominance; retrieval; and sight, sound and touch sensitivity.
“It’s a personality test in preparation to place these puppies with their foster homes,” said Lynnette Butler, a puppy consultant with the breeding program. “The first thing we do at this stage is social attraction. We test whether the puppy is willing to come to you or not. We generally like a puppy that’s willing to come to you readily with its tail up.”
Rrespect marches to puppy consultant David Concepcion-Garcia, who then places her on her back to see if she’s willing to be under a handler’s control. She fidgets a bit, not too comfortable with being held on her back. Next, Mr. Garcia backs away to see if she’s willing to come to him again after he held her down to test her social dominance.
When she does, Mr. Garcia picks up Rrespect and holds her for 30 seconds to test her elevation dominance. He then tosses a wad of paper, followed by a tennis ball, to test her retrieving skills. The evaluations conclude with tests of the puppy’s touch, sound and sight sensitivities, and her hunt drive. The consultant places about a dozen kibble in a cardboard box and watches how Rrespect uses her scent to find the treat.
At 12 weeks, foster consultants use information from the aptitude tests to place the puppies. Foster parents must live within two hours of Lackland because they must bring the puppies in for monthly medical evaluations and go on monthly hiking trips with other fosters in their dog’s litter. Fosters also must have a fenced-in backyard and cannot have any children under the age of 4 or more than three personal dogs.
The program provides a carrier, food, toys, bowls, collars, leashes, veterinary care and guidance, which includes helping to set realistic expectations for the type of dog they will have in their homes.
“You’re not getting a Lab,” Mr. Garcia said. “The drive is 100 times greater. We like to set expectations and give our fosters every tool we can.”
Months before Rrespect began her pre-training, she showed signs of her future in her foster parent’s home. She was Mrs. Dietrich’s third foster military working puppy. Mrs. Dietrich’s second puppy, Oopey, is now in military working dog training. Still, when Rrespect first entered the house, Mrs. Dietrich was surprised by her intelligence, problem-solving skills and focus on a toy, a sign that breeding program consultants associate with her prey drive. All are characteristics of the Belgian Malinois breed, which make them perfect military working dogs, handlers say.
“The first time I put a toy on the floor, I was amazed at the energy she went at this toy with,” Mrs. Dietrich said. “Twenty minutes later, she looked up at me. For 20 minutes, all she could think about was that toy. She parades around the house all the time with her toys. It’s called practicing possession.
“I’m either laughing my head off or having a headache every minute with her. There is no in-between.”
Names for military working puppies come from lists supplied by the DOD Military Working Dog Veterinary Service Hospital at Lackland, which generates a list from suggestions made by the general public at http://dogvet.amedd.army.mil. Names of fallen military working dog handlers or previous foster parents are given priority, however.
One dog in the “R” litter, Rromano, was named after a former foster parent, Col. Joseph Romano. Colonel Romano and his wife Karen fostered a military working dog while he was commander of the 37th Training Group at Lackland. He now monitors security coordination and special programs for the secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon. Their dog, Vviper, is now a working dog for the 802nd Security Forces Squadron and was a breeder for three litters in 2010. Colonel Romano said his wife treated Vviper like a child.
“His sense of smell was phenomenal,” he said. “Couple this with his bite and quickness, it was clear Vviper would be one hell of a military working dog, as long as Karen didn’t turn him into a domesticated pet.”
The puppy named after Colonel Romano is showing similar signs that he also will succeed as a working dog, said his foster, Kevin Cody. Mr. Cody works with the Transportation Security Administration at the San Antonio International Airport.
After having their dogs for six months, Mrs. Dietrich and her husband, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Dietrich, and the other foster parents said goodbye to Rrespect and the other puppies in December when the dogs returned to Lackland for adolescent training or pre-training, a sort of high school for the military working dog.
This is often a time of mixed emotions: pride of sending the dog to learn an important job mixed with the sadness of sending them away.
“Sometimes it’s like sending off a hyper child to day camp,” Mrs. Dietrich said. “Other times, it’s really heartbreaking. But you know they’re going to be doing what they love. You know they’re going off to do something they’re going to really enjoy. You want them to succeed, and you’re excited to see what they’re going to do with their lives. You’re raising a little soldier, and it’s your way to support the military.
“Look at that dog,” she said as Rrespect sniffed in the grass. “That dog wants to be doing that. She doesn’t want to be sleeping on the couch.”