Top Five Air Force Stories for Jan. 10, 2012

Today's stories include:

Peterson AFB members honor fallen EOD Airman 
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123285764

Military logistics strained, but healthy, official says 
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123285757

Former WWII medical officer receives long overdue medals 
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123285698

Air Force chief of staff releases 2012 reading List 
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123285683

Deployed CE Airmen create innovative method to speed de-icing process 
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?storyID=123285665



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Peterson AFB members honor fallen EOD Airman

by Lea Johnson
21st Space Wing Public Affairs Office

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. (AFNS) -- Members of the 21st Space Wing here suffered a tragic loss recently when it learned that Airman 1st Class Matthew R. Seidler was killed Jan. 5 in Afghanistan by an improvised explosive device.

Seidler was an explosive ordnance technician assigned to the 21st Civil Engineer Squadron here.

"Our deepest sympathies go out to his family in this time of grief," said Col. Chris Crawford, the 21st Space Wing commander. "He made the ultimate sacrifice for his country, and we will never forget him, nor the others who have met the same fate fighting for freedom both here and abroad."

Two other EOD Airmen were also killed in the attack. They are Senior Airman Bryan R. Bell, 23, of Erie, Pa., who was assigned to the 2nd Civil Engineer Squadron at Barksdale Air Force Base, La.; and Tech. Sgt. Matthew S. Schwartz, 34, of Traverse City, Mich., who was assigned to the 90th Civil Engineer Squadron at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.

Seidler, 24, was from Westminster, Md. He entered the Air Force in November 2009 and arrived here in January 2011. He was the first Airman from the 21st Space Wing killed in action since the wing's inception in 1992.

"He was almost the perfect Airman," said Tech. Sgt. Jason Warden, an EOD craftsman assigned to the 21st CES. "He was really polite, and he was really big on customs and courtesies."

Seidler could often be found in the shop after work studying the equipment or for classes.

"You could tell that he was completely devoted to what we do, and he immersed himself completely in it. He turned into an incredible EOD Airman and enjoyed what we do," said Staff Sgt. Mathew Kimberling, an EOD craftsman assigned to the 21st CES.

The EOD shop is a close family, Kimberling said, and Seidler would often organize group hikes and activities. "He really enjoyed being here in Colorado, especially the outdoor life," Kimberling said.

Seidler was driven, committed and would take on any challenge because he wanted to be the best at everything he did. "He loved doing the incline," Warden said. "Last Friday, we all went as a shop to (hike) the incline in his name."

The EOD community is very small, with less than 1,000 members Air Force-wide, Kimberling said. "When the news spreads, it hurts everyone whether you knew them directly or whether it's just the fact that he was an EOD brother. Everyone feels it."

Lt. Col. Mark Donnithorne, the 21st CES commander, said, "EOD Airmen have been vital to Operation Enduring Freedom, and unfortunately, the pride we'll feel when we see Matt's name on the EOD Memorial Wall at Eglin (Air Force Base) will not extinguish the sorrow we feel from his loss. We will never forget Matt's sacrifice and dedication to his critical, yet dangerous, mission."

Seidler's funeral will be held Jan. 17 in Virginia where he will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

A memorial service will be held here at a later date.

Military logistics strained, but healthy, official says

by Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The state of military logistics is healthy and service members are doing amazing things to supply operations around the world, but the system is strained as a result of 10 years of war, the Joint Staff's director of logistics said here.

Lt. Gen. Brooks L. Bash said military logisticians are, in many respects, the unsung heroes of America's 21st-century wars. In the past year alone, they orchestrated the withdrawal of tens of thousands of American service members and millions of pieces of equipment from Iraq. They supplied forces fighting in Afghanistan, even as political considerations closed a key route into the landlocked country.

They did all this while continuing their "everyday" missions - handling permanent changes of station for tens of thousands of service members, ensuring training requirements are met and ensuring that forward-deployed personnel around the world have what they need to do their missions. They also have supplied allies and other U.S. government agencies, and they have kicked into even higher gear to aid people around the world hit by natural disasters.

"No other country in the world can do what we're doing," Bash said. "We're flying and taking stuff halfway around the world. The fact that Afghanistan is a landlocked country adds to the challenge. Simultaneously completing the Iraq drawdown and then, oh, by the way, doing Haiti, tsunami, and whatever else pops up, and also supporting the combatant commanders in their regions with what they're doing every day."

And logisticians are sustaining the effort. Other countries can get troops to remote areas of the world, but they cannot sustain operations in those regions like the U.S. military can, the general said.

Afghanistan is a case in point. It is one of the more remote areas on the planet. It is landlocked. Pakistan closed the border crossings from the port of Karachi to Afghanistan following an accident on the border that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Even though those gates are closed, Bash noted, American, international and Afghan forces are still getting what they need. The American logistics effort supplies 91,000 U.S. personnel with the food, ammunition, fuel, spare parts, armored vehicles and whatever else they need.

"The first thing we did was we planned for it," the general said. The Pakistanis had closed the gates to Afghanistan before, and logisticians planned for the possibility.

Planners looked at alternatives to the Pakistani gates. They examined supplying troops by air, Bash said, but that is expensive and can be limited. They developed the Northern Distribution Network - an effort that connects Baltic and Caspian Sea ports with Afghanistan through Russia and the countries of Central Asia and the Caucasus.

"We ... have shifted about 30 percent of what was coming in through Pakistan to the northern distribution," Bash said. "It has more capability, and then we built up some of our stocks."

Logisticians built up 60 days worth of stocks in Afghanistan. "But because of the northern distribution being open, ... it is having little to no operational impact," he said.

This is more expensive, but it is effective, the general said. About 85 percent of fuel, for example, comes through the Northern Distribution Network. Logisticians also are using more airlift, and that causes problems on its own, the general said.

Allies, likewise, built up stocks. "We have acquisition cross-servicing agreements with them so that, if they do come up short, then we can help them out through those sorts of agreements," Bash said.

So while there are no shortages, the increased tempo imposes its own price on logisticians.

"There are areas in logistics - some of our specialty areas and our equipment and others that need to be recapitalized and reset," Bash said. Putting flight hours on airplanes and helicopters and putting miles on mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles, for example, takes a toll on the equipment, he explained.

And there is a cost to the people in the logistics enterprise as well, Bash said, but they continue to get the job done.

"I would say our logisticians are the most experienced in history," he said. Logistics personnel are the greatest combat multiplier in the logistics enterprise, he added.

Educating and training those personnel is key to success in the future, the general said.

"We might decrease the number of our people, but the people we do have, we need to make sure they're experienced and trained properly," he said. "We can't shortcut ourselves on that piece to save some money, because it's the people when we talk about avoiding a hollow force."

Force structure adjustments will be necessary in the logistics field, the general said, and the Defense Department must be careful to preserve what truly is necessary - first of all, the people needed for the effort - regardless of the budget situation.

It's also important, Bash said, to ensure there is not a mismatch between strategy and resources.

"If you have a strategy that's larger than your force structure, then that's a different type of hollowness than we typically think of as a hollow force," he said.

Another necessity is access. The best fighting force in the world is no good if it cannot get to the scene of a fight and sustain itself, Bash noted. This means getting the airports, seaports, railheads and overflight permissions needed. It also means the combatant commanders, long before any problems develop, must have the relationships needed to make it happen when push comes to shove, he said.

A final multiplier is operational contract support.

"Now, this is a maturing and evolving mission area that, 10 years ago, we had no doctrine for and we didn't think about much," he said.

The general used Iraq as an example. "Two years ago, we had 170,000 contractors [in Iraq]," he said. "They were providing a lot of logistic capabilities."

Contractors handled food service, fuel, security and the mission. Bash cited a Congressional Budget Office report that said the U.S. government saved about 90 cents on the dollar by using contractors over uniformed personnel.

"How is that possible?" he asked. "Well, you don't have to recruit. You don't have to train. You don't have to retain. You don't have pay and allowances. You don't have retirements. You don't have health care.

"That's 170,000 people we would have had in uniform to do the same job," he continued. "We were able to quickly expand and quickly retract." He called this the epitome of the "reversibility" that defense leaders increasingly are talking about in military strategy going forward.

A quote variously attributed to Gen. of the Army Dwight D. Eisenhower and Gen. of the Army Omar Bradley is: "Amateurs study strategy. Professionals study logistics." The U.S. military certainly subscribes to this, Bash said.

The bottom line, he added, is that the logistics enterprise system is healthy and able to do all the country asks of it now. It needs study and care, however, if it is to remain the world-class operation for the future, he said.

Former WWII medical officer receives long overdue medals

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- Eugene M. Narsete, M.D., was presented the Army Good Conduct Medal, American Campaign Medal and the World War II Victory Medal by Col. Sean Murphy, Deputy Assistant Surgeon General for Healthcare Operations, during a dinner celebrating Narsete's 90th birthday here, Jan 7, 2012.

Narsete performed duty within the continental United States for one year during WWII as a private first class. He then attended medical school at Loyola University with the promise he would return to serve as a doctor in the U.S. Armed Forces.

After he received his medical degree he accepted a commission as a captain as an aviation medical officer in 1946 and was assigned to Headquarters Army Air Forces in Washington D.C.
Narsete never received his medals during his career.

Air Force chief of staff releases 2012 reading List

WASHINGTON (AFNS) -- The Air Force chief of staff announced his latest professional reading list Jan. 6.

In a letter to all Air Force personnel, Gen. Norton Schwartz said today's Airmen are among the military's best educated and most inquisitive.

"We Airmen are innovators because we embrace the word 'why' and mine it for better, smarter ways to operate," Schwartz said.

The Air Force's history is full of examples of Airmen who have embodied this attitude, facing daunting challenges with little more than their minds and fortitude, the general said.

"Their experiences are one of the cornerstones of the 2012 Reading List," Schwartz said.

This year's list contains 13 books and, for the first time, supplementary films, treatises and Internet-based resources. Schwartz will highlight these books throughout the year, and for the first quarter recommends these three:

"Airpower for Strategic Effect," by Colin Gray, provides a critical, strategic history of airpower as well as a new general theory.

"Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," by Laura Hillenbrand, is the inspiring true story of a man who lived through a series of almost too incredible catastrophes.

Finally, "Start with Why," by Simon Sinek, looks at the leaders who have had the greatest influence in the world and describes how they all think, act and communicate in the exact same way, something the author calls "The Golden Circle."

The other books in this year's reading list are:

"The Forever War," by Dexter Filkins

"Paradise Beneath Her Feet," by Isobel Coleman

"The Words We Live By: Your Annotated Guide to the Constitution," by Linda Monk

"The Party: The Secret World of China's Communist Rulers," by Richard McGregor

"Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure," by Tim Harford

"Catch-22," by Joseph Heller

"Freedom Flyers: The Tuskegee Airmen of World War II," by J. Todd Moye

"Physics of the Future," by Michio Kaku

"A Country of Vast Designs: James K. Polk, the Mexican War, and the Conquest of the American Continent," by Robert Merry

"The Hunters," by James Salter

More information on the 2012 reading list can be found at http://www.af.mil/information/csafreading/index.asp

Deployed CE Airmen create innovative method to speed de-icing process

by Tech. Sgt. Vernon Cunningham
455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Through a collaborative effort, the men and women of the 455th Expeditionary Civil Engineering Squadron improved aircraft safety by building a de-icing station from spare materials, drastically increasing the speed and reliability of refilling the de-icer trucks at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

A de-icer truck uses a half-and-half mixture of a red fluid and water, sprayed at high pressure, to remove ice from the surface of aircraft during the winter seasons. The removal of ice from the aircraft is instrumental in maintaining flight safety standards and ensuring the aircraft is ready to fly when needed for duty.

During times when aircraft are covered in ice and snow, the de-icer trucks are in continual use. However, to refill the 2,450-gallon trucks, the crew had to manually drain multiple 55-gallon barrels of pure de-icer fluid. For each barrel, they needed to re-prime the hose for suction. Once the truck was half filled, they would have to wait while they coordinated with another agency on base to fill the other half of the truck with water. Finally, to mix the solution, the driver would proceed back to the aircraft while occasionally pumping the brakes.

The process was slow and labor intensive.

The de-icer truck operators voiced their concerns and Capt. Corey Thobe, 455th ECES project engineer, decided to support a change.

Thobe took input from the de-icer truck operators and other ECES personnel and created a baseline schematic of a construct that would serve as a de-icing station until a permanent one could be built on the site.

He then forwarded it to Master Sgt. John Motley, 455th ECES water and fuels supervisor. Motley worked with his technicians to find out what spare materials they had on hand to construct the final product.

The temporary de-icing station featured three 3,850-gallon tanks of pre-mixed de-icer fluid, an extended-length PVC-pipe "hose" for filling the trucks, and transparent hoses marked to indicate how much fluid is left in each 10-foot tank. The station can be refilled while it is still in use.

Todd Mighell, 455th Expeditionary Maintenance Group transient alert site lead, said the temporary station greatly improved the speed of a de-icer refill.

"It could take up to three hours to fill a truck," he said. "Now, a 2,450 gallon truck can get filled in about 20 minutes.

"Last year, there were missions that had to be scrubbed because the de-icer trucks were not able to keep up with the demand. The trucks kept running out of de-icer fluid and it took too long to refill. We are able to keep up now."

Thobe said in addition to speed, the station is designed to improve the mission's overall safety.

He said the hose used to fill the trucks were designed so Airmen do not have to climb all the way on top of the truck to pour in the fluid. Also, the stop-and-go driving that was used to mix the de-icer solution was no longer necessary due to a pump that cycled, and therefore mixed, the tank's contents. This removed the extra wear and tear on the truck's brakes and frame which was needed during the old mixing process.

Mighell added that the transparent hoses also allowed them to guarantee their service was giving pilots a thoroughly mixed product for de-icing.

"The de-icer fluid is red," he said. "Water is white. If the mix is pink, then we have a good 50/50 mix. We can see if the mix is too red or if it starts going clear. Then we can adjust the solution."

Tech. Sgt. Robert Varney, 455th Expeditionary Aircraft Maintenance Squadron crew chief, said the temporary station worked great. He appreciated the innovation of the 455th ECES to construct the station to improve the de-icer mission while they wait for the permanent station to be built.

Mighell said, "Even if the permanent station never shows up, this one will definitely do the job!"