I have said before and will say it again, it is hard as heck to get info about the Air Force for our site.  But I wanted to recognize these heroes who gave their all in support of the Medevac mission in Afghanistan.

6/11/2010 – WASHINGTON (AFNS) — Department of Defense officials announced June 9 the deaths of four Airmen who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

They died June 9, near Forward Operating Base Jackson, Afghanistan, in a helicopter crash.

Killed were:
–Staff Sgt. Michael P. Flores, 31, of San Antonio, Texas, assigned to the 48th Rescue Squadron, Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz.
–1st Lt. Joel C. Gentz, 25, of Grass Lake, Mich., assigned to the 58th Rescue Squadron, Nellis AFB, Nev.
–Staff Sgt. David C. Smith, 26, of Eight Mile, Ala., assigned to the 66th Rescue Squadron, Nellis AFB.
–Senior Airman Benjamin D. White, 24, of Erwin, Tenn., assigned to the 48th RQS, Davis-Monthan AFB.

More info can be found in the Air Force Times:

The Pentagon has named the four rescue airmen who were killed Wednesday when insurgents shot down their HH-60G Pave Hawk in southern Afghanistan.

Three airmen also were injured in the Pave Hawk incident, which occurred on the deadliest day for Air Force personnel at war in more than five years.

The four killed are:

* 1st Lt. Joel C. Gentz, 25, of Grass Lake, Mich.

* Staff Sgt. David C. Smith, 26, of Eight Mile, Ala.

* Tech. Sgt. Michael P. Flores, 31, of San Antonio.

* Senior Airman Benjamin D. White, 24, of Erwin, Tenn.

Flores and White were assigned to the 48th Rescue Squadron at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. Gentz was assigned to the 58th Rescue Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Smith was assigned to the 66th Rescue Squadron at Nellis.

The wounded airmen are members of the 66th Rescue Squadron. They are being treated at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany.

The helicopter crashed as the airmen, assigned to 563rd Rescue Group, were performing a medical-evacuation mission in turbulent Helmand province.

“Our Air Force was deeply saddened by the loss of four of our own,” Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz said in a statement. “Faithful to the rescue motto ‘That others may live,’ these airmen were courageously and selflessly flying in support of their joint and coalition teammates. We grieve for our warriors and our thoughts and prayers are with their families, as well as with the airmen still recovering.”

You can read the rest of the article here: Air Force Times

Please stop and say a prayer for these heroes.

Da-Chief

Corpsman.com

From AirForcetimes.com

KANDAHAR AIRFIELD, Afghanistan — Abdul Bachery fell off a roof when he was 10 and spent seven years limping around with a dislocated right knee.

In March, after spending nearly half his life injured, Bachery finally found help. An Afghan orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Nik Mohammad Shinwad, reconstructed Bachery’s knee at Kandahar Regional Medical Hospital, run by the Afghan National Army.

Opened in December 2007 not far from here at Camp Hero, the one-floor hospital has a staff of 42 Afghan health professionals — all trained in western medicine by 11 Air Force doctors, nurses and pharmacists.

Most of the patients are Afghan soldiers wounded in combat. More families like Bachery’s, however, have heard that the Afghan hospital accepts civilian patients and are showing up. Even Taliban fighters picked up from the battlefield get treated.

“This is a military hospital, but we do not turn away civilians if we have the beds. Helping kids like [Bachery] helps show the Kandahar people that the Army and the government are here to help them,” Col. (Dr.) Lorn Heyne, chief of the Air Force training team, said as he stood next to Bachery.

Very good article on AirForcetimes. You can read the whole thing here: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2010/04/airforce_hospital_041810w/

It gets people seeing red, green, sandy and they just go plain NUTS!!

NUTS I SAY!!

It seems that Congress wants to mandate our operational uniforms.  (WHO KNEW? )
But first.. I want to show you the 4 services Cammie uniforms, and then I will post the article from Navytimes.

For once I have to say.. Congress has a point.

That and the Air Force Uniform Belt, reminds me of Santa Clause’s belt!

Without further ado..

The US ARMY, a smart looking uniform, makes sense!

Army Operational Uniform

Same with the USMC, a great well thought out uniform.

Marine Corps Cammies

And now the uniforms where you just wonder who thought them up..

The Navy. Because everyone knows it is so easy to see a blue uniform that exactly matches waves in the Sea!!

Nice "BLUE" Cammies

And last but Not least.. And really.. I think it looks like they should be tour guides in Australia.. The US AIR FORCE!

ACKKK!!!!

So here is the article from NavyTimes.. Enjoy and comment below!

Lawmakers have dropped the idea of making everyone in combat wear the exact same uniform and camouflage pattern.

But out of concern for safety, function and performance, they want more cooperation between the services over ground combat and utility clothing.

The key concern is that U.S. personnel wearing different uniforms in a combat zone raise the risk of friendly fire.

The services raised enough of a fuss about having different needs that lawmakers dropped from the 2010 defense authorization bill a proposed requirement to standardize combat uniforms in the future.

In a report accompanying the defense bill, congressional negotiators agreed that the services may have uniforms that “uniquely reflect the identity of the individual services.” But the report says lawmakers still want uniforms that minimize the risk of mistaken identity and share technological advances and improvements across all services.

Lawmakers also directed the services to establish joint criteria for ground combat uniforms, and expect special operations forces to be covered by the joint standards.

To prod more cooperation in uniforms, lawmakers ordered a quick, 180-day assessment by the Government Accountability Office that will look at what uniforms are now in use, their advantages, similarities and differences.

Comment below, this oughta be fun!!

Airman First Class Colton Read with his wife, Jessica.

I hope the Air Force does the right thing and supports this Airman and keeps him on A/D!!

Airman 1st Class Colton Read looked up from his hospital bed into the face of his wife. A tube down his throat kept him from talking.

Fighting back tears, Jessica Read told her 20-year-old husband that doctors had amputated his right leg above the knee and now they needed to take his left leg, too, to save his life. And all because of a mistake during his gallbladder surgery.

Read’s lips turned white. He started to cry. He reached for a pen and paper on the tray in front of him.

“AF???” he wrote.

You can read read the rest of the Article here on Air force times.com

All service NCO Ranks

2009 is the year of the NCO for the United States Army.  I find that admirable.

Unfortunately they have a “WONK” writing about it as far as I can tell.  I have been trying to write this article because I do believe having 2009 being the year of the NCO is a great thing.

This is the problem with folks who have great ideas in the military but don’t understand how to broadcast that message without putting everyone to sleep.  Need a sleep aid?  Read official correspondence.  I promise you, you will be asleep within minutes.

It’s almost like they are trying to show how “SMART” they are or puff their chests out to show how much smarts they have.. Great, go get your MBA or get a political Science Degree, and go argue with the eggheads.

Most NCO’s the new E-4’s and above are the ones your trying to target with this valuable message.  I would say if you were to ask any of them what was passed in the “POWER POINT” presentation after being shown this publication would not be able to convey what your trying to convey to them.

Doing a proclamation like this is more then putting up stodgy words and phrases on a PowerPoint.  Get away from Powerpoints, I know you ARMY officers love it.. I think you need to go through a Powerpoint Anonymous program, or a 12 step program.

Who are your audience?  What is the Avg. age of those your trying to communicate with?

Don’t get me wrong, the NCO’s and below want to be communicated with, but you just turn them off when you use your “LEADERSHIP SPEAK” from your Covey Seminars etc.

You should explain things like your trying to explain to your neighbor or your significant other.  Leave the wonk speak with the upper echelon where you fit in.

I like to tell this story as it served me well as a SNCO, (Chief Petty Officer).

After I made Chief up here in Great Lakes, I took over the Medical Department at the Reserve Center, What used to be a fractured office (Air Vs. Surface) I pulled together into one cohesive team.  How did I do this? I listened and spoke with my Subordinates (Hate that word, my team) so I understood where they were at and they understood where I was at.

Mind you the meetings I went to used lots of big words and acronyms etc.. of the current flavor the of the week of leadership style that someone had “JUST DISCOVERED”, but I never spoke to my team this way.

By doing this we created I believe the best department in the command, enough to where if one of my folks made a mistake, I.e accidentally shooting themselves in the thumb with a atropine gun (Don’t ask) they came right to me because they trusted me.  That story is for a different day though..

The way I knew I was getting through though was one winter day.  It was snowing like crazy outside, and all the E-6 and below did snow removal duty around the center.   Chief Petty Officers, or some of them at least, thought they were above that, regardless of manning etc, thought they were better then the “TEAM”.

I was not that way and I had good leadership that instilled this in me from my days at VFA-204.  (ADC(AW) Burns) We were short on manpower so I went out and started shoveling with my juniors.  About 5 minutes in.. one of my Petty Officers mussed under their breath.. “Hey Chief, look at the window”.

I turned and every CPO from the building were at their respective windows staring at me and then you could see the conversation going, wild waving of arms, etc..

5 minutes later.. All the CPO’s even the Command Chief was out there shoveling with me.  I heard about it later from them, “How could you? ” etc..

How could I? Because I listened, I understood the job they did.

While I was senior in Rank, we communicated in a way my team understood, and I never had a doubt that we had each others back.

Isn’t that how you can show the year of the NCO?  If your going to have a year and recognize them, help them understand what you want.  Show them you have been there, don’t talk down to them, talk to them.

I salute all the NCO’s, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, as you truly are the backbone of all services.  We could not get our jobs done without your dedication and hard work.

I hope I communicated well to you.

Bravo Zulu, you deserve it.

D/C

From AirForceTimes.com

Air Force Training

By Michael Hoffman – Staff writer

An Air Force-wide audit found the service’s fitness program is failing to keep airmen fit year-round.

The fitness program “did not effectively promote a healthy lifestyle,” and unit commanders did not give airmen enough time to work out while not cracking down on airmen who failed PT tests, according to a December report released by the Air Force Audit Agency.

The agency found 35 percent of the airmen it reviewed had gained a significant amount of weight after their annual PT test, leading to the conclusion that the fitness program promoted a “fit to test” culture — not the “fit to fight” culture Air Force leaders had hoped for.

Of the 321 airmen whose PT tests the agency reviewed, 111 gained an average of nine pounds just 60 days after completing their PT test, according to the report. At RAF Lakenheath, England, nine out of 23 airmen reviewed gained an average of 15 pounds.

Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force Rodney McKinley requested the audit, which was done in 2007 and 2008 at 50 units across the Air Force.

At the 50 units the auditors visited, 16 did not have a written policy that allowed time for group fitness activities or didn’t give airmen time during duty hours to work out.

Airmen who failed the PT test rarely were punished. Only 20 percent of airmen who failed the PT test two or more times consecutively had met a fitness review panel, and 72 percent of those airmen avoided administrative action.

One airman at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., failed the PT test 12 straight times “without meeting a fitness review panel or receiving any administrative action,” according to the report.

Auditors also found problems with the airmen administering the PT test — especially the waist measurement portion.

The audit agency found many airmen were not as trim as their tests reflected when auditors compared waist measurement results from one year to another. With auditors monitoring the latest fitness tests, 17 percent of airmen had bigger waists without gaining any weight.

A waist measurement for one airman at Barksdale Air Force Base, Calif., went up five inches from the previous year, but curiously, he lost six pounds over that same year.

In response to the audit, Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Howie Chandler standardized who will administer the PT test in December, announcing all PT tests will be issued in PacAF by base health and wellness center staff members.

USA, USN, USMC, USAF, USCG

FORT RILEY, Kan. — Sgt. Ryan Nyhus spent 14 months patrolling the deadly streets of Baghdad, where five members of his platoon were shot and one died. As bad as that was, he would rather go back there than take his chances in this brutal job market.

Sgt Ryun Nyhus USA

Nyhus re-enlisted last week, and in so doing joined the growing ranks of those choosing to stay in the U.S. military because of the bleak economy.

“In the Army, you’re always guaranteed a steady paycheck and a job,” said the 21-year-old Nyhus. “Deploying’s something that’s going to happen. That’s a fact of life in the Army — a fact of life in the infantry.”

In 2008, as the stock market cratered and the housing market collapsed, more young members of the Army, Air Force and Navy decided to re-up. Although several factors might explain the rise in re-enlistments, including a decline in violence in Iraq, Pentagon officials acknowledge that bad news for the economy is usually good news for the military.

In fact, the Pentagon just completed its strongest recruiting year in four years.

“We do benefit when things look less positive in civil society,” said David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. “What difficult economic times give us, I think, is an opening to make our case to people who we might not otherwise have.”

The retention rate of early-career soldiers in the Army has risen steadily over the past four years and now stands 20 percentage points higher than it was in fiscal 2004. As for the Navy and the Air Force, early- and mid-career sailors and airmen re-enlisted at higher rates in October than during the same period in 2007. The Marine Corps was not immediately able to provide comparative figures on re-enlistments.

Alex Stewart joined the Army two years ago, when the factory where he worked as a welder started laying off. He was sent to Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne Division, which suffered 87 deaths last year, the highest total suffered by the 20,000-member unit since the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

When his hitch was up in earlier this year, the 32-year-old from Grand Rapids, Mich., didn’t hesitate to re-up for five more years.

“I want a stable life for my wife in a very shaky economy,” Stewart said. “There were no other options.”

Stewart’s new assignment will take him to Germany, where he will serve as a truck driver, although it is always possible he could be sent back into combat.

“I figure if I do another five or 10 years in the Army,” he said, “the economy will turn around and I can get a truck-driving job.”

Army Spc. Alicia Fauls, 20, of the Woodlands, Texas, had two years to go when she re-enlisted last week at Fort Riley, home of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, which has one brigade in Iraq, one headed home and another preparing to ship out. She has not been sent into the war zone yet but knows an assignment in Iraq or Afghanistan is probably in her future.

“I did have only two years left, but I’m not sure what I would do,” Fauls said. “It’s harder to find jobs. If I do wait to get out, the economy should be in better shape.”

When Nyhus’ tour in Iraq ended in April, he talked to his wife about getting out of the Army and working toward a college degree. But the father of a 2-year-old daughter opted for the job security, even though he is likely to be sent back to Iraq as a member of the 4th Infantry Division, which has shouldered a heavy burden of the fighting.

Marine Staff Sgt. Angela Mink, who was injured in a helicopter accident in Iraq in 2004 and now works in public affairs at the Corps’ New River Air Station, N.C., said the thought of taking a civilian job “without my fellow Marines just didn’t appeal to me.” Moreover, she had little hope of finding a private-sector job that pays as well as the Corps.

“Equivalent pay is nonexistent, once you factor in insurance premiums, housing costs,” said Mink, 37. “And we would definitely have had to relocate. I have a child with a disability, and what civilian employer is going to take that into consideration when they think of moving you somewhere?”

And so the married mother of five signed up recently for four more years.

Roughly 208,000 men and women left the military in 2007. Some were rank-and-file warriors, while others worked in specialized fields such as satellite communications or computer networking. About 30 percent of enlisted soldiers hold a bachelor’s degree.

The job market is still fairly good for veterans with technical skills, especially those coveted by defense contractors, said Carl Savino, a retired Army major who runs a company outside Washington, D.C., that offers employment services to new veterans.

Sgt. Michael Rodriguez, 29, of San Antonio, decided to get out after he landed a job with a defense contractor working on communications systems. “I feel pretty secure with them,” said Rodriguez, who will leave the military soon.

But even defense-contractor jobs could dry up as the economic crisis deepens, Savino said.

“Jobs are getting harder to come by for veterans,” Savino said. “The farther they deviate from the defense contractors, who are still in reasonably strong shape, the more challenging it is.”

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates took a giant step Monday toward more tightly blending the active-duty military and reserve components into an “integrated total force,” calling for wide-ranging personnel policy changes, codifying the reserves’ homeland defense role and adequately funding oft-overlooked reserve equipment requirements.

In a Monday memo sent to every senior uniformed and civilian Pentagon leader and copied to three other cabinet secretaries, Gates directed the development of a new Total Force Integration Policy that recognizes the “cultural divide that exists” between the active and reserve components. “All vestiges of the cultural prejudice” that remain in law “should be removed” by Congress, he wrote.

Gates also called upon Congress to “mandate that the National Guard and Reserves have the lead role in and form the backbone of DoD operations in the homeland.”

Congress, the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves it chartered and the Pentagon, Gates wrote in his 41-page memo, “all recognize that the National Guard and the Reserves are integral to the Total Force and have assumed a greater operational role in today’s force.”

The commission distributed the memo Monday evening in advance of the Pentagon’s planned Tuesday release.

Gates endorsed 82 of the 95 recommendations issued by the commission in its final report in January — some of the 82, he noted, have already been completed or are currently being implemented.

Twenty of the 82 recommendations will require the support of Congress; one asks the president to direct all federal agencies to issue guidance emphasizing the importance of reserve service and to prescribe sanctions for civilian supervisors who fail to comply with guidelines regarding treatment of reservists.

The directives and recommendations represent a near-sweeping endorsement of three years of work by the commission, which said that significant reforms were needed to support the reserve component’s relatively new operational status, including management of the reserves as part of an integrated force.

Gates agreed, saying the Pentagon needs to blend the promotion and management of active and reserve enlisted troops and, separately, officers, into integrated manpower systems. Promotions, Gates said, should be based on the achievement of competencies, not just years of service; the services should tailor “the timing of and opportunity for promotion” by career field, “depending on service requirements.” The moves would require legislation.

Two recommendations would be annual budget action items. Gates ordered that designated “lead offices” for the remaining recommendations submit their implementation plans to the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness within 25 days.

“The commission members and I are extremely pleased with today’s announcement,” said commission chairman Arnold Punaro in a statement that accompanied its release of the memo. Gates’ decisions, he said, “were not easy to reach and will not be easy to implement” … but are “changes that are essential if the Guard and Reserves are to remain fully capable of meeting current and future threats.”

Several of the commission’s recommendations have already been adopted, including the elevation of the National Guard to a joint activity of the Defense Department and elevating the National Guard Bureau’s chief to 4-star rank.

Gates also:

• Directed the formation of a senior study group to review the current duty status structure, including the commission’s recommendation to reduce the number of duty statuses from 29 to two: on active duty, and off;

• Directed the services to conduct a “baseline review” of reserve component equipment requirements, “some of which remain tied to Cold War force management and a strategic reserve”;

• Directed the Army and Marine Corps to restore their reserve components to the highest level of readiness “as soon as possible” but no later than 2015;

• Directed the bolstering of reserve component family support services programs, particularly for transition assistance during the mobilization and demobilization process;

• Said that senior leaders at service headquarters and large commands “must be held accountable for the readiness and performance” of reserve component forces “within their purview” and that the responsibilities “must be reflected in job descriptions and performance appraisals”;

• Asked Congress to amend the Goldwater-Nichols Act to require reserve officers to be designated as “joint qualified” and, at the end of a 10-year transition period, to make joint qualification “a criterion for promotion to flag and general officer rank”;

• Asked Congress to direct the Pentagon to simplify the Tricare claims and reimbursement process to eliminate current “disincentives that discourage providers from taking part” in the program;

• Asked Congress to create a single entity that would oversee the entire Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act.

Feeling woozy after your latest round of immunization shots? Then you’re probably a male airman.

Ten years of records showed that 2,612 service members passed out cold — and fell down — after a nurse slowly inserted a thin half-inch of steel into their biceps or buttocks.

Data from the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center shows that the rate of airmen who fell out was twice that of soldiers and sailors — Marines fall in between — and that twice as many men as women were among the fainthearted. The overall numbers also are rising; today’s service members are 2½ times more likely to faint from getting a shot than they were in 1998.

Possibly worse than the risk of ridicule is the risk of injury, the report states, “particularly when collapse leads to forceful contact between the face or skull … and a sharp or solid object nearby.” Researchers found 150 examples of fractures, brain injuries, open wounds, contusions, sprains and strains.

Fainting occurs when blood vessels dilate and blood pressure decreases among people who stand for too long, don’t like the sight of blood or fear pain, experts say.

If this is what is going to happen, it is time to get our folks out of that god forsaken crap hole ASAP.  I don’t want any of our folks there if they cannot fire back or carry a weapon. From the AP, Read Below:

BAGHDAD — Iraq’s government is grateful to U.S.-allied Sunni fighters but won’t allow them to keep their weapons indefinitely, the prime minister said Saturday, hinting at a more intense crackdown on the Sunni groups.

In recent weeks, the Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has gone after Sunni fighters despite their alliances with the Americans. Some leaders have been arrested, while scores of others have been disarmed and banned from manning checkpoints except alongside security forces.

Al-Maliki’s government has mixed feelings about Sunni tribes that rose up against al-Qaida in Iraq, starting in 2007, and joined the Americans in the fight against the terror network.

The groups, known as Awakening Councils, Sons of Iraq and Popular Committees, have helped rout al-Qaida in some parts of Iraq. But Shiite leaders fear the Sunnis’ switch of allegiance is just a tactic, and that they could one day turn their weapons against the Shiite majority.

The U.S., which put many of the Sunni fighters on its payroll, has urged al-Maliki to incorporate them into his security forces, but the government has been slow to do so.

In a speech to Shiite tribal leaders in Baghdad on Saturday, al-Maliki mixed praise for the Sunni fighters with a warning. He said armed groups, alongside security forces, were tolerated for a limited period because their weapons were “aimed at the chests of the terrorists.”

“So they (the Sunni fighters) deserve our gratitude and the inclusion (into the security forces) because we adhere to a policy that there are no arms but the arms of the government,” he said.

In other developments Saturday, a suicide bomber struck a car bazaar in the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, killing at least five people and wounding at least seven others, according to the U.S. military and Iraqi police.

Among those killed was a senior member of a U.S.-allied Sunni group from nearby Diyala province, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir, a senior police official in Kirkuk. The bomber also was from Diyala, which has been an insurgent stronghold and is the site of ongoing U.S.-Iraqi military operations, Qadir said.

In the capital, gunmen killed an adviser to Iraqi Culture Minister Mahir al-Hadithi in a roadside ambush. A bodyguard was wounded in the attack along a main thoroughfare in eastern Baghdad, police and hospital officials said.

Two cars were involved in the killing of the adviser, Kamil Shiya, the officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak with the media. One vehicle blocked Shiya’s car and gunmen opened fire from the second vehicle.

Shiya’s death was confirmed by officials at nearby Kindi Hospital.

Something has to be done now. Leave a comment below what do you think?