Features - Page 28

God & War: Chaplain offers guidance in Iraq, VA hospital
January 11, 2012 — From Department of Veteran Affairs hospital rooms to war-torn battlefields, Lt. Col. John Painter, 315th Airlift Wing chaplain, helps today's warriors at Joint Base Charleston and veterans at the VA medical center find peace in the disarray of combat and scars of war.Often times, military families also need his help. Five years ago, Painter,...

Life After Death: 45 tumors didn't slow this Airman down
December 14, 2011 — For Master Sgt. Scott Kapanke, 437th Maintenance Squadron flight chief at Joint Base Charleston, S.C., cancer wasn't a death sentence, no matter how unfavorable his odds were. To him, it was just another challenge to face. In 1995, Kapanke was a 23-year-old, C-130 maintenance student at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark., when doctors' detected he...

Team Charleston’s own wins Most Beautiful Eyes, $25,000 scholarship
November 30, 2011 — A picture can be worth a thousand words, but for one Team Charleston member it proved to be worth thousands of dollars and more.Kayla Helferich, eight-year-old daughter of Master Sgt. Joe and Michelle Helferich, recently won the Prevent Blindness America "Most Beautiful Eyes" contest and was awarded a $25,000 scholarship. The national contest took...

Abracadabra! Story of part-time Magician, full-time Master Sgt.
November 29, 2011 — "I will make this dove disappear!" the tall, silver-haired magician confidently says to the crowd.His audience, a small group of children, eagerly watches as he carefully places the white bird into a mysterious black box and covers it with a cloth. The magician quickly removes the cloth and reveals the dove has vanished. The children collectively...

Rooting out wild hogs on Joint Base Charleston
September 15, 2011 — Hogzilla! The very word conjures up images of a gigantic wild hog. But that would be somewhere else, not here, right? Maybe not. Feral hogs first appeared on Joint Base Charleston Weapons Station in 2004 with a sighting on the Cooper River waterfront near Pier Bravo. Then reports came in from the Southside area near the TC Docks at the mouth of...

15 AS honors World War II Airmen
September 7, 2011 — A part of what makes an airlift squadron so successful at accomplishing the mission is the trust and camaraderie among the members. The 15th Airlift Squadron represented this by honoring eight World War II fallen service members from the 15th Troop Carrier Squadron at two commemoration ceremonies held Sept. 3 and 4 in Courmayeur, Italy and Bourg...

628 LRS supports upcoming ORE, ORI
August 25, 2011 — November's Operational Readiness Inspection is quickly approaching and exercises are helping members from Joint Base Charleston prepare. Mobility exercises and inspections test how efficiently the base can mass deploy Airmen for a real world contingency. The 628th Logistics Readiness Squadron plays a major role in the base's ORI success,...

121,000 pounds in 15 seconds
July 20, 2011 — Their flight suits are soaked through with sweat, it's 110 degrees outside and the smell in the C-17 Globemaster III resembles a high school locker room -- we're 30 minutes into our 15-hour mission.Like the majority of people who like to browse news on the war, I've seen many pictures and videos of supplies and cargo being dropped from an aircraft...

Water safety learned the hard way
July 13, 2011 — On Nov. 1, 2008 I was enjoying an unseasonably warm day at Heber Springs reservoir with my family and friends. The water temperature was still in the upper 70's, so it was a great day to be on the lake. We started the day on a pontoon boat with our friends riding on their jet skis. After awhile, they invited me to take one for a spin. Not having a...

Brick by brick, uncovering history at JB CHS
July 5, 2011 — Pieces of Charleston history can be found nestled throughout Marrington Plantation on Joint Base Charleston-Weapons Station, but if you don't know where to look, you might walk right past them. Dating back more than 200 years, the people living in Charleston's surrounding area began the process of brick-making, using the firm clay and water from...