CHARLESTON AFB, S.C. –
Good morning Team Charleston. My commentary this week is the second in a three-part series of my three focus areas for Team Charleston -- Airmen and family, mission and community.
Last week I talked about taking care of Airmen and their families. This week's focus is on mission.
As most of you are aware, we were honored by a visit from the Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates on Jan. 18. This was a great opportunity to highlight the mission of the men and women of Charleston AFB.
After arriving on the flightline, Secretary Gates traveled via motorcade to the Naval Space and Warfare Systems Charleston to view installation, testing and integration of advanced electronic systems on Mine Resistant Armor Protected vehicles. He then returned to Charleston AFB where he toured a C-17, received a briefing on the process for preparing the MRAPs to be loaded onto the aircraft and then observed an actual uploading of MRAPs onto a C-17, which was a real-world mission scheduled to depart later that day.
I can't think of a better way to highlight our mission than to show the secretary of defense how our folks are taking the fight to the enemy, delivering freedom and saving lives!
My thanks to Lt. Col. Todd Hackett, 437th Mission Support Group deputy commander, the wing protocol staff, the wing public affairs staff, the 437th Aerial Port Squadron, the 437th Security Forces Squadron and all the other men and women of Team Charleston who worked so diligently to ensure the overwhelming success of this visit.
The mission of Team Charleston is to "Take the Fight to the Enemy." Our Airmen deliver equipment, troops and supplies to the fight ... and sometimes that means leaving our family for extended periods of time. Our deployments as well as numbers of missions are growing. Almost 900 of our Airmen are deployed around the world right now, and we will be ramping up to more than 1,000 by the summer.
Team Charleston maintainers, supporters and operators, both deployed and at home station, are maintaining a high operations tempo.
Our aerial porters are leading the way in the war efforts and saving lives every day. Since the MRAP program was stepped up in the spring of 2007, more than 1,700 MRAPs have been airlifted from the continental United States to the area of responsibility to protect troops on the ground. Virtually all of those MRAPs have been processed through our aerial port squadron.
The 17th Airlift Squadron has more than 130 Airmen deployed in support of the war. They too are doing their part in taking the fight to the enemy.
Lastly, a crucial part of our mission is training, equipping and being ready to go at a moment's notice. When our troops step onto that airplane to deploy, they are our nation's fight ... and by deploying they take the fight to the enemy. Our Airmen are in the fight, and we are fighting in the enemy's backyard, not of ours!
Team Charleston - Take the Fight to the Enemy!