Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Senior Airman DeMarion N. Davis

Sept. 12, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 19 to 21 in National Harbor, Md. Air & Space Forces Magazine is highlighting one each weekday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Senior Airman DeMarion N. Davis, Wing TEMPEST Manager for the 48th Communications Squadron, RAF Lakenheath, England.

Davis, an E-4, filled an E-5 position for over a year amid a 40 percent personnel shortage due to a mix of lingering pandemic effects and low Air Force enlistment rates. The staff shortage is especially palpable for those in Davis’ specific career field—he estimates that the Air Force has only 1,200 to 1,300 cyber specialists who work in TEMPEST, a technology that prevents devices from emitting electromagnetic radiation (EMR) that might be intercepted and deciphered into confidential data.

“TEMPEST is kind of one of those overlooked programs where people don’t really keep it up because every space on base has to be certified, and after it’s initially certified … people will cycle and PCS, and it doesn’t get the [same] turnover that it necessarily needs,” Davis said.

The only Airman in Lakenheath’s Information Assurance Office, Davis was tasked with bringing the base’s TEMPEST certifications up to speed. The assignment required him to take a weeklong AFSEC manager course at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., to learn the ins and outs of the technology and NATO’s standards. When he returned to Lakenheath, he tackled and completed the TEMPEST certification at 54 processing sites on base.

“I was happy to do it,” he said. “I look forward to passing [the program] on to whoever comes behind me and leaving it in an upstanding position for them.”

While chasing these certifications, Davis stayed busy with other pressing tasks. In response to Russian aggression, the 336th Fighter Squadron from Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, N.C., deployed to Lakenheath and needed an operations desk. With only a week of lead time for a project that might take weeks or months, Davis’s squadron stood up the desk and got it approved in a matter of two days.

These last-minute projects find their way onto Davis’ to-do list because of his track record of completing them. Among his other timely accomplishments was when he converted the enlisted club into a temporary classified area facilitating a nuclear summit, a project that earned personal lauds from the U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander. Davis also stepped up as the Air Force Ball subcommittee lead to host a “flawless” event for 1,000 senior enlisted leaders, and he headed the project “Wi-Fi the Wing” to provide wireless network connections across the entire Lakenheath base.

“I was excited,” Davis said about initially being asked to complete responsibilities typically reserved for staff sergeants. “I’m a go-getter. I don’t like sitting around and not being busy.”

The go-getter, workhorse spirit that Davis embodies was instilled in him at an early age, perhaps before he was even born. His father retired as a senior master sergeant after 26 years of service, and his grandfather was a private first class during the Korean War.

“As a young kid, I never understood why my dad was so hard on me about certain things,” Davis said. “’Make your bed in the morning.’ ‘Make sure that your pants are on the hanger properly.’ ‘Make sure you’re folding clothes properly’—[he was saying to] hold yourself to a certain standard.”

Thanks to those standards and his proven success with tasks beyond his duties, Davis’ rank will match his resume soon—he was selected for staff sergeant in August.

Meet the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year in 2022 below:      

CMSAF Wants Military Compensation Review of How to Calculate BAH, Other Allowances

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The Air Force and the rest of the Pentagon have to find faster ways to assess and respond to compensation issues that affect Airmen, two of the service’s top leaders said.

Rising inflation and housing costs that have left many service members and their families scrambling to make ends meet have highlighted that need—while the Pentagon’s response has taken time, acknowledged Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne S. Bass and Vice Chief of Staff Gen. David W. Allvin in a “Coffee Talk” event streamed on Facebook.

“Where we are right now, I don’t think we anticipated it was going to be this bad two years ago, and our Airmen are the ones paying the price,” Allvin said.

Officials have taken some steps to try to help service members. In September 2021, the DOD approved a temporary increase in the Basic Allowance for Housing for certain markets to match surging prices. And in the 2023 budget, leaders proposed the largest pay increase for troops in 20 years, increases to BAH and the Basic Allowance for Subsistence, and the creation of a new Basic Needs Allowance.

But that temporary BAH increase took months to put in place after reports of families struggling first appeared, and then it expired at the end of the year. And Congress has yet to pass the 2023 budget and National Defense Authorization Act to put the proposed changes into effect, with little hope it will do so before the end of the fiscal year.

Looking to speed up some of those processes, Bass said she and her fellow senior enlisted advisers in the other services are pushing for a “holistic military compensation review.” DOD conducts a Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation—the last review went from fiscal 2018 to 2020 and was issued in December 2020.

With the new review slated to begin soon, Bass said she and the other SEAs have already identified several top priorities.

“And one of those things was we need a more modern way to be able to assess BHA, OHA, COLA,” Bass said. “The days of a survey? No. There’s better ways to assess it. And we need to figure out what that modern way is.”

It’s not enough to simply assess changes, Allvin added—“we need to be able to apply it so our Airmen don’t suffer while the money is catching up,” he said. “Which means we need to continue to engage with Congress to ensure that we have … ways of being able to compensate on more than just a two-year cycle.”

Cuts to Special Duty Pay

While the compensation review will likely begin soon, Airmen are still feeling the squeeze right now—and while the proposed 2023 budget does include an overall pay raise, it also includes a cut to special duty assignment pay.

SDAP is given to Airmen with “extremely difficult duties that may involve an unusual degree of responsibility in military skill,” according to budget documents. Currently, the Air Force has authorized SDAP for more than two dozen kinds of Airmen.

Officials want to cut the program by more than $1.4 million in 2023, “really across the board, for all of our special duties,” Bass said.

Allvin acknowledged the dissonance between that cut and concerns about inflation, but said it was part of the service’s effort to fund needed future capabilities.

“It’s tough to look at the Airmen and say, ‘Yes, we have tough economic times, but I’m going to cut your pay anyway.’ It is true that in the context of building the budget, sometimes you do lose touch, you lose some connection,” Allvin said. “And when we look at that, sometimes it’s framed, unfortunately, in terms of, ‘Well, do we want to be able to have the force we need in the future?’ And so we carve out little bits of money here and there to afford that next F-35 or to be able to do that development and testing. But that doesn’t resonate very well.”

Four Space Force Generals Nominated for Second Star

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

The ranks of Space Force major generals are set to expand, as Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III announced the nomination of four officers to get their second star Sept. 9.

All four of the general officers nominated will stay in their current positions. They are:

Brig. Gen. Gregory J. Gagnon, deputy chief of space operations for intelligence
Brig. Gen. Christopher S. Povak, deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office and commander of its Space Force Element
Brig. Gen. Stephen G. Purdy Jr., commander of Space Launch Delta 45, director of the Eastern Range, and director of launch and range operations for Space Systems Command
Brig. Gen. Steven P. Whitney, military deputy for the Assistant Secretary of Air Force for Space Acquisition and Integration

Purdy is the only general officer in the Space Force to currently command a delta.

Assuming they are all confirmed, Gagnon, Povak, Purdy, and Whitney will double the number of major generals the Space Force has. The fledgling service actually has more lieutenant generals than two-stars at the moment. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act gave the Space Force authority to vary the number of officers considered for promotion to major general.

These promotions are just the latest in a series that will bolster and reshape the Space Force’s general officer corps. In May, the Senate confirmed five new brigadier generals, and in June, Maj. Gen. Philip A. Garrant was nominated for a third star and to take on the job of Space Force deputy chief of space operations for strategy, plans, programs, and requirements.

Most significantly, President Joe Biden nominated Lt. Gen. B. Chance Saltzman in July to become a four-star and succeed Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond as Chief of Space Operations.

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Staff Sgt. Steven C. Peters

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 19 to 21 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each weekday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Staff Sgt. Steven C. Peters, a paramedic for the 60th Medical Group at Travis Air Force Base, Calif.

When Kabul fell in August 2021, Peters’ medical group supported Operation Allies Refuge at Hamid Karzai International Airport. On the day of the evacuation’s mass casualty event, his experience as a paramedic proved invaluable.

“[Our colonel] let us know that we had patients that still needed to be picked up on the other side of the flight line,” Peters said. “During this time, our entire base is still in lockdown. We’re still under fire.”

Peters stepped up to lead a team to confront the incoming attack and to recover the patients: nine seriously injured service members. Along with an Army medic and two pararescue members, Peters took a Turkish ambulance headlong into the melee to reach the flight line.

“There was a lot of uncertainty,” he said. “There was a lot happening around me. I had already seen the other casualties, [so we had to be] in the mindset of [finding] the best outcome for everyone.”

The patients weren’t in good shape—one had just gotten out of acute surgery, and the others were all critically wounded. There wasn’t enough time or cover to stabilize them on site, so Peters and his team loaded the patients into their vehicle to keep moving. With the Army medic driving, Peters and the pararescue members tended to the wounded in the back. His alertness and trauma expertise kept them stabilized until they safely arrived at a treatment facility.

“Two or three of them went to surgery immediately when we arrived,” Peters said, “but everyone survived.”

Evacuated families had become separated during the mayhem.

“We started realizing that a lot of children were left behind,” Peters said.

Peters, coordinating with joint service leaders and Norwegian Armed Forces members, worked to arrange bedding, rations, and entertainment to keep morale up among the isolated evacuees until they could be reunited with their families or relocated somewhere secure. But putting these Afghan children on planes “onesie-twosie” wasn’t efficient, and certainly wouldn’t ease the minds of parents or loved ones looking for them.

To expedite the process, Peters’ team managed to coordinate an entire Aeromedical Evacuation unit from Travis Air Force Base, Calif., to take a full flight of Afghan children to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“We worked really hard to get that one flight,” Peters said. “I think that was the biggest win.”

Peters recently completed the rigorous and intensive six-month Paramedic Course at Pima College in Tucson, Ariz. He is working as an emergency room paramedic at Travis Air Force Base and is expecting a permanent change of station order in October. He said he likes the changes and challenges posed by his service in the Air Force and his paramedic career.

“My mom and all of my friends keep me on the straight and narrow,” he said. “If I’m making those people around me proud, that just shows me I’m doing the right thing.”

Meet the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 below:     

Pentagon Acquisition Czar ‘Hoping’ F-35 Deliveries Will Resume Soon

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Pentagon acquisition boss William LaPlante is optimistic that the pause in new F-35 fighter deliveries will not drag on for long—but the problem does highlight a “constant” issue with the supply chain, he told reporters Sept. 9.

The halt in deliveries, announced Sept. 7, came after Honeywell, a subcontractor for the F-35, informed Lockheed Martin that an alloy in a magnet in the jet’s turbomachine came from China.

LaPlante said the U.S. Defense Federal Acquisition Regulations Supplement mandates the pause until an investigation is completed.

“They’re moving pretty quickly,” LaPlante said of the investigation. “They’re looking at two things … impact on security, if any, and impact on airworthiness or safety, if any. Right now, so far, it doesn’t appear to be either of them, but I’m waiting for them to finish what they’re looking at and come to me. It’s likely, if in fact we find neither of those to be the case, we’ll be able to do a waiver and do the replacements and get the production line moving again. So I’m hoping this can be resolved pretty soon.”

Both Lockheed Martin and the F-35 Joint Program Office have said the magnet doesn’t transmit any information. It also doesn’t “harm the integrity of the aircraft, and there are no performance, quality, safety, or security risks associated with this issue,” according to a statement from JPO spokesman Russell Goemaere.

Goemaere also confirmed that flight operations for already delivered F-35s aren’t affected by the alloy issue, even though every F-35 delivered to date contains the Chinese material.

The Air Force became the first service to accept a production model F-35 in 2011, indicating the alloy issue dates back more than a decade—and that controlling the supply chain remains a challenge for the Pentagon and the defense industrial base, LaPlante said.

“I think there’s a bigger picture here, [on] which there is ongoing study a lot, which is called supply chain illumination. And that is the understanding of primes’ suppliers, of what is even in their supply chain,” LaPlante said.

Such a task is complicated by the fact that major defense contractors rely on massive, sprawling webs of suppliers—a recent DOD report cited an average of 200 “first tier” suppliers for American aerospace companies, with more than 12,000 suppliers in the second and third tier. The alloy provider was a fifth-tier supplier.

And even the contractors themselves don’t always have a full sense of all their suppliers.

“I had a CEO of a company tell me about two weeks ago that he thought he had 300 suppliers [and] he discovered, when he counted all of his suppliers, he probably had 3,000 suppliers,” LaPlante said. “And suppliers can change overnight. And so what this is becoming, and it’s been recognized for some time, [is] almost a real-time issue of tracking and making sure that there’s integrity in your supply chain.”

In fact, LaPlante said, “any company that says they know their supply chain is like a company saying they’ve never been hacked.”

Moving forward, though, the Pentagon hopes to leverage new technologies to work with contractors and help track their supply chains.

“The good news is there are tools coming out, using artificial intelligence and open source, that can dive in and maybe find some of these things,” LaPlante said. “But I think it’s going to be a constant issue for us, is understanding our supply chain.”

Turning the ABMS Strategy into a Reality

Sept. 9, 2022 | By Elaine Bitonti

The need to enable Joint All Domain Operations (JADO) to keep ahead of the adversary threat has been well-documented and studied, as has the Joint All Domain Command and Control (JADC2) infrastructure needed to enable JADO. The Department of Defense’s focus is now on the transition from concept and planning to implementation and capability delivery. Industry has been working aspects of the problem with each of the individual services and brings a unique perspective on how to combine existing and new capabilities to solve the joint service gaps.

The recently released ABMS Digital Infrastructure Strategy provides insight into the USAF’s approach to build up the backbone of JADC2. This vision for a cloud-based battle management infrastructure providing secure and resilient data sharing from strategic centers to the tactical edge is supported by the core capabilities of connectivity, secure processing, and data management.

There are two major challenges to realizing the JADC2 vision. The first is finding ways to utilize existing assets in future solutions, and second is determining how best to apply the commercial cloud to military environments. Collins Aerospace is focused on addressing both challenges at the tactical edge.

By adapting and connecting current platforms, the USAF may be able to accelerate its timeline for adopting both ABMS and JADC2. Current connectivity solutions are comprised of various existing, purpose-built networks that aren’t easily connected, have limited data rates, and suffer from intermittent connectivity in contested environments. Finding ways to utilize and connect these disparate systems by creating a “network of networks” so each branch can talk to the others using intelligent gateways will accelerate integration and ensure those connections happen throughout the Joint Services and with Coalition Forces.

Over the past year, Collins has demonstrated connectivity and intelligent gateway solutions that integrate multiple existing airborne and ground networks used by the joint forces and coalition partners, including the USAF, U.S. Navy and Army, and the Marine Corps. We demonstrated these capabilities using modular open system architecture solutions, developed in partnership with the Air Force customer on programs like the Software Programmable Open Mission Systems Compliant (SPOC) program.

The second major challenge in realizing the JADC2 vision is addressing the unique processing requirements for operating in tactical environments. Today’s commercial infrastructure is built on large, fixed data centers, fixed networks, and 5G towers. Unfortunately, many of these do not exist in or are not functional in contested environments. Collins Aerospace has been militarizing these capabilities all the way to the tactical edge to provide secure processing capabilities that enable multi-level security access to the power of the cloud for artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Once individual systems are connected, the data flowing back and forth is often at different security levels due to differing classifications. Ensuring that cross-domain solutions can resolve differences between and among both Joint and Coalition forces is another critical consideration. We not only connect these systems; we ensure they’re secure.

For example, Collins has already proven that existing assets and capabilities can be connected and remain secure via a recent demonstration conducted with our academic partner – the University of Iowa Operator Performance Labs. In this latest demo, intelligent edge applications that can autonomously find, fix, and engage a target using multi-service sensor integration was added to previously showcased intelligent gateway capabilities in support of the U.S. Army’s Project Convergence.

Delivering these integrated capabilities on the timeline needed to pace the threat requires adopting commercial Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approaches delivering a capability to the user and rapidly iterating new features. Our experimentation and demonstration activities span different operational use cases and joint services focus areas. While working with the Utah Air National Guard, for example, Collins demonstrated the ability of the KC-135 platform to be an intelligent gateway and interoperate with Air Force, Army and Navy networks. The demonstration was based on highly mature capabilities that could be quickly integrated into the platform via already planned technology insertions to deliver joint force connectivity.

These demonstrations – conducted under different operational scenarios – show that enabling JADC2 can be addressed incrementally. This allows combatant commanders to benefit from operationally relevant, leave-behind capability while building out solutions that will successfully enable cloud operations at the tactical edge. We’re ready to support the ongoing efforts that will turn ABMS from concept to reality for the benefit of our warfighters.

Learn More

Elaine Bitonti is the vice president of JADC2 Demonstration and Experimentation for Collins Aerospace.

AFSOC Commander Is on a ‘Jihad’ Against Centralization. Here’s Why

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Air Force Special Operations Command boss Lt. Gen. James C. “Jim” Slife extolled the benefits of the service’s new force generation and deployment model when it comes to explaining and managing risk for AFSOC—and warned against the dangers of centralization for the same reason.

Speaking at an AFA Warfighters in Action event Sept. 7, Slife argued that risk is often a forgotten element in the balancing act between mission requirements and resources.

“If you tell me, ‘Hey, Jim, I need you to do more mission with no more resources,’ I can do that. It just comes with increased risk, right?” Slife said. “Or if you tell me, ‘You’re taking too much risk. I need you to reduce the level of risk you’re taking,’ I can do that. It either means I do less mission or I need more resources. So I mean, there’s a three-way relationship here, and what we have to be better at is articulating risk in ways that are understandable to people outside the bubble of the Air and Space Forces.”

Force Generation

That challenge of articulating risk is of particular importance when it comes to deployments, Slife said.

The Air Force has implemented a new force generation model in recent years centered on four six-month cycles—“available to commit,” “reset,” “prepare,” and “ready.” After years of heavy deployment tempos in the Middle East, the new model gives Airmen and their families more predictability, leaders said.

But the system isn’t just better for the average Airman, Slife said. It’s also useful for commanders who want to look after their people while getting the mission done.

There’s tension between mission risk and resources.

“When I was an ops group commander, we were kind of in the … ‘more ISR, more ISR, more ISR’ business, and we had a couple of squadrons of MQ-1s and MQ-9s. And the question was always, ‘Hey, can you fly one more combat line for us?’ Slife said. “And how do you answer that question? I actually have a crew here that’s available. And I actually have an airplane that’s available, and I have a ground control station. And so, I mean, the answer is, ‘Yes, I can.’ But what I’m unable to communicate is the pressure on the force, right? I’m unable to communicate … the risk or the opportunity cost.”

With more clearly defined cycles, communicating those costs has become easier.

“We’ve been unable to talk about our capacity in a way that resonates with the Joint Force. It becomes too technical and complicated. And so when we migrated to a four-cycle force generation model, it allows us to have these conversations very unemotionally and very fact-based and allows us to articulate risk and capacity in a way that has really eluded us,” Slife said.

As an example, Slife cited last summer’s Afghanistan evacuation. As Kabul fell to the Taliban and the U.S. raced to evacuate Americans and threatened Afghans, Pentagon and U.S. Central Command leaders turned to AFSOC to provide AC-130J gunships to protect the forces and the aircraft flying in and out.

Using the force generation model, Slife explained that he could surge capacity, but that it would change the deployment cycles for Airmen and have effects on their schedules down the line. Leaders agreed to accept those effects.

“So we sent some more gunships to Afghanistan last summer. Two of those crews won the Mackay Trophy last year, did fantastic work,” Slife said. “But the key thing is, in October of last year, for the first time in 20 years, there were no gunships in CENTCOM.”

‘Jihad’ on Centralization

Mission requirements aren’t the only drivers of risk, though. A lack of resources can also cause issues, and Slife has no interest in trying to hide those gaps.

“I’m really on a kind of a jihad here against centralization inside of AFSOC—one of the evils of centralization is it masks your shortages,” Slife said.

When the Air Force or major commands consolidate all of one capability into one unit, it may seem that there is enough capacity to go around, Slife said. But when “maximum effort and deploying” are required, the shortfall becomes clear.

Instead of organizing units around capabilities, Slife wants to organize around mission sets, which “[highlights] the shortages we have,” he said.

In particular, Slife highlighted tactical communications equipment as an area where AFSOC needs to spend more.

“While we have had enough to operate out of fixed bases, where there’s already infrastructure in place, and all you’ve got to do is plug in, all the equipment’s already there, that’s not what the future environment looks like,” Slife said. “And so what we’re realizing is we’ve got some significant investments that we need to make in tactical communications, and I would tell you kind of the key area that we’re looking for there is software-defined capabilities.”

Slife’s focus on communications outside of fixed bases is in line with the Air Force’s embrace of agile combat employment, the operating concept whereby small teams of Airmen operate in remote or austere environments and move quickly.

Indeed, AFSOC has combined the concepts of ACE with mission-oriented units in its Mission Sustainment Teams, groups of Airmen with different speciality codes who can support themselves and other units anywhere in the field.

The MSTs have quickly become “in demand across our force,” Slife said. “Everybody wants to deploy with their own mission sustainment team. It’s pretty interesting.”

Outstanding Airmen of the Year: Tech. Sgt. Jennifer G. Thomas

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Patrick Reardon

The Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2022 will be formally recognized at AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference from Sept. 19 to 21 in National Harbor, Md. Air Force Magazine is highlighting one each weekday from now until the conference begins. Today, we honor Tech. Sgt. Jennifer G. Thomas, the vehicle deployment manager for the 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations Squadron at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va.

Thomas’ VSCO squadron at Langley-Eustis is the headquarters for her career field. When Air Force vehicles are needed to support an operation—particularly one on a humanitarian scale—her unit is the first call. So when the news first surfaced that thousands of Afghan evacuees were arriving in the U.S. as part of Operation Allies Welcome, Thomas knew she needed to get involved promptly.

“When I heard what was going on, I reached out to my supervision leadership to see what I could do to help,” she said. “We needed to find out quickly what the requirements were.”

That rapid response and eagerness would be crucial in supporting and transporting 15,000 Afghan evacuees who were already en route to the U.S. The scope of the mission and its asset requirements came in last-minute, so Thomas had very little time to assemble a vehicle package that could support such a large number of evacuees.

By contacting fleet managers at bases around the country, Thomas developed a 57-vehicle package comprising buses, fire trucks, tractors, and trailers.

“Within a week, we were able to gather [about] half of the requirements,” she said. “A lot of the vehicles came from across the country, from Texas and California.”

Operation Allies Welcome wouldn’t be the first time Thomas’ expertise would prove imperative to a humanitarian effort. In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security reached out to Thomas’ squadron to help support 3,000 Haitian evacuees who were trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. They needed a place to stay, with less than 48 hours to make it happen.

“We were able to house them at Laughlin Air Force Base,” Thomas said, after securing and deploying assets to the border in less than 24 hours.

Thomas’ acumen within her unit is not only saving lives, but also making humanitarian efforts more efficient across the Air Force. She led Air Forces Central Command’s mission drawdown by redistributing 680 vehicles throughout 18 locations, ultimately saving $35 million in acquisition costs.

She credits her daily motivation to her husband, her unit, and the wing 5/6 for which she is the Vice President. The 5/6 takes care of Airmen at Langley by way of organizing events, game nights, and concerts as well as remodeling recreational rooms. The members also recognize their fellow Airmen for outstanding performance with a “Strive for Five” award.

Thomas is also the group Combined Federal Campaign representative and the squadron booster club president, overseeing 12 committees. She has coordinated 27 volunteer events for her units in her personal time that have raised $121,000 and led her unit to win the Volunteer Unit of the Year Award.

Thomas said helping people isn’t so much a choice as it is part of her nature—it’s just something she’s always loved doing.

“I think I get it from my mom and my dad,” she said. “I don’t know. It just makes me feel good.”

Indeed, taking care of others is Thomas’ M.O.—especially others in her unit, because her unit has taken care of her, too. She said they are what truly what make any of her success possible to begin with.

“I want to thank my unit,” Thomas said. “Last year was a challenging year for me and my family. My unit gave me a family-like environment. They took care of us from the very beginning.”

Meet the other Outstanding Airmen of the Year in 2022 below:    

Austin Cites ‘Long Haul’ Support for Ukraine, Growth of Defense Industrial Bases

Sept. 8, 2022 | By Greg Hadley

Senior U.S. officials emphasized the long-term security of Ukraine and other European allies Sept. 8, announcing a new $2.2 billion aid package and plans to bolster their respective defense industrial bases.

The Department of Defense also announced another $675 million drawdown of security assistance for Ukraine, including more artillery, munitions, and High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARMs) for the fight against Russia.

That drawdown, the 20th authorized by President Joe Biden’s administration, brings the total security assistance authorized since Russia’s invasion began at around $14.5 billion. The full list of equipment and weapons in the package include:

Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS)
Four 105mm Howitzers and 36,000 105mm artillery rounds
Additional High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles (HARM)
100 Armored High-Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles (HMMWV)
1.5 million rounds of small arms ammunition
More than 5,000 anti-armor systems
1,000 155mm rounds of Remote Anti-Armor Mine (RAAM) Systems
Additional grenade launchers and small arms
50 armored medical treatment vehicles
Night vision devices and other field equipment.

The bigger chunk of funds allocated Sept. 8, however, came when the State Department announced it will make $2.2 billion available for long-term investments under Foreign Military Financing—roughly half for Ukraine and half for 18 other nations in the region.

Those countries—Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia—include “many of our NATO Allies, as well as other regional security partners potentially at risk of future Russian aggression,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a statement.

At the same time, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley traveled to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, where they met with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 countries. In the group’s fifth meeting, the emphasis was on supporting Ukraine “over the long haul,” Austin said in a press briefing.

Six months after Russia’s full-scale invasion began, many countries “continue to dig deep and provide equipment out of their own military stocks,” Austin noted. In particular, Austin praised the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia for “reinvigorating their industrial bases to meet Ukraine self defense needs.”

But with more than a dozen other countries also slated to get long-term investments and other European nations looking to ramp up their defense spending as well, Austin said planning is underway to coordinate how different countries’ defense industrial bases can work together.

“In the next few weeks in coordination with NATO, the United States will host a special session under the auspices of this contact group to bring together our senior national armaments directors, and they will discuss how our defense industrial bases can best equip Ukraine’s future forces with the capabilities that they need,” he said.

Not only will Ukraine’s future needs be considered, Austin added. Members of the Contact Group want to ensure their own stockpiles remain robust as they support Ukraine. For the U.S., in particular, senior leaders have insisted for months the aid given to Ukraine won’t deplete the Pentagon’s stockpiles. A recent report from the Wall Street Journal, however, indicated there is some concern within DOD about the levels of some munitions.

“We all believe that working together, we can better streamline things—we can shorten acquisition times, perhaps work on supply chain issues, learn from each other,” Austin said of the Contact Group.

And not only will Ukraine benefit from that cooperation and increased investment, Austin argued—“NATO writ large” will benefit if leaders can increase interoperability down to the industrial base level, he said.

While the focus of the contact group meeting was on Ukraine’s long-term future, the conflict continues to grind. Recently, the Ukrainians launched a counter-offensive meant to push Russia out of occupied territory in the east and south of the country, Milley confirmed.

That counter-offensive’s movement has been slow but steady, according to observers, and Milley pushed back when a reporter asked if progress has been modest or moderate.

“I would characterize it as a very deliberate offensive operation that is calibrated to set conditions and then seize their objectives,” Milley said. “We think at this point that their progress—you mentioned the word modest or moderate—their progress is steady, and it’s deliberate.”