The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds diamond formation performs the Echelon Pass in Review maneuver, during a practice sortie over a range in Nevada. The Thunderbirds are the Air Force’s aerial demonstration team. (U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Manuel J. Martinez)

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Since its early days as a service, the Air Force has embraced technological advances in air and space capabilities and played an integral role as a global airpower. In honor of the service’s 65^th birthday on Sept. 18, Airman is launching Airman Aerials, a photographic art gallery, featuring some of the best aerial photography from around the service in recent history.

The staff plans to continually expand the gallery with new aerial art from some of the most talented Air Force photographers in the service today, so keep checking back for the latest Airman Aerials images.

Staff Sgt. George Reed, a pararescueman with the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron, watches the terrain during a training mission outside of Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The 83rd ERQS Guardian Angel are comprised of three career fields: the CRO (combat rescue officer), the PJ (pararescuemen) and SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape). (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Chris Willis)

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Military medical centers in Germany and the U.S. are occupied by many service members injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Getting them there isn’t easy. This mission requires the talents and dedication of a lot of people working behind the scenes who make sure these Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines arrive there as quickly, and in the best condition, as possible.

Among those behind the scenes are search and rescue teams and aeromedical evacuation and staging teams, all of whom perform missions essential to ensuring injured service members are transported to where they have to be to get the care they need.

In many cases in a combat zone, this means operating under the “Golden Hour” rule—the understanding that critically injured people who undergo surgery within 60 minutes have a much higher rate of survival.

“We have less than an hour to get patients under ‘bright lights and cold steel’ if they are going to live,” said Staff Sgt. George Reed, a pararescueman with the 83^rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron at Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.

For rescue teams, this means going anywhere and doing whatever is necessary to find and bring home the injured.

“Any environment, anytime, anywhere – we will execute a rescue mission or patient recovery,” Reed said.

Members of the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron Guardian Angel transport a patient using an HH-60G Pave Hawk during a training mission outside of Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The 83rd ERQS Guardian AngelÕs mission is to rescue, recover and return American or allied forces in times of danger or extreme duress. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Chris Willis)

Finding injured service members isn’t enough. From there, it’s all about keeping them alive, getting them the immediate medical care they need and then transporting the patients back to the U.S.

Handling this transition are Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facilities , which act as the link between theater hospitals, the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, and the other military medical centers in the U.S., including Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., and Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas.

“All the medical teams across the theater come together to accomplish the movement of patients,” said 1^st Lt. Kathryn Ellens, a registered nurse at Bagram’s CASF. “It’s amazing to see our capabilities and how quickly we can get a patient in and out.”

Because patients require care while in transit, medical teams travel with them. . Called Aeromedical Evacuation teams, each is made up of two flight nurses and three emergency medical technicians who provide medical care and support to patients traveling from theater hospitals to Germany or back to the U.S.

In some cases, when patients are severely injured, a critical care air transport team are is also included on the crew. These teams are made up of a physician, an intensive care nurse and a respiratory therapist, who, working together, can turn a regular medical transport aircraft into a flying intensive care unit.

“It’s all about these guys and girls who put their lives on the line for us, the least we can do is give them the most optimum care we can provide,” said Senior Airman Delton McClary, a CCATT respiratory therapist with the 455^th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Bagram.

All of these jobs, from the rescue teams to the men and women staffing the staging facilities to the medical teams who fly with their patients, are vital in taking injured service members off the battlefield and bringing them home.

Capt. Mario Ramirez and Capt. Suzanne Morris, members of the 455th Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron Critical Care Air Transport Team, confirm a patient’s identity and prepare to administer a blood transfusion during an aeromedical evacuation flight out of Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan. A CCATT crew consists of a physician, intensive care nurse and a respiratory therapist, making it possible to move severely injured or gravely ill servicemembers by air. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Chris Willis)

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Chilean pararescuemen unload from the rear of a CH-47 Chinook while providing cover during an urban warfare environment exercise. The training was part of the world’s largest international personnel recovery exercise, Angel Thunder, which included 19 countries from around the world. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

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Nearly 2,000 people from approximately 19 countries took part in Angel Thunder 2013, the world’s largest joint service, multinational, interagency combat search and rescue exercise, based out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz. The two-week exercise provided training for personal recovery assets using different event scenarios to simulate deployment environments and conditions. Participants performed a variety of operations, including irregular warfare and mass casualty extractions, search and rescue night missions, and aerial support from close support aircraft.

The exercise also allowed the nations to work together and learn from each other.

“It’s very important to train with U.S. troops,” said Brazilian air force Lt. Muriel Martelo. “Brazil is not engaged in current combat operations, but this training is a good experience for us,” said Martleo.

Along with dressing remains, Mable Justice also molds features and applies makeup to remains that are unrecognizable when they come through the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Office at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

Moving a small brush lightly, Mable Justice applies a coat of makeup to the face of a young Soldier. She pauses, studying her work, and then touches up several spots on his cheeks and brow with a flick of her wrist.

The room she’s in is large, cold and sterile – all white walls, stainless steel and cluttered with various types of medical equipment. The only sounds are the constant hum of a machine circulating air through several vents in the ceiling and the occasional swoosh and ting as Mable applies cosmetics and swaps tools.

She smiles as she works, her hands expertly applying cosmetics and bringing the young man’s features to life.

She wants him to look perfect, like he did when he was still alive. Like he did before duty called him to the Middle East; and war and weapons sent him home in a transfer case.

As a mortician at the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Office, Justice has seen many of these transfer cases. Some contain Soldiers, some Airmen or Marines or Sailors. Others contains only body parts.

No matter the state of the remains,, Justice’s job is to take them, clean them, dress them and prepare them for delivery to their families. This preparation includes using cosmetics and other beauty products to enhance the appearance of these mens’ and womens’ remains.

It’s a job most wouldn’t want to do, let alone could. But Justice doesn’t look at it as a job. She looks at it as a calling.

“These service members gave their lives for our country,” she said. “So doing this, making them look nice and putting them in their uniforms one last time, I look at it as a way to honor them … to show them the respect they deserve.”

She may be at peace with her job now, but there was a time it was the last thing in the world she would ever think of doing.

There was a time, after finding out she was being sent to AFMAO, all she could do was say one, small prayer over and over.

“God, give me strength.”

Mable Justice, the dress and restoration section chief for the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Office, reviews body wrapping procedures with members of her staff before a training exercise. As a mortician, Justice believes she found her calling preparing fallen service members to be delivered to their families. (Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III)

Answering the call

Justice, who is also an Air Force Reservist, said this prayer over a decade ago. She was driving from her home in Maryland to Dover Air Force Base to report for an assignment at AFMAO and she was nervous, anxious and scared.

“Being in services (Air Force Services career field), I knew the possibility existed for me to get assigned here,” she said. “But then I actually got orders, and was told I would be handling remains and I just couldn’t imagine myself doing that.”

Justice called her sister while driving and asked her sister to pray for her. Then, she started praying herself.

“I prayed a lot during that drive,” she said.

When she finally arrived, it wasn’t long before she realized her prayers had been answered.

“God sent me an angel, and it was the person I worked with,” Justice said. “She was a staff sergeant and she basically walked me through the whole process and she was there to talk to me and guide me through what I needed to do.”

What she needed to do was not easy, either. Whenever a service member is killed or dies overseas or in a training accident in the U.S., the remains are sent to AFMAO, where a team of medical examiners, embalmers and military members inspect, prep the remains for burial and deliver them to their family.

Justice’s job was to help dress the remains in the uniform the family chose for burial.

“It’s not something I wanted to do, not at all,” she said. “But the longer I was here, the more I realized how important and special this mission is and I was at peace.”

For Mable Justice, careful attention to detail is key to preparing service members for delivery to their families. Justice carefully places white gloves on a training dummy, while teaching the procedures of a full body wrap to her staff. (Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Bennie J. Davis III)

This peace soon turned into desire. Several years later, on her second tour at AFMAO, Justice watched one of the embalming morticians applying makeup to a fallen service member and she felt drawn.

“It was just like something happened inside of me and I knew that this was my calling,” she said. “I knew this is what I was created to do.”

Returning home, Justice applied to study mortuary affairs at the closest university, which was two and a half hours away.

“For two years I drove about five hours a day, just to go to school,” she said.

The miles paid off, though, and Justice earned her degree and was one step closer to answering her calling.

The next hurdle was finding somewhere to complete her apprenticeship. This also wasn’t easy and distance was once again her enemy.

“The closest funeral home I found that would take me was located several hours away in Virginia,” she said.

So, Justice once again logged a lot of miles and hours in her car as she worked at the funeral home and learned the ins and outs of mortuary affairs.

“The funeral home director told me he couldn’t pay very much, but I told him I would do it for free … I just wanted to learn everything I could about being a mortician,” she said.

He showed her everything he knew and she soaked it up, and before she knew it, Justice had fulfilled her internship and was considered a full-fledged mortician.

Taking her new title with her, Justice applied for a mortician position at AFMAO, was accepted and once again found herself in her car, headed to Dover. This time, though, she was saying a different prayer over and over.

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Mable Justice teaches Senior Airmen Tameca Burnett and Myisha Rufus the proper procedures of a full-body wrap. The ultimate goal of the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Office morticians are to make the remains of fallen service members viewable, but if that can’t take place, they use a full wrap technique, then place the remains in the uniform requested by the family. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

Blessings and honor

It’s been almost five years since that day, but Justice still says the same prayer every day she leaves her house and heads to work.

“I feel blessed to do this job,” she said. “I feel like I’ve truly answered my calling.”

Justice doesn’t do this job for herself, though. She does it for the families, friends and loved ones of the service members she sees come through her building.

“I just think how I would want to be treated if I came through here someday, or if someone I knew or loved did,” she said. “So I just treat these fallen service members the same way I would a member of my family.”

This care doesn’t go unnoticed, either.

“I get letters from family members who say thank you a lot,” Justice said. “And that means a lot, because that’s why I do it – for the families.”

And as a last act of honor and respect for the fallen.

Justice looks over the Soldier she’s been working on and nods approvingly. Two Airmen take the gurney he’s lying on and wheel it out of the room and toward the next stage of his journey.

As the gurney leaves, Justice stares after it and says a quiet prayer. But this one is not for herself or for strength or for peace. This prayer is one of gratitude.

“Thank you and God Bless.”

Along with dressing the remains, Mable Justice also molds features and applies makeup to the fallen remains when they come through the Air Force Mortuary Affairs Office at Dover Air Force Base, Del. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

Click above to view a timeline showing the progression of U.S. air superiority,from World War II and Korean War battles through today’s missions.

A few months after the D-Day invasion in June 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower surveyed the Normandy beaches with his son. “You’d never get away with this if you didn’t have air supremacy,” then 2nd Lt. John Eisenhower told his father. “Without air supremacy,” the elder Eisenhower replied, “I wouldn’t be here.”

The United States won air superiority in Europe by 1944 and the Pacific by the fall, won it in Korea in 1950 and hasn’t lost control of the skies since. No American service members on the ground have died from enemy air attacks since three were killed during the Korean War more than 60 years ago.

Control of the air gives a military power the opportunity to exploit height, reach and speed, enabling informed decision-making, the ability to strike freely at a distance, and the ability to maneuver unconstrained by the limits of terrain or ocean, said Dr. Richard P. Hallion, former Air Force Historian and senior advisor for air and space issues with the Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence and Special Programs Oversight.

“I go back to David versus Goliath,” said Hallion, author of “Storm Over Iraq: Airpower in the Gulf War” and “Strike from the Sky: The History of Battlefield Attack.” “There wasn’t a manhood issue here demanding he engage in the close fight, where he could have lost. Instead, David hit him with an aerospace weapon – a rock at a distance. In the airpower era, that aerospace weapon is the airplane and missile of today.”

When the North Koreans invaded the South in June 1950, they did so with overwhelming military force, and initially, without encountering immediate air attacks, Hallion said. Retired Marine Corps Col. Warren Wiedhahn experienced combat in Korea as a private first class, both with and without close air support.

During the initial days of the Korean War, “there was no close air support, the North Korean juggernaut moved very rapidly with their tanks, artillery and infantry. They annihilated everything in front of them until there was nothing left in Korea but the Pusan perimeter,” Wiedhahn said.

Retired  Lt. Gen. William Brown, Jr. helped guarantee allied air superiorityas an F-86 Sabre pilot during the Korean War. By: Army Staff Sgt. Deyane Moses

But by then, robust air power forces – Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps – assisted by British, Australian and South Korean airmen as well – were taking a heavy toll on North Korean attackers, Hallion said.

“During that period of time, the close air support was building up,” Wiedhahn said. “The ships were coming in. The Air Force was flying. Now, all of a sudden, we began to see aircraft.”

After participating in the Inchon Landing and helping to liberate Seoul, Wiedhahn also fought in the battle of the Chosin Reservoir a few months later. United Nations forces chased the North Korean army to the southern tip of South Korea until China sent more than 100,000 troops that surrounded about 30,000 U.N. troops.

“When we were up in the Chosin Reservoir, and the Chinese decided to attack, we began to see air – mostly Navy and Marine Corps (Vought F4U) Corsairs off of the carriers. That’s how I really began to appreciate close air support. It (Control of the air) is absolutely, positively vital.

After a 17-day battle in sub-zero temperatures, the Marines managed to withdraw to the coast, where they were evacuated in December.”

“Indeed, air power saved the Marines from annihilation as they made their way from the reservoir down to the coast,” Hallion said.

Five years after Wiedhahn retired as a colonel in 1982, he talked with four of the Chinese he fought against in the Chosin Reservoir during a visit to Beijing as part of his Virginia-based Military Historical Tours organization. About 40 years later, the sights and sounds of American aircraft were still engrained in their memories.

“One of the greatest things we feared was your airpower,” the Chinese told Wiedhahn. They said, they always moved at night, and never moved when the weather was clear because of their fear of our planes.

Air superiority and supremacy are two of the five conditions in the air warfare spectrum, along with air paralysis, air inferiority and air parity. There is actually a huge difference between air superiority and supremacy that can be especially costly in war, Hallion said.

F-15C Eagle aircraft armed with AIM-7 Sparrow and AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles deploy to Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Shield. The aircraft are assigned to the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing. (U.S. Air Force Photo/Tech. Sgt. Fernando Serna)

“Air superiority is the absolute minimal condition we should ever be prepared to fight with,” he said. “Air superiority means that the enemy is still able to undertake air action against you, but you are able to confound and defeat it. What we should really seek is what we had in the latter stages of World War II and what we had in the (Persian) Gulf War, where we had air supremacy, indeed, we had air dominance. That’s where you so thoroughly dominate your opponent that they are instantly confronted with air attack, and they are unable to do anything about it.

“We had air supremacy, clearly, in the first Gulf War because in that war, the Iraqi air force was simply unable to intervene either against our coalition air forces or against coalition surface forces. At the end of the Gulf War in 1991, by the second or third week, the Iraqi air force was fleeing the country, and the air action there was primarily intercepting aircraft trying to flee to Iran.

That’s what happens when you have air supremacy, and in the best of all circumstances, air dominance. You can then devote 100 percent of your air effort to ensure that the people on the ground get the support they need to prosecute the ground war.”

Gen. Charles A. Horner, who commanded all U.S. and allied air assets during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, credited the airpower dominance to the intelligence, preparation and training before the invasion.

“When did we get air superiority? We had it before the war began because we had the means to get it – the equipment, intelligence, training, and the courage of the aircrews,” Horner said.

“But do not get the idea that gaining control of the air was easy. It was not a macho, no-sweat operation. What turned into a turkey shoot in late January and February started out as a bitter struggle; those first few days were the hardest-fought, most-critical aspect of the entire war.”

Because the Air Force has had almost an unprecedented control of the skies for decades, it might be easy to forget how costly it was to achieve air superiority, especially during World War II. In the European and Mediterranean theaters alone, the U.S. lost 4,325 fighters and bombers before D-Day, with 17,000 killed and 21,000 wounded or POW in the fight for air superiority and didn’t achieve theater-wide supremacy until the final days of the war. More

Airmen were killed in aerial missions over Europe “than all the Marines who unfortunately died in the entire span of World War II,” said retired Gen. David Deptula, who was the Air Force’s senior intelligence community official when he was the Headquarters Air Force deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Deptula was also the main attack planner during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and a joint task commander for Operation Northern Watch in 1998-99.

“If you take a look at how many aircraft we lost in the Vietnam War – 2,781 Air Force and Navy combined, that was against a fifth-rate power with only 206 fighter aircraft. Why did that happen? Because, we were late in achieving air superiority.

A U.S. Air Force North American F-100D-85-NH Super Sabre aircraft (s/n 56-3415) fires a salvo of 2.75-inch rockets against an enemy position in South Vietnam in 1967. This aircraft was lost with its pilot, 1Lt Clive Jeffs, after an engine failure near Nha Trang on 12 March 1971.
Date 1967, Source U.S. DefenseImagery [1] photo VIRIN: DF-SN-82-00883 [2], Author USAF

Today, we have a geriatric combat Air Force, and we badly need to recapitalize it in order to maintain the advantage of air supremacy in the future.”

Without control of the air, troops on the ground face many hardships and hazards, as the late Gen. Bruce K. Holloway, vice chief of staff during the Vietnam War, wrote in an article for Air University Press.

For six decades, American troops haven’t had to experience “what it’s like to lose mobility except at night; to be cut off from supplies and reinforcements; to be constantly under the watchful eye of enemy reconnaissance aircraft; to be always vulnerable to strafing and bombing attacks; to see one’s fighters and bombers burn on their handstands; and to be outnumbered, outgunned and outmaneuvered in the air,” Holloway wrote in his article, “Air Superiority in Tactical Air Warfare.”

However, there are some who aren’t convinced the Air Force’s decades-long dominance of the air is a certainty, especially with recent cuts in weapons systems such as the F-22 Raptor, which Deptula calls “the most capable aircraft ever built specifically to achieve air superiority,” and F-35 Lightning II. In 2009, then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for capping the original 722 Raptors to 187. Three years later, across-the-board defense spending cuts have put the F-35 at risk.

“There are newer threats out there, quite frankly, that could defeat the aircraft that we currently have,” Deptula said. “That’s why the Air Force works so hard to recapitalize those aircraft by building F-22s and F-35s that can operate, using modern technology, to achieve air dominance by networking capabilities with sensors that we never had in the past.

“Our challenge in the future is we’re not going to have time to do what we did in World War II – bring America’s industrial might to bear over the time necessary to create the kinds of aircraft to maintain our superiority advantage. It falls on Airmen of today, to articulate the air superiority lessons of the past and to make the Airman’s voice in the defense of our nation heard. Today’s Airmen need to be unabashedly clear about the lessons of history in order to maintain our capabilities in the future.”

As vital as Eisenhower perceived air superiority to success on D-Day, some airpower experts wonder if the day will come when the U.S. won’t have the control of the skies needed for a crucial confrontation with another military power.

“I think the greatest danger we face as a nation today is to assume that air and space power is a God-given right to the United States of America, and we will always enjoy it,” Hallion said.

“We see that sometimes, unfortunately, in our sister services. They have labored so long with perfect freedom of maneuver because of the American airpower shield that we’ve put over their heads that I think many individuals fail to realize that it is perishable. Air dominance is like freedom itself – you have to constantly nurture it, care for it and invest in it to ensure that you will still have it.”

An F-35 Lightning II, from the 461th Flight Test Squadron, Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., receives fuel from a Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker, from the 151st Air Fueling Wing, Utah Air National Guard, Feb. 22, 2012. The 151st Air Refueling Wing routinely supports air operations across the western United States.(U.S. Air Force Photo/Tech. Sgt. Dennis Henry)

For Staff Sgt. Anthony Valentin, the Air Force core values not only help him excel at his official duties, they also help him in his extraordinary off-duty pursuits. (U.S. Air Force video/Staff Sgt. Chris Pyles)

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Staff Sgt. Anthony Valentin is a man living two wildly different lives, each with personalities that are opposite of each other. By day, he’s a polite, professional combat operations controller at the 624th Operations Center at Joint Base San Antonio – Lackland. When he leaves work, he sheds his Air Force uniform and dons his pro wrestling attire, transforming into “Brooklyn’s Finest” AJ Summers – the cocky, boisterous cruiserweight wrestler, who is reviled by fans of San Antonio’s Branded Outlaw Wrestling organization.

This split personality didn’t happen overnight. As a 5-year-old living in New York, Valentin dreamed of joining the military and becoming a G.I. Joe. Then, he witnessed the entrance of one of the most electrifying wrestlers ever to grace the World Wrestling Federation, sparking another dream in his heart.

“I saw The Ultimate Warrior run across my TV set with all those crazy, colorful fringes on his arms, shaking the ropes and being all crazy,” Valentin recalled. “I saw the way the crowd reacted, the attention he (received) and any little thing he did everyone watched him. That’s when I knew I wanted to be a wrestler.”

His mother still remembers that moment just as vividly as her son. “I didn’t even know what an Ultimate Warrior was, but Anthony was jumping up and screaming and saying he wanted to be just like him,” Denorah Marcial said.

A couple years later, she took Valentin to his first live wrestling match at Madison Square Garden in New York City. It was then that Marcial really took note of Anthony’s passion for the sport; but it wasn’t until he was older that she realized just how strong his love for it really was.

Staff Sgt. Anthony Valentin, a combat operations controller, checks information on his computers at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. Valentin’s job is to monitor cyberspace for the Air Force. After duty hours, becomes a villain wrestler for Branded Outlaw Wrestling.

“He would talk about becoming a wrestler in middle school, but I really didn’t think he was serious until he went into high school and joined the wrestling team. That’s when I knew he was going to put me through it with this sport,” she said.

While his interest in wrestling had grown over the years, Valentin had not given up his military dreams.

“He came home, said he had spoken to a recruiter and was thinking about joining the Air Force,” Marcial said. “The next thing I knew, he graduated high school and was off to the Air Force.”

After graduating basic training and seeing her son for the first time in months, she knew he made the right choice.

“I went to Texas when he graduated boot camp. I saw (what looked like) a 6-foot-tall man in front of me, when a mere boy left,” she said. “His whole demeanor had changed. He was always respectful before, but now he showed respect in a new way.”

His pro wrestling career began in 2005 when he was stationed at Warner Robins Air Force Base, Ga. A friend told him about a wrestling school in the area.

“I went one day and realized it was what I wanted to do,” he said. “I went from an inexperienced person who couldn’t tell the difference between a wrist lock and waist lock to learning not only those moves, but also how to wrestle and carry myself,” he said.

The evolution of AJ Summers continued concurrently as Valentin grew into an Airman. After leaving Robins AFB, he moved to Davis Monthan AFB, Ariz., and then to Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C. At each of those assignments, Valentin joined small, independent wrestling organizations where he continued to dedicate his off-duty time to honing his wrestling craft and perfecting AJ Summers’ persona.

Staff Sgt. Anthony Valentin lifts weight to tone his muscles before a match at a local gym. During the day, Valentin’s heart and soul is Air Force. Off duty, though, he spends time at the gym training and learning more about wrestling.

“I went the bad boy route (with AJ Summers) because I’m a good guy all the time,” said Valentin, who has now been wrestling for more than seven years. “As AJ Summers, when I’m performing, I’m able to say exactly what’s on my mind, both good and bad. I can walk out, look at a guy and say, ‘You need to hit the gym.’ As a good guy, you can’t – you have to smile, you have to nod and be cordial. It’s not fun, but when you’re the villain, it’s fun.”

His mother is proud of the accomplishments he’s made in the ring but wishes his wrestling persona more closely matched his real-life personality.

“When he first started, I would ask him; ‘Why can’t you be a good guy like John Cena or The Rock?’ but he would say ‘No, mom. There’s more animation and excitement with being a bad guy,’” Marcial said. “He tends to lean toward the bad guy because it’s totally opposite of his nature. He’s not a bad guy; it’s just him playing a role, which he does very well.”

While on the surface these two lifestyles appear to clash, Valentin said that excelling at both takes the same work ethic, professionalism and commitment to excellence.

“During the day, when I have that uniform on, my heart and soul is Air Force. I’m there to do a job, I’m there to do it well and to give it my all,” he said. “On my off-duty time, I’m in the gym, I’m training, wrestling, watching film and constantly learning. I’m giving an equal amount of time to both my careers.

Valentin said the similarities between the Air Force and wrestling are actually more apparent than some might initially think.

“In the military, you’re taught to take care of your brothers and sisters who work right next to you and make sure you’re taking care of each other,” he said. “In wrestling, you’re putting your life on the line, and you’re putting your life in the other person’s hand. Essentially, you want to take care of that person because that’s what they’re giving you.”

Staff Sgt. Anthony Valentin autographs a poster for Jalen Thomas, right, and his sister, Jordan, after a match. Valentin received a lot of kudos after his BOW debut, including some from Jalen and Jordan, who are some of his biggest fans.

In 2010, he moved to San Antonio, where he currently resides. For a time, he was a member of a tag team known as “Excellence” with a fellow Airman, Staff Sgt. Gregory Gauntt, in the River City Wrestling organization, which happens to be the cross-town rival to BOW.

Gauntt, a military training instructor with the 324th Training Squadron, was more inexperienced than Valentin, but his large size and similarly aloof personality made the two Airmen a great tag team.

“Being a training instructor, I’m used to telling the trainees that I’m a subject-matter expert, and we act like we’re experts in the ring,” said Gauntt, who’s known as Ryan Oshun when he’s wrestling.

But as perfect as “Excellence” might have been, one night in early January changed everything. Current reigning BOW cruiserweight champion Rudy Russo just won a match when a hooded figure ran into the ring and attacked him. With the champion lying motionless in the center of the ring, Summers drew back his hood, surprising everyone in attendance and changing the landscape of the cruiserweight division in San Antonio.

In wrestling circles, Summers’ action is what’s known as “jumping promotions,” which was kept under wraps so well, Gauntt didn’t even know. With the two Airmen now wrestling in competing organizations, their partnership has dissolved.

“I called AJ and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” said David Schulze, one of the owners of BOW. “I saw AJ work at a different promotion about a year and a half ago. I thought he had a good look and work ethic and I’d been wanting to bring him in for awhile.”

In his first match in his new promotion in late January, Summers won a “four corners” bout that included former World Wrestling Entertainment star Shoichi Funaki.

“I didn’t hit my frog splash as perfectly as I would have liked, but everything else went pretty well,” Valentin said after the match.

Standing just a few inches taller than 5 feet, he knows his small stature will be a hurdle for him to make it to a top promotion, but he believes he hasn’t achieved his full potential and uses his naysayers as inspiration to fuel his drive to success.

“I didn’t believe the people who said I’d never make it, the people who said I was too small or the people who said I was going to quit. I use that to help me push harder,” he said.

“(The Air Force) is the closest thing to being a G.I. Joe as I’ll ever get, and I’ve accomplished the dreams I set out 23 years ago. Not many people can say they’ve done that.”

For now and the foreseeable future, Valentin plans to keep living out his two childhood dreams, and AJ Summers, his cocky alter-ego, will continue to follow him along for the ride.

Photos of Staff Sgt. Anthony Valentin and other wrestling memorabilia are on display for fans to buy at the Woodlawn Gym in San Antonio, Texas. Selling memorabilia is another way professional wrestlers earn a living.

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Maj. Johnathan Zito pulls in behind a KC-135 Stratotanker to receive fuel off Florida’s east coast on July 12, 2012. Zito is a C-17 Globmaster III pilot with the 15th Airlift Squadron at Joint Base Charleston, S.C. The range of the KC-135 is 1,500 miles with 150,000 pounds of transfer fuel and can perform a ferry mission up to 11,015 miles. This unique asset enhances the Air Force’s capability to accomplish its primary mission of global reach. (U.S. Air Force photo/Master Sgt. Jeremy Lock)

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Each year, military photographers from around the Department of Defense showcase their talents in the annual Military Photographer of the Year (MILPHOG) contest. This year, Air Force photographers took numerous awards and displayed amazing skill while covering everyday activities and operations around the world. This gallery highlights these Air Force photographers who were recognized as some of the best in the DOD.

Staff Sgt. Steven Chalupnik, 820th RED HORSE pavement and construction craftsman, operates a rock crusher at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. The rocks can be used for base course on road construction or landscaping. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. William Coleman)

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When the men and women of the 820th RED HORSE Squadron’s Special Capabilities Flight find a mountain in their path, they don’t see an obstacle; they see an opportunity.

This opportunity usually involves explosives – and a lot of them.

“We can turn a mountain into a molehill,” said Master Sgt. Daniel Draper, the NCO in charge of special capability training. “You know, instead of the other way around.”

Molehill or not, what the Airmen will turn a mountain into is a road, a runway or any other paved surface. Using its equipment and knowhow, the team turns solid rock into fine bits of sand and dirt that is mixed with other materials to create asphalt and concrete.

RED HORSE, which stands for Rapid Engineering Deployable Heavy Operational Repair Squadron Engineers, provides the Air Force with a highly mobile, civil engineering response force to support contingency and special operations worldwide.

Each squadron is a self-sufficient, 404-person mobile unit capable of rapid response and independent operations in remote, high-threat environments. They provide heavy repair capability and construction support when requirements exceed normal base civil engineer capabilities and where Army engineer support is not readily available.

Within this mission, the 820th’s Special Capabilities Flight is responsible for building and repairing roads and runways.

Senior Airman David Calkins walks past a row of heavy equipment vehicles. Calkins is a pavement and equipment operator for the 820th RED HORSE Squadron. RED HORSE operators are trained to operate multiple variations of large equipment, including asphalt pavers, hydraulic excavators and articulated trucks. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

It sounds simple, but the process actually involves a lot of manpower, equipment and skill.
“We’ve got a lot of each,” said Chief Master Sgt. Thomas Bathe, the squadron’s chief of airfields. “These guys really know what they’re doing.”

It all starts with a mountain or hill. Large, small, medium – it doesn’t matter so long as the peak is made of the right type of rock. If it is, then game on.

“Basically, we drill holes in the rock, fill them with explosives and start blasting,” said Senior Airman Steven Chalupnik, a member of the squadron’s quarry operations team.

The rubble created by these blasts is then hauled off using large dump trucks and back hoes and delivered to a giant machine called the “rock crusher.” Here, large rocks are shaken, crushed and smashed into smaller ones before being spit out the other side.

This material, called “base course,” is similar in appearance to gravel and is used as the foundation for roads and runways.

“We put the base course down first, compact it and use it to stabilize the concrete or asphalt laid over it,” said Master Sgt. Todd Reeve, a special capabilities project manager.

Not all of the crushed material is used as base course. Some is sent through a screening machine that breaks the rocks down even further – some as small as a grain of sand – and this material is used in the squadron’s concrete and asphalt plants to make paving materials, which the unit uses to fix or create roads around the base.

Tech. Sgt. Tracy Hofstetter and Staff Sgt. Steven Chalupnik watch as a rock driller penetrates the surface and drills a hole in the quarry at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. Once the holes are drilled, they are filled with explosives. Hofstetter and Chalupnik are the NCOs in charge of the quarry for the 820th RED HORSE Squadron. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

“Having our own plants allows us to create our own materials,” Draper said. “Having this capability saves the Air Force a lot of money.”

If the base purchased asphalt from a local supplier, it would cost about $180 per ton. Using rock from its own quarry and mixing the asphalt in its own plant, the squadron can produce asphalt at a cost of $80 per ton, a savings of $100 for every 2,000 pounds of material.

“We can produce a lot of material, too,” Draper said.

The squadron’s asphalt plant, for instance, averages about 100 tons of material per hour, saving about $10,000 per hour of production.

These savings aren’t the only benefit, though. Being able to take a mountain and turn it into paving materials gives the squadron unique deployment capabilities.

“We can go anywhere and build a road or runway,” Reeve said. “And we can do the whole process, from rock to road, all on our own.”

Being an expeditionary unit, everything the squadron does is geared around deploying. Even its daily operations, like fixing or building new roads on Nellis, are considered training for “the real thing:” the day the unit heads downrange to build a runway or road in a remote part of the world.

“That’s why we’re here,” Draper said. “We give the Air Force the capability to go anywhere, establish a base and create the infrastructure to support it. A lot of times, runways and roads are some of the most important parts of a deployed location, and we have the people and equipment needed to make them.”

The nature of the squadron’s work – blasting, hauling and crushing rock – is hard on their equipment, and it’s not uncommon for some of it to break down.

Airman 1st Class Samuel Lamdon shovels asphalt out of the back of a dump truck and into a paver. Lamdon is a pavement and equipment operator for the 820th RED HORSE Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev. RED HORSE squadrons possess design and build capabilities, to include site surveying, planning, procurement and full construction. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)

“I mean we’re basically blowing up a mountain and turning it into a road,” Chalupnik said. “When you’re moving that amount of rock, things are going to break.”

They do, too. The most recent casualty was the unit’s “rock crusher,” the large machine that turns large chunks of rock into smaller ones. A mass of conveyors and moving parts, the machine succumbed to the constant beating it receives and was knocked out of commission for nearly two months.

“It’s just par for the course,” Draper said. “In some cases, we’re using older equipment to do our mission, and we either wait for new stuff to show up or find workarounds when the stuff we do have stops working. One way or another, we get the job done.”

The 820th RED HORSE is also the only active-duty squadron in the Air Force that has its own rock quarry. The 554th, at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, also has a quarry, but it’s made from coral instead of rock.

Because of this, any RED HORSE member who needs training on rock quarry operations goes to Nellis and learns from the 820th.

“We have a robust training program,” Draper said. “We teach every aspect of what we do, from drilling and blasting, to creating materials and using them to make a road.”

Students take this knowledge back to their units, and when they deploy, they are already versed in how to turn a solid slab of rock into a piece of road or tarmac.

“It’s a capability we have that not many people probably even know about,” Reeve said. “But it’s a much-needed one that not only gives the Air Force a valuable deployment capability, but one that also saves the Air Force money.”

When the 820th RED HORSE Airmen see a mountain, they see an opportunity – to pave a road, construct a runway or connect a base. When Air Force leaders see the 820th, they see an opportunity to go anywhere in the world and be able to land planes and get people where they’re needed.

Staff Sgt. Derek Ross, engineer, 819th Expeditionary Red Horse Squadron, operates a grader at Kandahar Airfield, Afghanistan, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Red Horse teams deploy frequently to assist with base construction in remote areas. (U.S. Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. James Harper Jr.)

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Jordan Vermeire, the daughter of Master Sgt. Scott Vermeire, reads a poem she wrote about life as a military child. She and the rest of her family are stationed at Ramstein Air Base, Germany. (U.S. Air Force video/Andrew Breese)

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It seems like practice on any American soccer field. High school girls in a swirl of motion intent with only one objective – slam the black and white ball into the opponent’s net. But for 18-year-old senior Lexi Vermeire, the practice game does a lot more. For her it represents a sense of belonging, a social teddy bear of sorts that helps deal with the emotional stress of constant moving, leaving friends behind and picking up the pieces at a new, often foreign environment.

Lexi, and sisters 16-year-old Jordan and 12-year-old Shelie, are the daughters of Master Sgt. Scott Vermeire and his wife, Sara, an Air Force family that has spent their lives in an environment most of their peers outside of military life rarely face.

The family resides at Ramstein Air Base, a large, sprawling base near Kaiserslautern, Germany. For the girls, the move less than two years ago from the tropical setting of Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, has been a difficult one. And, according to Lexi, leaving friends and extended family behind every few years has changed the way they view life. “We don’t say ‘goodbye,’ we say ‘see you later.’”

Their mom, Sara, said that the simple attitude adjustment for the girls has been important. “We talk about it being a small Air Force and we always run into people again. So we always taught the kids to say, ‘see you later,’ to show that leaving friends behind isn’t a permanent thing.”

The transition has been especially hard on Lexi, who had used sports to help her handle the move from Nevada to Guam and now to Germany. She built a reputation as an exceptional athlete and was an important part of two championship soccer and cross-country teams.

“You have to understand that change is going to happen throughout your life, and military kids are forced to find out about those changes from a very young age,” said Lexi. “Once you find something that’s going to keep you strong, you stick with it. Mine was sports. It happened very naturally and also boosted my confidence and helped me move on from focusing on what I left behind to what I could gain from the move.”

Lexi Vermeire chats with friends Mitchell Kimbrough, left, and Chase Lamberton, right, as they await transportation to Ramstein Air Force Base’s Elementary school were they volunteer as mentors to the younger students.

Like Lexi, Jack Clavenna is a high school student who finds that the constant moving as part of an Air Force family has a definite impact on teenage life. “One of the biggest struggles of being a military brat, at least to me, has been moving. Each time I leave, it’s a struggle with me and my friends trying to stay, and my parents saying ‘it’s time to go.’ Each time my siblings and I move, we lose the opportunity to live in one place we’ve grown to love.”  Clavenna added that, on the flip side, “we get to experience new places and meet new people who change us, and we hope to do the same back. I truly believe that certain things are special because we let them go, but never forget. I truly am proud to be a military brat.”

Brent Taylor is a 19-year-old student at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School, who spent his entire life as the son of an intelligence officer, moving every two or three years to a different state or country. For Taylor, the life of a military brat outweighs the pitfalls.

“I have lived in 10 different states, as well as three years at Ramstein AB in Germany. I was born in Fairbanks, Alaska; then moved to Germany for three years. After Germany, we PCS’d to D.C. for a year, then spent a year in Alabama, two at Shaw AFB in South Carolina, two at Randolph AFB in San Antonio, two at Beale AFB near Sacramento, Calif., two at Hickam AFB on Oahu, Hawaii, three at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nev., and one at Fort Meade, Md.

“I have travelled all over Europe and throughout the United States, thanks to my father’s job in the Air Force. In fact, my best memories as a military brat are experiencing the countless cultures, traveling to different countries, and seeing new people. The hardest part of being a military child has to be the process of saying ‘goodbye’ to friends and making new ones.  But it was a challenge I was willing to make for my father’s career.  I knew it was important to him, so it was important to me.”

Lexi believes that military children have extra burdens beyond the stress of moving every few years, such as a parent who deploys or the isolation of being in strange surroundings. “Us teenagers, we’re stupid and we don’t always think of the consequences of things in a way adults do. So sometimes you have to be the friend who asks if this is a smart idea. I’ve had friends who have done that for me as well.

Jordan Vermeire spends lunch with her friends Gabriel Lowe and Belen Simpson tucked away together in their favorite Ramstein High School hallway. Jordan is a junior in school and though last year was a hard transition moving from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, she feels lucky to be surrounded by friends who all share common military bonds.

“Military kids have to be a lot stronger than people think they are. It’s not just the active duty member who has responsibility and has to deal with being in the military. Kids have to be in the military too, in a sense. We have to be responsible for our actions and the actions of our friends, and we have to be ready to move and give up everything. It’s pretty much the same as the parent, except we’re also going through the pains of being an adolescent and don’t have a choice in the matter.”

Lexi’s story isn’t unique among military children. Fellow senior George Hyde has moved 11 times during his lifetime. Terri Leigh Obermiller, one of Lexi’s soccer teammates has moved eight times, and plans one more trip back to the U.S. before heading to college in Texas.  Bobby Ramirez has also fielded double-digit moves since he was two weeks old and said kids don’t always take the news well.

“When my parents told us we were moving to Germany, my two little sisters cried,” said Ramirez. “I think a lot of my friendships have been built over the years to only last two or three years. After that you really don’t worry about it because you move. But I think I’m closer to friends here in Germany because everyone here is a DODDS kid. We understand each other and can be there for each other when our parents deploy. Everyone’s been through the same thing.”

Greg Hatch is a retired Army sergeant major who is in his seventh year as the principal of Ramstein High School, a part of the Department of Defense Dependents Schools system. As both a school administrator and as a parent who spent half of his career overseas, he sees both the pros and cons of life as a military child.

With a 30 percent transition rate of students PCSing with their military parent or parents in and out of his high school, Hatch sees the good and the bad, but feels that there are definitely more pros than con.

Shelie Vermeire, uses her charm to sweet talk her father, Master Sgt. Scott Vermeire, into letting her attend a friend’s birthday party at the base bowling alley. Shelie doesn’t remember all the moves the family has made in the Air Force, but she has adjusted easily to living in Europe although she misses the everyday sunshine of Guam.

“We do everything we can to give our students an American-style educational experience. We don’t have all of the resources, but we do a pretty good job of replicating what we can.  In areas like our sports and academic programs, students actually stand a better chance of making a team. There are more opportunities to participate; consequently more kids take advantage of them.”

Hatch feels that in many cases, military children have an advantage over their stateside counterparts. “How many kids get to have their prom on a river cruise? Or have an AP literature class in London to see where Shakespeare was born? Or go to Berlin or Rome for your AP history class? I think being over here presents a lot of opportunities for students to see and experience things they normally wouldn’t get to do back in the states.”

But for all of the trauma of moving, leaving old friends behind and making new ones elsewhere, the most difficult part of being a military child is the deployment of a parent or parents.  Jessica Smart is a 16-year-old 11th grader whose dad has been deployed on several occasions. She said that the sacrifices her dad made have, in a way, defined who she is.

“Our Airmen are heroes, and I’m honored to call my dad my hero,” said Smart. “When we wave as our daddies walk off to those planes, a part of us leaves as well. Being a military brat has made me who I am today. I may hate it at times, and wish I didn’t have to deal with the pain, but the fact is that my daddy makes sacrifices and I have to as well.”

Smart said that deployments of loved ones are by far the single biggest part separating military kids from other children. “People forget that we don’t have our moms and dads home for birthdays, Christmas and summer vacation like they do. The hardest part of being a military child is waving goodbye to my dad and not knowing if I will be able to welcome him back home.”

But Smart said that while deployments may be the dark side of life as a military child, homecomings bring emotions few kids outside of the military will ever experience.  “My best memory is from sixth grade when my dad returned from being away for six months. As I got out of the car there was my dad kneeling with a gorgeous bouquet of flowers. The feelings I had that day were repeated just a few weeks ago when my dad returned from another deployment. Those feelings cannot be duplicated – they’re one of a kind.”

Lexi and Jordan Vermeire spend quality time together on a running path right outside of Ramstein Air Force Base, Germany. Lexi is a track star and senior at Ramstein High School and has been accepted to Oklahoma State University and will be leaving her family this summer, so time together between the sisters is precious.

Faith, a 12-year-old sixth grader, and daughter of a career Air Force officer, sees life through her experiences and looks at her dad’s deployment as just one of many parts of an exciting life.

“My family and I move about every two years and I have lived in six different places. I was born in Germany, then I moved to Mississippi, then Tampa and Fort Walton Beach, Fla., South Carolina and now Alaska. We have been on vacation to Alaska, Germany, Florida and Hawaii. I did a lot of cool things like swim with the dolphins, feed sharks, swim with stingrays and go to a water park. My dad and I have ‘dada days,’ when my dad and I do cool things together like go skiing, ride ATVs, go to the zoo – anything really. My best dada day ever was when we were in Orlando and we went behind the scenes to an aquarium called ‘Discovery Cove.’ I swam with the dolphins! I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up, so it was amazing for me.

“The hardest part of being a military child is when your parent is deployed. It is hard not to see my dad for up to two years. Even though he was gone, I was still able to keep in touch with him by email and phone calls. The best feeling is when he comes home. My dad has been deployed five times and, whenever it was time for him to come home, I would make a colorful banner that said ‘welcome home dada.’ To me, it’s the best feeling in the world when he returns. Being in a military family, to me, is a big adventure and fun experience.”

Probably the best example of what deployment means for a military child comes from Chloe, a young fourth-grader in Hawaii, whose dad is an Air Force master sergeant.  “I have travelled to Germany, France, Luxemburg, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Holland, Spain, Gibraltar and Hawaii. The hardest part is when my daddy deploys, but I know he is helping people. He has deployed a lot and I am always happy when he comes back. We sing the Sponge Bob song on the phone while he is away, and we sing it together when he comes home.”

The Vermeire’s come together for a family dinner, sharing the day’s stories from school, work and track practice. Each of the girls have different daily routines dependent on school activities, chores and after school employment.

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Hauptfeldwebel (Master Sgt.) Christian Dohlen, a communications technician aboard the E-3A Sentry AWACS, comes up from below deck after working on the communication servers below the aircraft floor. As a communication technician, Dohlen initializes, manages and monitors the highly sophisticated on-board communication equipment.

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Coming to the United States, Staff Sgt. Sultan Mohammed Alasmari was nervous. A member of the Saudi Arabian air force, it was the first time he ever left his home and he had very little knowledge of anything “American.”

“All I’d ever seen of the U.S. was in movies and television shows,” he said. “Shooting and violence and craziness, and I thought this was how the U.S. really was. But now I come here and I see it is so amazing and beautiful, and the people are so nice, and I love it here.”

Alasmari is no tourist, either. He’s attending training at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, to learn how to become an F-15 Eagle crew chief as part of a multinational training program. Basically, Alasmari will come to Sheppard for a few months, learn how to be a crew chief from his American counterparts and then take this knowledge back to Saudi Arabia. There, he will teach fellow Saudi airmen what he’s learned, making his air force a more efficient and professional service.

Stories like Alasmari’s are becoming more and more common, too. Foreign military students are at bases across the Air Force, where they learn how to perform jobs from aircraft maintenance to communications and airfield management.

“Every year, we have nearly 10,000 foreign military students from more than 140 nations attending training in the U.S.,” said Col. Scott Seavers, the commander of the Air Force Security Assistance Training Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas. “So, a lot of times, when you see someone in a foreign uniform walking around the base or in the commissary, that’s why he or she is there, to attend some type of training.”

AFSAT is the unit responsible for scheduling and tracking foreign military students who come into the U.S. for training. Typically, foreign nations send students to the U.S. to attend technical training schools to learn much-needed skills, such as basic piloting, aircraft maintenance or military airport operations. In some cases, though, the training is included as part of a weapons system sale. For example, Saudi Arabia recently purchased the F-15 and part of the sale ensured the country could send students to various U.S. training schools to learn how to fly, operate and fix the aircraft.

Staff Sgt. Michael Webb, a crew chief for the E-3 Sentry, works with Hauptfeldwebel (Master Sgt.) Bjoern Kraus of the German Air Force to rotate the distinctive rotating radar dome before working on the fuselage of the Sentry.

For the U.S., this generates revenue. Currently, AFSAT executes an annual budget of nearly $300 million and is responsible for more than $4.7 billion in foreign military sales contracts.

The program isn’t just about earning money, though. Training foreign military people also ensures knowledge is shared with partner and allied nations, and allows foreign air forces to operate more effectively and efficiently.

“We don’t just give these students technical skills that will teach them how to fly or fix an aircraft,” Seavers said. “We’re introducing them to new ideas, new ways of thinking and are developing relationships around the world.”

Students do learn technical skills, ranging from initial pilot training to aircraft maintenance to communications, but for many this is also their first time leaving their home countries.

Culture Shock

Once here, some are not only looking to become highly trained technicians, but, in some case, they are looking for hope.

“My air force is still young and learning,” said Capt. Noorzie Naqeebullah, from the Afghanistan air force, who is attending technical training at Sheppard to become an aircraft maintenance officer. “Everything I can learn is good … and will make my air force good. And I come here, I see this country, this people and I think it possible for my own. I hope much (is) possible.”

Like Naqeebullah, Alasmari is also hopeful – and thankful for the opportunity to come to the U.S. and learn how to do his job better.

“This experience, being able to come here and work with U.S. Airmen, is amazing,” Alasmari said. “I am learning from the best, and I am excited to take what I learn here back to my country so that others can learn, too.”

Canadian students walk from the 714th Training Squdron training area, Oct. 30, 2012, at Little Rock Air Force Base, Ark. The 714th manages state of the art C-130 training facilities that train students from all over the world. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Russ Scalf)

The people Alasmari and Naqeebullah interact with aren’t only U.S. Airmen, either. In their classrooms, and all around the base, the two men spend time with and talk to students from numerous foreign nations, including the Netherlands, Yemen, Japan and Germany.

This is exactly what the Air Force wants, too.

“Some of these students would probably never interact with each other outside of this environment,” said Capt. Tom Geene, a T-38 Talon instructor pilot at Sheppard AFB. “But here, they are able to talk with each other, get to know each other and find out what makes them tick and develop a better understanding of each other and why they do things the way they do or think the way they think.”

Then, along with the technical skills they’ve acquired, the students also take new ideas and a better understanding of the world around them back to their home countries, he added.

Many Nations, One Goal

Bringing international students to the U.S isn’t just about sharing cultures. It’s also about sharing information and “keeping everyone on the same page,” said Lt. Col. Frits Beenhakker, with the Netherlands air force.

“You’re starting to see more and more countries working together, and I think this is the future of the world’s militaries,” said Beenhakker, who is the senior Netherlands liaison. “So when we train together and learn together, we all know the same information. Then, when we work together operationally, this makes the whole process easier and more effective.”

A surveillance controller aboard a NATO E-3A Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System provides an optimum radar picture and operates the digital data links that commands the surveillance team during a recent mission originating from Gielenkirchen Air Base, Germany.

Examples of this can be found around the world. Airmen work side-by-side with members of foreign militaries in places like Pápa, Hungary, where they load and fly C-17 Globemaster IIIs alongside men and women from Italy, the Netherlands and Poland; or at Geilenkirchen Air Base, Germany, where they work with nations from throughout Europe while operating the E-3 Sentry as part of a NATO Airborne Warning and Control System program; and, from the Middle East to the Horn of Africa, deployed locations are full of examples of Airmen working alongside foreign military people.

These Airmen see the result of multinational training every day, as they work, live, and  train with military people from all over the world.

“Out here, you rely on each other to get the job done,” said Tech. Sgt. Brian Robisky, the NCO in charge of the aerial port squadron with the Heavy Airlift Wing at Pápa AB. “Knowing we’ve all had the same training, regardless of what uniform we wear or what country we call home, that’s really amazing.”

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