Photo By Senior Airman Felicia Przydzial | Chief Master Sgt. Tom Blount, 18th Air Force command chief, and Maj. Gen. Corey...... read more read more
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MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan.—Major General Corey Martin, 18th Air Force commander, and Chief Master Sergeant Tom Blount, 18th Air Force command chief, visits Team McConnell Sept. 26-28, 2023.
18th Air Force leadership spent three days visiting and talking with Airmen about projects they are currently working on or have recently completed.
“Part of my job is to be able to know what Colonel Damon and the Airmen of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing need, and to be able to advocate on their behalf back to General Minihan at Air Mobility Command headquarters and to General Minihan’s staff who is working on that,” said Martin. “These visits at times can cut through a lot of layers of supervision and leadership, allowing us to hear directly from some of the younger airmen. I think that helps with the role of trying to advocate.”
Martin and Blount visited the Innovation Lab before going to maintenance and hearing from airmen that work in hydraulics and visiting the KC-46 maintenance technical training school house to take a look at the trainers used. He then headed to the Robert J. Dole Community Center to check out the newly established cohort building and hear from McConnell’s physical therapy team. They also visited the 350th Air Refueling Squadron to hear what the Airmen of the Mission Planning Cell team have to say about their involvement to the mission. They then went to visit the Mission Defense Team at the 22nd Communications Squadron followed by visiting the 22nd Medical group to hear how the Airmen are using simulations to advance their trainings.
“The mission of the 18th Air Force is to provide ready aircraft and air crew for whatever the National Command Authority needs us to do,” said Martin. “That could be lifesaving care and humanitarian crisis, but it can also be lethality in conflict. That is where the 22nd Air Refueling Wing specifically provides world class air refueling to support that mission.”
Over the past couple years, McConnell Airmen have been working through trainings and exercises to prepare themselves any assignment that is handed to them.
“The most advanced exercise that McConnell had with Lethal Pride, which took place earlier this spring, takes a lot of those individual skill sets that the squadrons have been working on and incorporates them into one exercise that simulates a possible austere environment that could replicate the type of environments that they will have to operate in the future,” said Martin.
Martin’s wife, Holly Martin, joined him on this visit with her own itinerary of places to visit. Holly Martin had the opportunity to meet with McConnell’s Key Spouses and visit the helping agencies the base has to offer. She toured base housing and stopped by the Youth Center and School-Age Children Program to hear about the programs the base to offer when it comes to childcare. Holly Martin talked with Airmen from the chapel, the Dole Center, and the Military and Family Readiness Center to hear about their part in helping the mission before meeting up with Gen. Corey Martin at the medical group to hear about the care available to Airmen and their dependents as well as hear about the simulators in the medical group.
“We've got a chance to see a lot of the infrastructure, a lot of the tools and things that are here at McConnell,” said Gen. Corey Martin. “In the end it is the Airmen that are there making it happen. They're the magic of the force, air refueling combined with some of the other aspects of what the 18th Air Force has with airlift and aeromedical evacuation, that is the meaningful maneuver of what can move our joint force in ways we have seen very recently with the overnight response that that we need. I saw on the marque ‘people depend on us, we'll be there,’ and it's the kind of motto I got to see along with Chief Blount. I have confidence leaving here knowing that people can depend on McConnell and they will be there”
| Date Taken: | 09.29.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 10.05.2023 16:12 |
| Story ID: | 454903 |
| Location: | MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, KANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 37 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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