Wings of Gold

January 2002

Greetings and Happy New Year from Naval Air Reserve headquarters in New Orleans, where our Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season is annually extended into the Mardi Gras season. This year we look forward to being with two great supporters of ANA as “Commodore” Tommy Lupo and his lovely wife Alvena, will be hosting several functions in town, and our very own president, RADM P.D. Smith will be addressing the New Orleans Mardi Gras chapter in February. It promises to be a great occasion, and we all look forward to welcoming RADM Smith to a Nawlins’ tradition.

As I write this article, the mobilization of our Naval Reserve is ongoing with over 9400 Reservists called to active duty so far. I am proud to inform our readership that the call-up is progressing very smoothly and your Naval Reserve Force is answering the bell when called. Most of our Naval Air Reservists have been recalled in support of force protection and intelligence requirements. The flexibility of our Force was validated once again, for as many of you are aware, we were not structured for the force protection mission in the numbers that are being recalled. With a focus on solutions, the Naval Air Reserve initiated training school houses at NAS Ft Worth and Willow Grove, to expedite training of force protection specialists in support of Fleet requirements. Those Reservists who were already trained in the force protection mission were immediately recalled, while training of new personnel was accelerated. The bottom line is that the effort has resulted in meeting Fleet needs in a mission area that was not structured prior to September 11^th. The chances are about 100% that there are Naval Reservists at the gates of your shore facilities checking you onto base today.

Additionally, the increase in intelligence requirements has generated a substantial recall of our Intelligence and Cryptological Reserve communities. To date, over 30% of our Naval Reserve Intel community has been recalled and are forward deployed, supporting Fleet shortages during this time of increased Intel requirements. The ability to mobilize trained personnel immediately, and to rapidly train and assign additional personnel is a validation of Navy’s Total Force approach towards meeting worldwide Navy commitments. This is a look at your 21^st century Naval Reserve Force, and I hope you all share my pride in this ready Reserve capability we have built for our great Navy!

Our support of operation Noble Eagle extends beyond providing qualified personnel to augment our Fleet’s efforts. Our hardware squadrons, especially in our VR community, have been placed on alert and stand ready. Immediately following the attacks, there was an increase in Navy’s forward based logistics requirements and our C-9, C-130 and C-20 squadrons were on station to provide that support, and have been there ever since. We reprioritized support requirements for the year and increased CENTCOM support significantly for the future. Despite the challenge of doing a full time Navy mission with a part time aviation force, the men and women of our VR community and their “can-do” culture got the job done.

Our other squadrons are spring loaded to the respond position also, and stand ready to support our nation’s anti-terrorist war. Tacair F/A-18’s flew CONUS CAP missions on 9-11, and are prepped to augment Fleet requirements. Our E-2’s can be redirected from anti-drug operations to CAP missions on a moment’s notice and our EA-6B squadron deploys this Summer to support CENTCOM operations. Additionally, our Reserve helo CSAR crews standby to augment active crew for any CSAR and Specop missions, as we have in the past. Our updated P-3C force continues to support fleet commitments and stands ready to support the newly evolving homeland defense mission, should that platform be required. In each community, we provide a robust capability of well trained, veteran aviators and maintenance personnel, ready and willing to do whatever Navy needs us for.

Let me close with an over utilized analogy. How is your life insurance policy doing? While I share your joy in not having to utilize that policy yet, I am equally sure that someday you’ll need it, and all of that investing in it will become very worthwhile. Your Naval Reserve is one of the “cheapest” policies you can buy for national defense. It is even better than a good whole life or term policy however, because you don’t have to wait until the end to collect on your investment. Over the past 15 years, your Naval Reserve policy has provided, on a daily basis, 100% of Navy’s adversary support, 100% of our aviation logistics support, nearly 50% of Intelligence and Crypto support, support IDTC requirements so our Fleet deployers can get a break between cruises, augment Fleet deployments, etc…etc…plus, if the war starts, you also get to collect on your investment through mobilization of our assets, people and aircraft. We have truly come a long way over the last decade or so, and it is my hope that we will continue to invest in a strong and capable Naval Reserve for the future. We’ll be there when you need us…count on it!