76th Port Dawgs prep humanitarian cargo for shipment to Guatemala

by Master Sgt. Bob Barko Jr.
910th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office

6/20/2014 - YOUNGSTOWN AIR RESERVE STATION, Ohio -- Citizen Airmen from the 910th Airlift Wing's 76th Aerial Port Squadron here played an important part in building a pediatric hospice in Guatemala without ever leaving Northeast Ohio.

The squadron lent a hand to the Austintown, Ohio, nonprofit Mission of Love Foundation, in transporting a wide array of much needed medical equipment, furniture and other supplies for the Central American country. The organization collected several tons of materials to be sent to the impoverished nation. Mission of Love and other non-governmental organizations are able to use military airlift to move humanitarian cargo under the Denton Amendment.

Kathleen Price, Mission of Love Foundation founder, director and spokesperson said her organization could not accomplish their goals without the assistance of the 76th's Citizen Airmen.

"The bottom line is none of this could be done in order to help the people of Guatemala without the help and aid we get here at the 910th," said Price.

The "Port Dawgs," as Aerial Port Sqaudrons are nicknamed throughout the Air Force, built up 22 pallets, weighing 60,800 pounds, for shipment to Central America.

The real world mission experience is invaluable to the APS team since the wing does not have an active cargo mission at YARS.

"Our (members) get hands-on training in cargo build-up, load planning, loading the airplanes, and our ramp section gets to drive the vehicles," said Senior Master Sgt. Kevin Massie, 76th APS superintendent. "It comes down to... training... and camaraderie, getting to work with people you might not usually get to on a regular basis. We really benefit because there is a huge training piece to it."

While the APS team is quite adept at loading the wing's C-130s, these Denton missions give them a chance to practice loading other aircraft in the Air Force's airlift fleet.

"We do between three and six Denton missions a year," said Massie. "It gives us work on the C-5, we've also had C-17s and KC-10s come in."

Massie said these Denton missions also help the squadron prepare if they are ever called upon to support wartime or emergency operations in the United States or overseas.

"This builds our readiness piece... if we are called on to deploy, we have to be able to do our job."This is the training that gets us ready," he said. "This stuff gets us ready, it shows we're capable of taking bare bones cargo, building it up, preparing it for air shipment and getting out to the location it needs to go to in a matter of a couple of hours or a couple of days."

Additionally, the fact the work APS is doing here will ultimately benefit children thousands of miles away is not lost on Massie's team.

"(Our members) get out here, put their gloves on, get a little dirty and it means something to them because they know it's going to a good cause," said Massie. "It makes us feel great. It helps our unit and our base show the local community that we have an impact on what's going on in the world environment... the world community, I guess you could say. "