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Essay: continuity of crisis; my Life as a historian at McGuire

  • Published
  • By Gary Boyd
  • 305th Air Mobility Wing Historian
JOINT BASE MCGUIRE-DIX-LAKEHURST, N.J. --  The chaos driving air mobility operations is ever-present; the next great national challenge has already arrived once some "end state" has been declared. In air mobility, there is no such thing as victory, only advantages, disadvantages and preparations for the next crisis. To state the condition of things as definitively concluded is to deny the progress to the next state of reality. Engagement, disengagement and reconstitution--these are ground truths for the air mobility warrior.One cannot watch the daily news without discussions of "lost" or "won" military engagements. Air mobility warriors are cognizant that there is a retrograde movement following every war and that the Berlin Airlift came shortly after what most Americans would agree had been a decisive victory in World War II.

For me, this article is the last of dozens I have written at McGuire Air Force Base and now Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, and unlike the crises which drive air mobility operations, it is a definable end point. I have been blessed as a historian; when I arrived at McGuire in 1997, the base was still in the blush of its first new construction since the early 1970s. It was September 1997, and having driven across all of North America from Alaska with two cars, a cat and a new baby without a single mishap, I felt especially blessed by good fortune to arrive at a base that the world depended upon in crisis. McGuire had participated in virtually every major American contingency operation since it became an air mobility base in 1954. Personally, I needed a change of venue; I had unfortunately been present at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska in September 1995 when the E-3B Sentry Yukla 27 had crashed due to striking a large flock of geese. That event had been soul wrenching for everyone in the 3rd Wing, and I was anxious for a return to summer warmth and normalcy in the lower 48. It was short-lived self-satisfaction. Three days after signing in to McGuire, C-141B Reach 4201 was lost en route to Ascension Island. Thus my first days at McGuire were punctuated again with Crisis Action Team briefings and extreme sadness. Fliers are a brave lot; every take off incurs a gravity penalty. In circumstances where every crewman performs flawlessly, they skirt eternity until wheels are safely on the ground. In the case of Reach 4201, almost any change in timing would have kept them from colliding with a German aircraft at the wrong altitude.

The days after Reach 4201 literally raced by. There was always a crisis, inspection, war or mass-deployment underway. The KC-10s of the 305 AMW were permanently rotating to Southwest Asia or Europe to complete vital missions in Joint Task Force Southwest Asia, NOBLE ANVIL/JOINT FORGE, ALLIED FORCE, PHOENIX DUKE, PHOENIX SCORPION I-IV, and DESERT FOX, and the C-141B Starlifter was phasing out while supporting these and other humanitarian operations around the world--often with Ravens of the 305 SFS and personnel and equipment of the 621st Air Mobility Operations Group. McGuire and the Starlifter were synonymous. It made perfect sense that McGuire would be the last active duty base flying the elegant airlifter. We learned that McGuire would likely host a squadron of the new C-17 Globemaster IIIs, and again, would be on the forefront of global logistics in completing a four-pillared strategy of construction for the 21st Century. In the midst of the frantic planning, deploying, exercising and aerial porting, McGuire and Fort Dix hosted refugees from Kosovo in Operation PROVIDE REFUGE/OPEN ARMS.

With the completion of the new "Super Clinic" in 2000, and the fizzled Y2K crisis for which the base had scrambled about preparing for the worst, it seemed as if Team McGuire was finally arriving at an exhale point. There was a "C-17 Day" for the press, and there was more of a steady-state feel to the deployments and contingencies. I departed for a year to the 51st Fighter Wing in Korea with a follow-on back to McGuire in 2001. It was the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, and unlike 1997 and the Air Force's 50th anniversary; nothing stopped commemorations on the Peninsula. While there, I was commanded by Lt. Col. Gina Grosso as part of the 51st Mission Support Squadron. She was one of the most talented commanders for whom I had ever worked, and I thought surely she would become one of the many veterans doing well in corporate America (imagine my surprise in 2009, when she was selected to lead McGuire forward into the Joint Base era!).

Upon returning from Korea, my third disastrous September occurred; this time the 9-11 attacks changed everything. There was a shocking silence that had punctuated each of the terrible Septembers of my life; I had watched a cloud of smoke in September 1995 in Alaska after flight operations had been cancelled; in September 1997, the tremendous crew of Reach 4201 had gone silent after an infrared "event" had been spotted by satellites deep in quiet of space; in September 2001, the whole nation went silent. Indeed, so nightmarish was the evil, it was almost impossible to believe that the attacks had really happened. Team McGuire's KC-10s transitioned in flight from training to operational, highest-priority national security missions. And everything changed.

The pace of the war, the worldwide commitments and the ache of long separations from families was a shared part of existence thereafter. If the days flew by in the late 1990s, the battle rhythm of the 21st Century was frenetic. I was also never prouder of Team McGuire and its people. Success followed success. After almost 10 years of war, the wings of Team McGuire had safely and successfully deployed and redeployed all of its people--a number that extends into the 10s of thousands now. This record of safe and successful operations is an extraordinary accomplishment that encompasses many mortar and small arms attacks, countless spiral descents and assault landings into and out of war zones. It is the definition of air mobility and the embodiment of a successful Air Force.

Through the last 13 years I have been blessed to meet and interact with scores of heroic veterans; Tuskegee Airman George Watson, ex-POW Joseph P. O'Donnell (he of the epic march West in the Spring of 1945) and generous David Nagel, of the 305th Bomb Group (top turret gunner/flight engineer on 35 missions) who became one of my closest friends and the 305th AMW's honorary commander. I also met such legends as Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber (who told me "delivering hope" to people in crisis is the greatest thing a man can do with his life--and our most honorable mission here), and Douglas Thropp--the last American to fight with Maj. Thomas McGuire Jr. In the midst of our hectic days, I have been incredibly blessed. Commander after commander, co-worker after co-worker, Team McGuire persevered. The definitive Team McGuire member to me is Ms. Cathy Cooper of the Public Affairs Office. She has served with me the entire time I have been at McGuire, and more than four decades all totaled. She has worked selflessly through the Vietnam War, NICKEL GRASS, BABY LIFT, PEACE MARBLE, JUST CAUSE, DESERT SHIELD/STORM and all of the others I recounted above with barely enough recognition, promotion or time off to contemplate her place in the larger scheme of things. Like so many of our civilians, she simply found the Fort Dix (where she typed thousands of Army DD 214s in the 60s and 70s) and McGuire rhythm "ops normal" and pressed on without self concern.

That brings me to the last chapter of my time here. In 2005, rumblings of a joint base support scheme began to be heard throughout the halls of the 305th Air Mobility Wing headquarters. In areas where there were collocated or nearby bases from the various military services, Congress proposed that there be a joint support operation to tie the missions and services together efficiently. At McGuire, the adjacent Fort Dix and Naval Engineering Station Lakehurst seemed a natural place to test the concept. The only tri-service joint base when it became operationally capable in October 2009, JB MDL has already begun to write new chapters of American history; from its support of the ongoing wars in Southwest Asia, to support of relief operations in Haiti and Chile.

When Col Scott Smith took over the 305th AMW in March 2009 after the stand up of the 87th Air Base Wing, history and tradition took to the forefront even as missions were reassigned within and without the Can Do wing. Under Colonel Smith, my dream of a 305th Bomb Group/305th AMW reunion at McGuire was realized and never before had I seen such respect for Air Force heritage. It was the highlight of my professional life. I thought then I would leave McGuire unless it was like three of my predecessor historians who had died while serving here.

There is an inherent responsibility which comes with Air Force service; to impact positively the larger mission as much as one can. Last month I was asked to become the administrator for the Air Force Historian career field at Air Force Personnel Center, where I would help shape the next generation of historians for the whole Air Force. Despite the realization that the move would end much of what I enjoyed most as a wing and base historian, and would require even longer hours and life in a cubicle, it was the right time to move--there would be new missions coming, Colonel Smith and Colonel Grosso would inevitably leave, and it was not September. There will be, soon, new historians for the 305th AMW and 87th ABW who will work with historians from the Army and Navy, and they will deserve all the support JB MDL can give them. They will marvel at the pace and suffer through the deployments and exercises wondering how it is that JB MDL can function through the daily upheaval.

History is how we ascribe meaning to our sacrifices and account for the resources invested in us by our country. It is an incredible way to spend one's days and also tremendously taxing. Historians work many unseen hours writing when phones are quiet and emails ebb. It is one of the few deployable civilian career fields, and one in which the deployer plods alone into war zones, leaving behind an office that falls at least four months behind while the historians concentrates on expeditionary organizations. It is one of the most demanding jobs in government. I will never forget my time here, and I will always be indebted to the men and women who help shape foreign policy and save lives every day for an ungrateful or unknowing people. This mission is accomplished while its practitioners slip further and further behind the inexorable calculus of "use or lose" leave. I have been honored to serve with you all.