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Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Cheyenne Morgan plays with some puppies during a command-sponsored community relations event at the Souda Animal Shelter, Souda Bay, Greece, Aug. 8, 2020. Sailors helped out around the shelter by performing yardwork and socializing with the dogs.
F-16 Fighting Falcons fly in a four-ship formation behind a KC-135 Stratotanker above Japan, July 31, 2020.
Marine Corps Sgt. Roxanne Gorostieta motivates a fellow Marine during physical training at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif., Aug.5, 2020.
A sailor aboard the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS San Jacinto goes on liberty following the ship's return to Naval Station Norfolk, Va., after a regularly scheduled deployment in support of maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet, Aug. 9, 2020. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group has remained underway during the COVID-19 global pandemic.
Soldiers conduct training at Hohenfels Training Area, Germany, Aug. 10, 2020, during Saber Junction, an exercise designed to assess readiness and promote interoperability with allied and partner nations.
U.S. soldiers perform firing drills at a range at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, Aug. 5, 2020, as part of a six-day team leader course.
An air-cushioned landing craft prepares to enter the well deck of the USS Germantown as the ship conducts amphibious operations in Sasebo, Japan, Aug. 9, 2020.
Marines attack simulated enemy forces during Exercise Midnight Sun in Setermoen, Norway, Aug. 9, 2020. During the exercise, units practice arctic cold-weather and mountain-warfare training and conduct military-to-military engagements.
Army CH-47 Chinook helicopters lift off during Saber Junction at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Aug. 10, 2020. The joint exercise is designed to assess readiness and promote interoperability with allied and partner nations.
In 1936, 19-year-old Louis Zamperini qualified for the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Even today, he remains the youngest American to qualify in the 5,000 meter track and field event.
He didn't earn a medal at the Olympics, but several years later he would take part in actions that resulted in medals earned for acts of valor.
In 1938, Zamperini attended the University of Southern California, where he set a national collegiate record of 4 minutes, 8.3 seconds in the mile, despite being intentionally spiked in the shins from competitors during that race.
The runner would soon shift gears in his career. He didn't wait for America's entry into World War II. Instead, Zamperini enlisted in the Army Air Corps in September 1941 and soon was commissioned as a second lieutenant.
In late 1942, he was stationed on the Pacific atoll of Funafiti. It and other islands at the time were a British colony, known as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands.
The Seabees had constructed a runway there, which was used by Consolidated B-24 Liberator heavy bombers. Zamperini was a bombardier. The bombardier sat in the cockpit, where .30-caliber Browning M1919 machine guns were mounted on both sides for forward protection of the aircraft. The navigator could man one of the guns if necessary.
Missions included bombing runs on Kiribati, one of the Gilbert Islands occupied by Japan, and another, Nauru, which was administered by Australia at the time.
On one return flight from a successful bombing mission over Nauru, Zamperini's aircraft was attacked by three Japanese Zero fighter aircraft. He and the other gunners successfully fought them off, but one of the crew members was killed, four others were injured, and the aircraft sustained severe damage, though it managed to land back at Funafiti.
Next, Zamperini was transferred to Hawaii, where he was a crew member on another B-24. Their mission this time was searching for lost crew members and aircraft.
On May 27, 1943, his aircraft experienced mechanical problems during a mission and ditched into the ocean 850 miles south of Oahu, Hawaii. Only three men survived the crash, including Zamperini.
They inflated life rafts and floated about for weeks. They captured two albatrosses that landed on their rafts. They ate one, and they used the other as bait to catch fish. Fortunately for them, it rained enough to supply drinking water.
There were some close calls. A shark brushed up alongside their rafts, but it left when they hit it with a raft paddle. They nearly capsized during a storm, and they were strafed a number of times by a Japanese bomber.
After 33 days, one of the three men died.
On Day 47, Zamperini and Russell Allen Phillips, who was the pilot of the doomed B-24, landed their raft at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where they were immediately taken prisoner by Japanese sailors. He and Phillips were later transferred to a number of prisoner of war camps on mainland Japan and were separated. They wouldn't meet again until after the war.
Zamperini eventually was transferred to the infamous Naoetsu POW camp in northern Japan, where he remained until the end of the war.
The camp was infamous because of prison guard Mutsuhiro ''The Bird'' Watanabe, who relished torturing the men. After the war, Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur listed him 23rd among the top 40 most wanted war criminals in Japan. However, he was spared execution.
Marine Corps Maj. Greg ''Pappy'' Boyington was held at the same POW camp. In Boyington's book, ''Baa Baa Black Sheep,'' he wrote that Zamperini described Italian recipes to the men to keep their minds off their miserable situation. Zamperini grew up in an Italian family, and he didn't even learn to speak English until grade school.
While Zamperini was held captive, he first was declared missing at sea and later as killed in action.
After the war, Zamperini said, he drank heavily and was extremely bitter about Watanabe and others who mistreated the prisoners. The life-changing moment for him, he said, came when he was attending a Rev. Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles in 1949, which resulted in him becoming a born-again Christian.
He returned to Japan the following year, where he met many of his former guards to tell them he'd forgiven them. However, Watanabe refused to meet with him, so he wrote a letter of forgiveness to him.
In 1998, Zamperinia participated in the torch relay for the 1998 Olympic Winter Games in Kyoto, Japan. In 2010, Laura Hillenbrand wrote a book about him: ''Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption.'' Four years later, actor Jack O’Connell portrayed Zamperini in the film ''Unbroken.''
Zamperini died in 2014 in Los Angeles at 97.
The Defense Department's top priorities have not changed since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic: protection of the force and families, safeguarding of mission capabilities or readiness, and closely working with partners and allies to fight COVID-19 head-on.
The 83rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 7th Mission Support Command, in conjunction with other United States Army Europe units and the USO, has partnered to safely introduce Soldiers to the European theater. The mission, known as Task Force Willkommen, began in early March led by the 39th Movement Control Battalion.
"The 83rd took over the mission June 15," said Maj. Jayson Cummins, the task force support operations officer. "Task Force Willkommen is a group [set up] to facilitate the in-processing of personnel coming in from CONUS."
Units involved in the collaboration include United States Army Europe, 21st Theater Sustainment Command, 7th Mission Support Command and the 83rd CSSB, to name a few.
"There's also the 1st HRSC, the 30th Medical Brigade, the 21st STB and our partners at the 16th Sustainment Brigade," Cummins said. "It takes a lot of coordination and deconfliction on quantities, amounts and timelines."
Cummins said the process, from the moment a Soldier lands in Germany, takes approximately 14 days until they are safely pushed to their next assignment.
"We identify the Soldiers we are taking into possession, we get their luggage, put them on buses and they are transported over here to Rhine Ordnance Barracks," Cummins said while talking about the Deployment Processing Center located within ROB. "The first night at ROB, they are assigned a PHA or a housing area, and they are hard-quarantined for three days."
One of the first orders of business during the process is a COVID test. Results typically come back in 24 to 48 hours, according to Cummins. When results come back negative, the balance of protecting the force and quality of life kick in, but the restriction on movement remains in effect for the entire duration of the 14-day stay. The Soldiers are not free to leave the DPC, other than to gather comfort items, where they are marched to and from the nearby coffee shop and shoppette.
"It is what you make it," said Pfc. Christopher Williams, DPC resident and Mobile, Alabama native. "The cadre, they listen to you. Things they can do in their power; they will make sure they do it."
The DPC, completely enclosed by fencing, is designed to temporarily house transient service members passing through U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz. It was recently retrofitted for quarantine and in-processing. There are multiple buildings called personnel holding areas, but during unprecedented times there are bound to be issues.
"One of the biggest challenges we faced so far was our first positive case," Cummins said. "The plan that was in place on identifying that Soldier, separating them from their group, doing another test and then transporting that individual to an isolation barracks for another 14 days for observation, but we figured it out."
The goal of TF Willkommen is to provide a safe and isolated environment for Soldiers in between the United States and their final destination.
"The exit strategy for the Soldiers usually occurs about day 12," Cummins said. "They are given another COVID test, and once we identify they have been given a clean bill of health on day 14, they are all separated, put back on buses and sent to their garrisons throughout Germany or Italy."
Task Force Willkommen will remain in effect, indefinitely, providing service in support of United States Army Europe, host nation countries and even the individual.
"I am looking forward to going to my unit," Williams said. "It's going to be a fun experience."
(Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Jackson is assigned to the 221st Public Affairs Detachment)
Aug. 11, 2020 | BY COURTNEY STRZELCZYK, AIR FORCE
Along with the pandemic, some installations have had to cope with the threat of wildfires damaging training areas and shutting down bombing ranges. In an effort to continue its mission, the Wildland Fire program reprioritized its goals for the year and enacted COVID-19 safety protocols for its firefighters to follow, Michelle Steinman, Wildland Fire branch chief said.
"We have prevented COVID-19 from derailing our performance and efforts to support mission activity by utilizing air resources, such as helicopters, to attack wildfires from above and implementing procedures to keep our firefighters healthy so they can keep airmen and their families safe," Steinman said.
For example, Steinman said a contract helicopter crew assisted the Eglin wildland support module in Florida to suppress a May wildfire caused by a downed aircraft at the merging of the two streams providing habitat for the threatened Okaloosa Darter on the Eglin range. The helicopter crew released water bucket drops over the crash site while Eglin bulldozer operators worked on the ground to contain the wildfire to 91 acres with only minor disturbance to the darter.
The Wildland Fire Branch is leveraging technology to mitigate COVID-19 by conducting virtual training sessions and encouraging the firefighters in the wildland support module to practice social distancing, reducing fire vehicle capacity and following CDC guidance. The Avon Park WSM in Florida is following safety protocols in the office as well as at home to maintain a fully staffed crew. So far, the seven-member team has completed 16 prescribed burns across 3,400 acres and managed 12 wildfires across 1,044 acres.
"We have taken every precautionary step to ensure that our crew stays healthy because if one person gets sick, then the whole crew is out, which could stop Air Force missions," Frank Gibbs, team lead for Avon Park WSM, said. "We have been very fortunate to be isolated on a range and keep our firefighters safe so that we can continue to do what we do best."
The Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson WSM in Alaska is also following protocol to remain healthy in case there is a need to protect their local community. Recently, the module teamed up with the JBER Fire Department and a hotshot crew to prevent an intense wildfire from spreading and damaging critical infrastructure.
The fire was ignited from a ricocheted round during military training. Two weeks before the fire, the JBER WSM conducted prescribed burns surrounding the area where the wildfire took place. These burns stopped the progression of the fire and helped the crews contain the wildfire to fewer than five acres. The fire was extinguished in three days, and the crews removed all hazards to prevent reignition.
"We have evacuated thousands of people and that's chaotic," Jon Glover, team lead for JBER WSM, Alaska, said. "This pandemic is just a different type of chaos that we have learned to manage and have adjusted to. Firefighters are problem solvers and we will look at every solution to get the job done safely and effectively."
The Wildland Fire Branch, established in 2012, ensures military mission capability and increases lethality and readiness by reducing the threat of wildfires across 72 installations. The branch includes 14 wildland support modules composed of qualified and equipped personnel who conduct prescribed burns, mechanical fuel reduction and wildfire suppression response at installations within their area of responsibility. Across the U.S., the branch averages 140,000 acres of prescribed fires and responds to more than 100 wildfires.
(Courtney Strzelczyk is assigned to the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center)
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