COMMENTARY>>Way to go, Team Little Rock!

By Col. Greg Otey
19th Airlift Wing commander

Team Little Rock, you watered the eyes of the Air Mobility Command Commander-in-Chief Installation Excellence Award team Monday.

At the outbrief Monday afternoon, they used words like “blown away” and “phenomenal” to describe what you do for our base and our nation, providing C-130 Combat Airlift.

With that said, we’ll still have to wait for a final result. It could come as early as today or it could be as late as Oct. 16.

Regardless of the outcome, I’m proud of each of you for the effort you put into this visit. Two words: Simply amazing.

The evaluation team members said they’ve been to other bases that talk about teamwork among the host and tenant units, but they’ve never seen anything like the teamwork that occurs between our three wings. Some bases talk the talk, but we’re walking the walk!

What they saw were people like Senior Airman Dynasty Horton, 19th Security Forces Squadron, who schedules by-name reservations for Airmen to fire their weapons for qualification. Her efforts have doubled efficiencies, allowing more shooters to fire during each session.

They also saw Connie Oxford, 19th Medical Group, who oversees the base’s exceptional family member program. She put together a comprehensive parent toolkit for new arrivals to the base to help parents transition to the base and find the appropriate care their children need.

Then there’s Tech. Sgt. Chynita Morgan-Davis at the Sports and Fitness Center who brought new energy to the fitness center by assigning special events, like an eco challenge event, to Airmen to orchestrate, which helps prepare them for more responsibility as they move into the NCO ranks.

They also saw Terry Gardner, a 19th Component Maintenance Squadron propeller mechanic, who is recognized as the “premier” C-130 propeller valve housing expert in the Air Force, providing support not only to maintainers here at “the Rock” but also to maintainers overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Lastly, they saw 2nd Lt. Joeli Field, a 34th Combat Training Squadron intelligence officer. She was singled out for her knowledge of the complexity of her unit’s mission, which is deployment readiness exercises, training Combat Airlifters for real world Combat Airlift missions and being part of AMC’s initial cadre to train C-130 and C-17 airlifters on the Joint Precision Aerial Delivery System, which uses global positioning system data to more accurately airdrop pallets of cargo.

Each of those people received the team’s coin for excellence, and so did Lt. Col. Brian Heberlie, 19th Communications Squadron commander, for his efforts in leading our preparation and execution for the visit. Brian put in a lot of sleepless nights and had a team at his disposal that had the same enthusiasm and energy all the way to the end.

While inspectors focused their attention on the base and its mission, they couldn’t overlook the fact we have the best community support of any Department of Defense organization—our community is key to Team Little Rock success.

The pride and enthusiasm they have for our base and our Air Force was reinforced at an evening social sponsored by the base’s community council. There, they heard first hand from our civic leaders why Little Rock Air Force Base is the best base in

Air Mobility Command and the Air Force.

We’ve done our part, and we left nothing on the field. They saw the best of Little Rock Air Force Base on Monday—you and what you do to provide our nation C-130 Combat Airlift. Thank you very much for your effort I am proud to be associated with all of you. Combat Airlift!