Special Tactics Airman awarded Silver Star Medal

 Special Tactics Airman was awarded the nation's third highest award for valor, the Silver Star Medal, during a ceremony at Pope Field, N.C., Aug. 14, 2020.

Master Sgt. John Grimesey, a Special Tactics combat controller with the 21st Special Tactics Squadron, 24th Special Operations Wing, was recognized for his efforts in Afghanistan in 2013. He not only saved the life of a fellow special operations troop, but called in multiple airstrikes while being under attack by the enemy.

It was supposed to be a routine mission. Then again, no mission in Afghanistan in 2013 was “routine.” The objective was to clear and secure a village in Ghazni Provence to establish local Afghan police presence without the threat of opposition forces. Grimesey and his team partnered with the local Afghan police and together they set out to clear the area. Until one of the teams encountered a large band of Taliban fighters.

“Our Afghan team got separated and started to take on enemy fire,” said Grimesey. “Myself and an Army Special Forces Solider maneuvered to provide assistance and quickly found ourselves engaged with the Taliban.”

When Grimesey peered around the wall to gain situational awareness, he noticed the wounded and dead Afghan police officers, to include the police chief. It was then Grimesey was struck by a rocket propelled grenade.

“I remember the ringing in my ears,” recalled Grimesey. “I knew I was concussed from the blast because of the ringing, my vision was blurry and I was fatigued.”

Despite suffering a concussion and shrapnel wounds, Grimesey was able to drag his Army Special Forces teammate away from the immediate danger zone and assess the situation.

“I snapped into a problem solving mode,” he said. “The situation was dire and the only way to solve it was to rely on my extensive training and attempt to break down the large problem into small chunks. I had to prioritize with what I was being faced with.”

The Special Tactics combat controller was able to call in additional support from other Army Special Forces units, and from aircraft for close-air-support; all the while engaging in a fire fight with opposition forces.

“Eventually we were able to gain control and eliminate the Taliban resistance while also finishing the mission to secure the village,” he said.

Grimesey said it was later discovered there was a Taliban training team who had made their way to the village thus drastically increasing the number of fighters they encountered.

Lt. Gen. James Slife, commander, Air Force Special Operations Command, presided over the ceremony and remarked on Grimesey’s actions.

“You may not call yourself a hero Master Sgt. Grimesey, but I do,” said Slife. “Because of your actions that day, families and friends did not experience loss. The men whose lives you saved will continue to positively impact those around them creating a chain of reaction that ripples across generations.”

“I think about it every day. I even dream about it,” reflected Grimesey. “It’s an event that left an impression on me. While it was a harrowing experience, I look back with great pride and believe that my team and I were able to save lives and help ensure the security of the village.”

Grimesey’s Silver Star Medal was upgraded from an Army Achievement Medal. During the ceremony he also received the Bronze Star Medal, second oak leaf cluster with Valor for another battle in the Middle East in 2017.

As Grimesey looks ahead to start his medical retirement process, he remembers his time in the Special Tactics community fondly

”If there are any other young men and women out there looking for a community with a sense of purpose and opportunity to make a positive impact on the world at large, they don’t have to look any further than Air Force Special Tactics.”

Special Tactics Airmen are U.S. Special Operations Command’s tactical air to ground integration force, and AFSOC’s special operations ground force, leading global access, precision strike, personnel recovery and battlefield surgery operations.

Since 9/11, Special Tactics Airmen have received one Medal of Honor, 11 Air Force Crosses and 49 Silver Star Medals making Grimesey’s the 50th.

Training Partners

 

Idaho Air National Guardsmen conduct search and rescue training with sailors at Lake Cascade in Cascade, Idaho, Aug. 11, 2020.

Homemade Masks Protect Troops at Air Base in Iraq

 Aug. 14, 2020 | BY Army Sgt. 1st Class Gary Witte

When the order came in April to start wearing masks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, many troops in Iraq improvised, creating protective equipment with T-shirts, scarves and neck gaiters wrapped around their faces.

Then assistance arrived through the mail for troops at Al Asad Air Base.

The Georgia National Guard's 248th Medical Company (Area Support), which provides care for personnel stationed there, was in a unique position to see the problem. The unit took precautions and prepared for the threat of a COVID-19 outbreak, but the number of surgical masks they had was limited. The masks were not designed to be reused, and they were difficult to replace. Regardless, patients who visited the medical station all had to cover up.

"We wanted to provide for them," Army 1st Sgt. Richard F. Jordan said. "They can't get [surgical masks] as quickly."

Jordan's wife, Renee, is a member of the unit's Family Support Group. She contacted various military wives groups, including "Cindy's Baking Angels," Jordan said. At her request, volunteers with the care-package organization started making the masks by hand.

Jordan said he expected that only about two dozen masks would come to the unit. Instead, about 2,000 showed up.

"I was blown away," he said, noting that service members would have to spend at least $10 to $15 to purchase an equivalent cloth mask. "That's huge."

The donations arrived in various shipments during May. They ranged from plain green to decorative red, white and blue. Some tied on by hand, others had elastic ear loops, and many were made so users could put an additional filter inside.

"They're all done differently," Jordan said. "Friends and family made these colorful ones because they weren't sure there was a standard."

The unit commander, Army Maj. LaTonya Hicks, said she was impressed by the number of donations and complimented those who made them.

"It gave everyone a chance to have multiple masks," she said. "It means someone was really considerate of the soldiers overseas. They're really thinking of the base as a whole."

Defense Department guidelines require cloth face coverings when personnel cannot maintain 6 feet of distancing in public or work areas to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The cloth masks sent to the base provide better protection than improvised scarves, Hicks said.

The number of masks meant they were able to easily distribute them to civilians and service members throughout the base – not just patients and soldiers in the unit, Hicks said. Likewise, they were washable and therefore reusable.

"There's surely a need," she said. "To think about our company and the deployed soldiers, that's heroic."

(Army Sgt. 1st Class Gary Witte is assigned to the 207th Regional Support Group.)

Command Center

 

Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Shereka Evans stands watch in the command information center of the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli during operations in the Atlantic Ocean, Aug. 13, 2020. Tripoli is en route to her homeport in San Diego.

DOD Official Discusses Conditions-Based Reopenings, Future of Telework

 Aug. 14, 2020 | BY Jim Garamone , DOD News

Conditions-based reopenings have worked well for the Defense Department to date, and the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness anticipates the same stringent requirements will remain in place.

Matthew Donovan, whose Pentagon office is the epicenter of DOD's anti-COVID-19 fight, said he is pleased with the way service members and their families have responded to the pandemic. He put the experience in context during a socially distanced interview in his Pentagon office.

The Defense Health Agency worked closely with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention beginning in December, when the first reports of the novel coronavirus surfaced in China. In January, Donovan — then the acting undersecretary — talked with Defense Secretary Dr. Mark T. Esper about the virus and the steps DOD had to take.

It was quick.

"My confirmation hearing was March 10, and we were still shaking hands," Donovan said. "On March 23, I was confirmed, and when I got back over here, the whole world had changed."

Esper was clear from the start about his priorities in a pandemic: protect service members and their families, ensure the mission continues, support civilian agencies as they lead the fight against the pandemic.

DOD acted quickly. Italy and South Korea were two of the first places where the virus appeared after China. Esper put in place a stop-movement order that was to last 60 days and then be reevaluated. In April, the virus had spread to the United States and other countries. Many areas locked down, businesses closed and activities cancelled.

But DOD had to continue. Service members still had missions to conduct. The United States had forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Djibouti and many other nations. They had to continue to operate, and DOD personnel worked to ensure they safely could continue their vital missions. 

DOD medical personnel and National Guardsmen assisted the areas hardest hit, with Navy hospital ships deploying to New York and Los Angeles and hospital units moving to New Orleans, Dallas, Seattle and other areas.

In May, the White House issued its "Opening Up America Again" guidelines, and DOD went to a conditions-based approach for movement. Areas had to meet certain conditions before the stop-movement order could be eased. That is the situation the department is in today.

"We put out the travel guidance that listed exemptions for moves and … waiver abilities for the Services for people that absolutely had to move," Donovan said. "All through this process, DOD personnel had to follow the latest CDC guidance, and local commanders had to gauge the situation on bases and in the surrounding communities,” he said. 

"As we look forward, we have 231 installations that we're tracking around the world, and 99 of them had their travel restrictions lifted," the undersecretary said. "We continually review this. It's been complicated a little bit lately because of the rolling outbreaks the White House COVID Task Force told us might occur. That has caused some of our installations to go from green back to red because of conditions in the local communities."

DOD is working with other government agencies and private firms to develop a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine. Some vaccines are already in large-scale testing, and it is possible that some could be ready by the end of the year. DOD is partnered with the Department of Health and Human Services to produce the approved vaccines to scale. DOD officials are also working with health officials to determine how to vaccinate service members and their families.

"There is, of course, a plan for vaccine distribution for everyone," Donovan said. "Nothing has been finalized, but if you look back at the priority framework that we developed for testing, …that provides a pretty good framework for who we would want to get the vaccinations to as well."

Vaccination is a national decision, he said, and DOD personnel would get the priority assigned to them by national leaders.

One aspect of the pandemic that has been eye-opening to DOD leaders is how effective telework has been. "There have been several pushes across the decades to increase the use of telework, but it never exceeded 5% of the federal workforce," Donovan said. "There has been a lot of skepticism about teleworking on the part of supervisors: How do I ensure that [my workers] are actually doing their work?"

Then the pandemic struck. "We had the impetus to drive to about 95 percent [teleworking] in Personnel and Readiness," Donovan said. "We're still at around the high 70s for teleworking. And guess what? The work got done. And that was even with a tripling of the workload because of COVID."

Donovan noted that productivity in some areas actually increased thanks to teleworking. He said he tips his hat to the Defense Information Systems Agency and DOD's chief information officer for building the network for teleworking.

The success has officials thinking of the way forward, as telework could cut the demand for office space and ease crowding in DOD buildings, he said.

Finally, Donovan said, he is concerned with readiness. He said the services have done an excellent job keeping the "throughput" for recruits during the pandemic. A short pause allowed the services to develop procedures to continue training safely, and it's back on track. "We think there will be minimal effect on service end strength," he said.

The pandemic has had some effect on unit readiness. Some exercises and training events were cancelled due to the virus, but commanders have tried to make up those training events. Still, fewer flight hours, steaming hours and the like can affect readiness, Donovan said. But DOD and service officials did not let that impact crucial missions, he added, and they will watch this readiness issue carefully.

Maintenance Group Supports Flying Mission While Protecting Workers

 Aug. 14, 2020 | BY Lori Bultman , 502nd Air Base Wing

More than four months ago, Robert West, director of the 12th Maintenance Group at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, learned through a social media video sent to him from his uncle in Australia that the Czech Republic was encouraging its citizens to wear masks in an effort to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, which was quickly gaining momentum.

Like many agencies across the Air Force, we implemented COVID-19 mitigation strategies to support our most vulnerable employees."

Brant Bushnell, 812th AMXS director

At about the same time, as the United States was feeling the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and JBSA was transitioning into Health Protection Condition C, the 12th Maintenance Group, like other base organizations, followed the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sending its most at-risk workers home — including those at its 812th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida — to prevent contraction of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

"I sent folks home on hazardous and safety leave because of their age and underlying medical conditions," West said. "I could have kept everybody here under mission-essential status, but we went the extra step to make sure there were folks who were protected because we still had so much that was unknown about the virus. And at that time, there was such a run on all the supply chain that it was very difficult to get hand sanitizer."

But West said he circled back to the video that his uncle had sent him and went online to find a suitable mask for the workers whose mission-essential duties kept them on base, especially the mechanics and other maintainers who support the 12th Flying Training Wing's pilot training mission.

"We knew that we couldn't get the N95 mask because those needed to be kept for those in the medical professions, so we went after a black cloth mask that was washable, and we immediately got 1,000 of them," he said. "We got them before the Department of Defense had made it mandatory. At that point, it was almost impossible to get masks, so we beat everybody to the punch."

The mask was a critical tool for the maintenance group, West said.

"You can social distance when you're at least 6 feet apart, but when the maintainers are working, they are side by side in a tug or they're up inside of an aircraft," he said. "They're working in teams, so there's no way you can be 6 feet apart."

The maintenance group initiated a number of other mitigation efforts as well, West said.

"We separated everybody if they were capable of doing it," he said. "If we had a one-shift operation, it became a two-shift operation. If they were a two-shift operation, they went to a three-shift. We also spread them out into another building so we could further distance our folks."

Stay-at-home measures primarily affected office personnel, though it also affected those who had underlying medical conditions and those who were at least 65 years old.

"There were members who were on situational teleworking to keep them away from the office, but they could come in if they needed to take care of files they couldn't access at home," West said.

We have used all available tools at our disposal, including restricted movement and quarantine."

Brant Bushnell, 812th AMXS director

The same challenges faced the 812th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Naval Air Station Pensacola, which supports two flying squadrons of the 12th Flying Training Wing's 479th Flying Training Group.

"Like many agencies across the Air Force, we implemented COVID-19 mitigation strategies to support our most vulnerable employees," said Brant Bushnell, 812th AMXS director. "This included employees on some form of teleworking and safety leave. Our lean civil service unit of 125 employees is approximately 30 percent smaller than a comparable active-duty unit, so any reduction in available manpower creates significant challenges to our ability to continue supporting the mission."

The squadron partnered with the 479th Flying Training Group to develop a sustainable strategy that enabled the mission to continue at a reduced rate while supporting COVID-19 mitigation strategies in both operations and maintenance, Bushnell said.

"Our biggest challenges were the ability to inspect the aircraft each evening in time for the next day's flying and maintaining our scheduled phase inspection requirements," he said. "To address these challenges, we first looked internally to support our daily shortfalls. [People] were shifted around to different work centers daily to fill the most critical holes each day, not a normal occurrence."

The squadron also partnered with the 479th Student Squadron to secure the services of eight combat systems officer second lieutenants in casual status awaiting training, Bushnell said.

"They were trained to marshal aircraft in and out of the parking spots, freeing up mechanics to begin inspecting aircraft sooner for the next sortie," he said. "This has been very successful and critical to our ability to support the continuation of the [combat systems officer] training mission."

In addition, the squadron is leaning on the 12th AMXS at JBSA-Randolph to accomplish a phase inspection on its T-6A fleet.

"That inspection is currently in progress and will enable us to maintain our phase flow, which is extremely important to having aircraft available for training," Bushnell said.

The squadron also mirrored its counterpart at JBSA-Randolph by using the CDC-recommended cleaning methods, wearing masks and social distancing.

"We have used all available tools at our disposal, including restricted movement and quarantine," West said. "We wanted to make sure that they were all healthy," he said. "When those folks returned to work, they had to go through the public health protocols for JBSA. Either they had to have two negative tests to return or they had to have three days of symptom-free issues after the 14 days of quarantine."

After a series of HPCON changes and a return to the current HPCON C, more 12th MXG employees — except those who are 65 and older or have underlying medical conditions — are back at work. But the maintenance group remains focused on the 12th FTW mission while adhering to CDC guidelines.

One of the maintenance group's biggest challenges has been achieving a balance between supporting the mission and protecting its most vulnerable employees, West said. "My senior management team has been very good at articulating policy and keeping a good communications flow," he added. "If anybody felt uncomfortable, even if they didn't have underlying conditions, they could take leave."

The maintenance group benefited greatly from teleconferencing to keep the lines of communication open, West noted. "We were also the very first organization to have a virtual unit effectiveness inspection, which we did very well on," he said.

West said his team has risen to the challenges it is facing during the pandemic.

"They're rocking along," he said. "We've had some of the best stats we've ever had in terms of aircraft availability and fixing aircraft."

U.S.-Japan Alliance Increasingly Strengthened Since End of WWII

 Aug. 14, 2020 | BY David Vergun , DOD News

The United States and Japan share common goals in the Indo-Pacific region such as freedom of navigation, economic prosperity within the rules of international law, and deterrence of aggression from nations such as China, Russia and North Korea, as well as from terrorist organizations.

As an important ally, Japan increasingly has participated with the United States and other partners in a number of bilateral and multilateral military exercises and operations, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union. For example:

• In the early 1990s, Japan participated in a United Nations peacekeeping operation in Cambodia.
• In November 2001, Japan dispatched the Maritime Self-Defense Force to the Indian Ocean to provide logistical support for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, marking Japan's first overseas military action during a combat operation.
• In 2003, Japan sent forces to aid in Iraq's postwar reconstruction efforts.
• Since 2007, Japan has actively participated in Exercise Malabar with the United States and India.
• The U.S. and Japanese militaries worked effectively together to respond to a March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, which devastated large areas of the main Japanese island of Honshu.
• At the beginning of October 2018, the new Japanese Mobile Amphibious Forces held joint exercises with U.S. Marines in the Japanese prefecture of Kagoshima, the purpose of which was to work out the actions in defense of remote territories.

In recent years, Japan donated dozens of used and new patrol boats to coast guards in the region, complementing similar U.S. efforts toward building partner capacity and capabilities, such as the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative foreign military financing, international military education and training and the Asia Reassurance Initiative Act.

The depth of the U.S. commitment to the U.S.-Japan alliance is evidenced by the nearly 55,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan, and the thousands of Defense Department civilians and family members who live and work alongside them.  

The United States has also deployed its most capable and advanced military assets to Japan, including the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group, two missile defense radar sites and the F-35 joint strike fighter.

Japan acquires more than 90 percent of its defense imports from the U.S. and has expressed growing interest in interoperable technology with advanced capabilities.  

The United States has approved some $20 billion in foreign military sales to Japan, including Japan's purchase of F-35s, E-2D airborne early warning aircraft, the KC-46 refueling tanker, the Global Hawk unmanned aerial system and MV-22 tilt-rotor aircraft, as well as missiles such as the AIM 120 advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, and UGM-84 Harpoon and SM-3 Block IIA ballistic missile defense interceptor missiles.

The Japanese government provides nearly $2 billion per year to offset the cost of stationing the 55,000 U.S. forces in 85 facilities across Japan

History of the U.S.-Japan Alliance

After the official surrender of Japan to the Allies on Sept. 2, 1945, the United States began the process of helping to bring Japan back into the international community by strengthening military, political and economic ties, much as it was doing with former foes Italy and Germany.

The American military occupation of Japan lasted from 1945 to 1951. During that time, Japan categorically rejected militarism, embraced democracy, eagerly sought economic prosperity and began to embrace the U.S. as an ally and equal partner.

However, the U.S. still occupied several island chains in the Western Pacific that used to be part of Japan. That occupation ended when the U.S. returned the Bonin Islands, including Iwo Jima, to Japan in 1968 and Okinawa and other Ryukyu Islands in 1972.

A series of treaties followed the occupation of mainland Japan. First was the San Francisco Peace Treaty, signed Sept. 8, 1951, that went into effect April 28, 1952. It marked the end of the Allied occupation of the Japanese mainland. Japan's first security agreements with the United States and with nations other than the Soviet Union also were signed then. 

Bilateral talks on revising the 1952 security pact began in 1959, and the new Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security was signed in Washington, Jan. 19, 1960. Also, the status of forces agreement under that treaty came into effect, setting the rules under which U.S. forces stationed in Japan would operate with respect to Japanese domestic laws.

In 1976, the U.S. and Japan established a subcommittee for defense cooperation in the framework of a bilateral Security Consultative Committee, provided for under the 1960 security treaty. 

This subcommittee, in turn, drew up the first guidelines for Japanese-U.S. defense cooperation, under which military planners of the two countries have conducted studies relating to joint military action in the event Japan were to be attacked. The guidelines were updated in 1997 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginning of the "post-Cold War" era. The U.S.-Japan alliance was strengthened further in 2015 through the release of revised guidelines, which provided for new and expanded forms of security-oriented cooperation.

General Officer Announcements

 Aug. 14, 2020

---

Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper announced today that the president has made the following nominations:

Air Force Lt. Gen. David W. Allvin for appointment to the rank of general with assignment as vice chief of staff, United States Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, District of Columbia.  Allvin is currently serving as director for strategy, plans, and policy, J-5, Joint Staff; and senior member, United States Delegation to the United Nations Military Staff Committee, Pentagon, Washington, District of Columbia.

Air Force Maj. Gen. James C. Dawkins, Jr., for appointment to the rank of lieutenant general with assignment as deputy chief of staff, Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, Headquarters United States Air Force, Pentagon, Washington, District of Columbia.  Dawkins is currently serving as director, Global Power Programs, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force (Acquisition, Technology and Logistics), Pentagon, Washington, District of Columbia.

The Enola Gay's History Lives On

 Aug. 14, 2020 | BY Katie Lange, DOD News

Seventy-five years ago, the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, bringing an end to a long and devastating World War II and making the Enola Gay, the B-29 that delivered it, one of the most famous in history.

It’s a plane with a huge, controversial, world-changing story to tell.

The famous B-29 Superfortress rolled off the Glenn Martin assembly line in the spring of 1945 with what was known as a "silverplate modification" specifically for the atomic mission.

"All of the armor that protects the crew was removed to save weight," said Dr. Jeremy Kinney, the Air and Space Museum’s curator of American military aviation, 1919-1945. "You have a 10,000 pound atomic bomb you have to carry, so you have to lighten the airplane."

The remote-controlled gun turrets were also taken away to increase speed. Only the tail gun position was left to defend it from enemies.

The Enola Gay, known only as No. 82 then, was flown by Army Air Forces Capt. Robert Lewis, of the 509th Composite Group, from the factory to New Mexico, then to Tinian in the Mariana Islands, where its crew practiced flight maneuvers, loading the massive bomb and dropping it. But Lewis would not end up leading the atomic mission. That role belonged to Col. Paul Tibbets Jr., the commander of the 509th. He handpicked the plane the night before the mission, to the surprise of its crew, and had his mother’s name -- Enola Gay -- painted on its side.

"There was some animosity between [Lewis and Tibbets], because … a lot of Lewis’ crew was bumped," Kinney said. "Lewis himself was bumped from command pilot to copilot."

In the early morning hours of Aug. 6, 1945, the Enola Gay took off for Hiroshima, an important Japanese military center. Around 8:15 a.m., on a calm, sunny morning, bombardier Maj. Thomas Ferebee dropped Little Boy -- a 10,000 pound, uranium-enriched bomb -- which detonated 1,800 feet above the city’s center. In one blinding flash, it leveled the heart of Hiroshima with the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT.

It was a moment for which none of the Enola Gay’s crew -- miles away by then, but still rocked by the blast -- was quite prepared.

"What’s horrifying about this mission is that it’s one bomber, one bomb and one city. I think that sank in with them, in the sense that you see the mushroom cloud and this firestorm and this city in ruin," Kinney said. "I don’t think they really understood it until they saw it."

At the moment of impact, those closest to ground zero turned to char, while birds reportedly ignited in mid-air. Around 70,000 people died from the initial blast, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, while tens of thousands more perished in the coming weeks due to radiation poisoning.

The bombing brought controversy as it ushered in the nuclear age, but the crew was just doing its job, and it was clear they believed in what they did.

"[They] felt very strongly that the use of the atomic bomb ended World War II in the Pacific," Kinney said. "They recognized the loss of life and what that meant to the Japanese people, but they felt like it was necessary because they didn’t want more Americans to die in what they thought would be a bloody, long invasion [of Japan]."

The more powerful plutonium bomb known as Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki three days later by Bockscar, another B-29. Only one member of the Hiroshima mission was on it: Lt. Jacob Beser, the radar operator who tracked both bombs as they fell.

What some don’t know is that the Enola Gay flew that mission, too.

"Usually it’s a three- to four-ship formation. Some fly ahead to check the weather to see what it’s like at the actual target, and Enola Gay was part of that for Nagasaki," Kinney said.

After the bombings and the war’s quick end, the Enola Gay remained with the Army Air Forces, taking part in the Bikini Atoll atomic tests before being shipped to the Smithsonian in 1960. It was then put in storage near Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, completely disassembled.

"The wings were off. The tail was off. It was all in big pieces," Kinney said.

It sat that way until 1984, when officials finally decided to fix it up, piece by piece. It took about 10 years and 300,000 hours to restore.

"Every square inch of the duralumin surface has been polished. The engines have been completely overhauled, and the propellers," Kinney said. "It had some fat men painted under the pilots’ windows to indicate the Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Bikini missions. Those were taken off because the decision was to restore it to a particular moment [before Hiroshima]."

The plane wasn’t fully reassembled until 2003, when it was put on display in its full glory at the Air & Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia. The original painting of the words “Enola Gay” can still be seen on its side.

While no members of the crew that flew the Enola Gay remain to tell its story, the aircraft lives on for visitors.

"Enola Gay is a recognized airplane of World War II, and people want to see it," Kinney said. "They want to see the spaceship Discovery, they want to see the [SR-71] Blackbird, and they want to see the Enola Gay."