Category: Veterans News

Second Lt. Kirsten Cullinan comes from a family so rich in military accomplishments – father served 30 years as an Air Force pilot, mother served in the Army, both siblings are Air Force officers – that rising above that impressive history would seem difficult.

Yet, Cullinan made her own substantial mark Oct. 22, by being honored as the 2019 Cadet of the Year by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David L. Goldfein at a ceremony at the Pentagon.

To put the award in perspective, Cullinan was selected from a rigorous competition open to more than 3,000 Air Force Academy, Reserve Officer Training Corps and Officer Training School cadets.

In her remarks, Cullinan said, “it was an honor” to receive the award, but she also said it was slightly awkward because she felt any of her fellow cadets at the University of Notre Dame could have earned the prestigious award.

“It was a team effort, and I feel that it’s not only me getting recognized but Detachment 225 as a whole getting recognized for all of our accomplishments,” she said.

That ideal was present in the audience, where three of her fellow cadets from Detachment 225 at Notre Dame came to the Pentagon to show their support for their friend and fellow officer. Their presence, she said, reflected the spirit, cohesion and support that contributed to her personal success.

Cullinan graduated in May with dual degrees in political science and Russian. She was a Dean’s List recipient all but one semester. As the commander her senior year, she revamped the detachment’s physical training program and improved their scores to the top five in the nation. She currently is on active duty, training to be an intelligence officer.

“I wish I could tell you this will be

MUARA, Brunei — The U.S. and Royal Brunei Armed Forces (RBAF) commenced the 25th annual Cooperation Afloat Readiness and Training (CARAT) maritime exercise at Muara Naval Base, Brunei, Oct. 22.

The 25th anniversary of Exercise CARAT Brunei symbolizes the longstanding U.S.-Brunei maritime partnership and highlights the United States’ commitment to the region and to a free and open Indo-Pacific.

U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Joey Tynch, commander, Logistics Group Western Pacific, who oversees security cooperation for the U.S. Navy in Southeast Asia, said that CARAT Brunei was an opportunity for friends and partners to work together and address shared maritime security priorities.

”This is what partnership looks like,” said Tynch. “There’s no better demonstration of our shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific than working together at sea.”

The sea phase will take place in the South China Sea with ships and aircraft from both partner militaries.

Evolutions at-sea will include division tactics (DIVTACS) designed to enhance communication as ships sail together in complex maneuvers, a photo exercise (PHOTOEX), a tracking exercise (TRACKEX) aimed at increasing both navies’ ability to track and pursue targets through the coordinated deployment of surface ships and maritime patrol aircrafts, visit board search and seizure (VBSS) drills, deck landing qualifications and medical evacuation simulations (DLQ/MEDECAV), gunnery exercises (GUNEX) and bilateral underway replenishment scenarios (RASAP).

Aviation events during CARAT Brunei, focusing on maritime domain awareness (MDA), search and rescue, and interoperability, will feature helicopters from the RBAF and USN, as well as the P-8A Poseidon.

“I often say we are strongest when we sail together with our friends and partners,” said Tynch, who is also a career helicopter pilot. “And when we fly together, we demonstrate a level of trust and cooperation that is unmatched.”

Ashore events will feature joint training opportunities to include visit board

KUNSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea — The 8th Maintenance Group hosted the 2019 Penn Fest, Oct. 19, and brought together five aircraft maintenance units (AMU), and their respective aircraft, from across the Republic of Korea (ROK).

This year, Penn Fest gave several AMUs the chance to see who had the best air force load crew in the ROK.

Supporting their home station were the 35th and 80th AMUs as well as ROK air force’s 38th Fighter Group AMU. Osan Air Base sent the 25th and 36th AMUs to compete against the Wolf Pack and Tigers.

All units had to load two bombs and a missile onto their respective F-16 Fighting Falcons, except for the 25th AMU, who had to prepare their A-10 Thunderbolt II.

The 25th AMU completed the competition with the fastest time and took home the overall win.

The Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Troy Black brought together the most senior enlisted Marines and Sailors from around the Corps to a symposium on Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., Oct. 17 through 18. These top leaders currently serve at the general officer level. They discussed leadership, valuable lessons, and naval integration.

There were many important topics discussed during this symposium. Some of those topics include the importance of teamwork with each other and leadership.

“We do partner exercises each year, we are already planning for next year. We are very involved with the naval integration with Pacific partnership. It’s not that we haven’t done it before, but we really ramped up our navy integration amphibiosity.” Command Master Chief Petty Officer Michael Roberts, I Marine Expeditionary Force

Amphibiosity means to operate on land and sea, it may not be found in a dictionary, but it is a real concept considering exercises such as Trident Juncture, where there are joint amphibious procedures to ensure Marines can get anywhere under any circumstances.

Bringing senior leadership together to discuss valuable lessons they have learned over time helps improve the structure of leadership.

“The Navy and the Marine Corps are building the teamwork for the integration by increasing the amount of staff involvement so that we understand each other’s operations better. You see more Marines on the Navy staff, and starting to integrate some Navy on the Marine Corps staff,” said CMDCM Jody Fletcher, I MEF.

This shows that working together can improve how naval integration works hand-in-hand with how the Commandant of the Marine Corps planning guidance is structured.

“The Navy and the Marine Corps have been a team since the very beginning, there is nothing that we haven’t done

By the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Warfare

“As the greatest potential source of cybersecurity
vulnerabilities, the workforce level of knowledge, training and daily action
will either contribute to safe operations or present opportunities for
adversaries to exploit. “  SECNAV Cyber Readiness Review, 2019

To prevail in cyberspace against determined, well-resourced,
and highly skilled adversaries, the Navy must attract, train, and retain a
counterbalancing force of cybersecurity professionals capable of defending our
data, systems, and networks. Others have come to the same conclusion –
recruiting, developing, and managing cyber workforce talent are key themes in
every Federal and Department of Defense (DOD) cybersecurity policy.

Cybersecurity personnel are in high demand. To attract
qualified candidates, DOD and the Navy have either begun or expanded existing
initiatives to recruit, train and retain the cyber workforce.

• Congress and DOD have approved direct hiring of government
  civilian cyber personnel and authorized special pay for them. Fleet Forces Command
  is in the second phase of implementing this new personnel system, called the
  Cyber Excepted Service.
• The DOD Chief Information Officer (CIO) offers
  cyber recruitment scholarships for college students and retention scholarships
  for DOD Federal employees and military members. These incentives are available
  for current and prospective Navy personnel.
• The Federal CIO’s Council has finished training
  two groups of students at the Federal Cybersecurity Reskilling Academy, which
  develops the next generation of cybersecurity talent from those already filling
  other civilian roles in government.  The
  Council is now evaluating results from these two groups to further refine the
  Reskilling Academy curriculum.    

To identify possible skill gaps, the Navy is coding its
military and civilian cyber billets by work role and required proficiency
level. This is a daunting task – there are 54 work roles, 3 levels of
proficiency for each role, and

WASHINGTON (NNS) (NNS) — Cybersecurity is an “all hands on deck” effort to ensure the nation’s networks and systems are protected and defended against those who wish to do us harm. It requires vigilant cyber warfighters from all of our military forces as well as individuals in government, private industry, and academia to defend our interests in cyberspace and ensure the operational readiness of the U.S. Navy’s networks and systems.

Cybersecurity goes beyond individual human behavior. In fact, it takes multiple teams to defend cyberspace effectively. We cannot afford inaction or complacency as cyber threats increase and grow significantly. While cyber adversaries use more sophisticated technologies and methodologies to find their way into our networks, data breaches, phishing, and social engineering have become everyday occurrences. Our complacency can be the adversary’s best asset.

The evolving nature of cyber requires us to shift from a compliance and reactive mindset to a more proactive cyber defense approach. The Navy uses teams of cyber warfighters, who partner and collaborate with our joint forces, government agencies, industry, and U.S. allies, to fight and defend cyberspace around the clock. They look for and assess vulnerabilities on Navy networks and systems, identify threats, and respond to cyber events and incidents.

Additionally, the Navy conducts proactive cyber defense and deploys a small team with a specific cybersecurity skillset to various units across the Fleet to meet cyber operational needs. This dedicated team is trained to enhance the Fleet’s cyber security posture, strengthen our networks and systems, and ensure resilience and operational readiness all year round. The cyber teams also train the ship’s force in key areas of network security, cyber incident reporting procedures, and recovery and mitigation processes.

Many Sailors and civilians might believe our information online is safe because we create complex passwords or we may

JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-LACKLAND, Texas — For Master Sgt. Paul Willson, attending the advanced Marine Corps Staff NCO Academy at Camp Pendleton, California, was the natural thing to do.

As a career explosive ordnance disposal technician, Willson has always worked closely with other branches, beginning with the Naval EOD School all services attend and continuing through combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan where he teamed up with Army, Navy and Marine EOD technicians.

“The decision to try for a sister service professional military education came easily,” he said. “I’ve always been interested in the joint community and those relationships will only get closer as the need for multidomain operations becomes increasingly necessary.”

Willson, an EOD and emergency management training and support manager in the AFIMSC Expeditionary Support Directorate, earned distinguished graduate honors when he completed the school in September.

“Earning DG actually came as a surprise to me as, at my mid-term feedback, I was ranked 43 of 114 students,” he said. “I managed to pull through during the remaining half of the course to finish in the top 10 percent; number 11 to be exact, barely edging in at the finish line by studying long hours and staying task focused.”

As a small group leader, Willson led a team of 17, including 15 Marines and one Maldives National Marine. Under his leadership, the team earned four of 11 DG awards.

“I tried my best as group leader to review and edit what I could,” he said, adding that he even bought a printer for his team to print out classwork because the school didn’t provide one.

The Marine Corps Staff NCO Academy is similar to the Air Force Senior NCO Academy, with students completing graded essays, written tests and speeches while

By Vice Adm. DeWolfe Miller III, Commander, Naval Air Forces/Commander, Naval Air Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet

Midway.
The mere mention of it warms the heart of a U.S. aircraft carrier Sailor. At Midway
Island, American aircraft carriers secured the greatest victory in our Navy’s
history and changed the course of World War II. The aviators who served and
flew off carriers Enterprise,
Hornet
and Yorktown
struck a decisive blow against the powerful Japanese fleet. During the Battle
of Midway, the aircraft carrier proved to be the preeminent weapon system in
the naval arsenal, a distinction that it holds today and will hold for the
foreseeable future.

Midway,
a feature-length film scheduled for release on November 8, tells the story of
the Sailors and aviators who fought so bravely in June 1942. This retelling
comes at a critical time for our Navy and our nation. Seeing the attack on Pearl
Harbor and the Battle of Midway on the big screen serves as a reminder of the cost
of unpreparedness in an age of great
power competition.

Under the brave leadership of Admirals Raymond
Spruance and Frank
Fletcher, our Sailors displayed toughness and answered the call. Young
aviators, lacking experience and flying planes that were no match for the
Japanese aircraft, stared death in

Air Combat Command announced their two 2020 Spark Tank finalists moving on to compete in the finals in Washington, D.C.

The finalists competed against four other teams of contestants from a multitude of career fields and experience levels. They will move on to the finals at AFWERX, where they’ll compete against winners from other major commands at the Air Force level. From there, the judge’s panel will choose six finalists from a pool of more than 20 semi-finalists–two from each MAJCOM, plus two AFWERX wildcards.

Airman 1st Class Brett Geisler, a 9th Maintenance Squadron electrical and environmental journeyman from Beale Air Force Base, California, pitched an idea to Spark Tank judges for a latch-seal track case. In simple terms, the latch-seal track case is an assembly Geisler crafted with computer-aided drafting at home.

Geisler’s idea is projected prevent failures during operational inspections of aircraft canopies and save thousands of dollars and cut man-hours on the flightline by 26%.

“It feels great,” Geisler said. “It feels like I actually put my name out there and accomplished something. I was really hyped to see all of the other ideas because they were awesome.”

Geisler also described how enthusiastic his fellow Airmen will be when they see his idea come to fruition.

“They’re definitely going to be happy,” Geisler said. “My coworkers were excited about my idea before I even entered into this competition.

“They hated redundant maintenance actions just as much as I did,” he continued. “At the end of the day, it’s more promising to see that our parts are going to be in a secure location.”

The second finalist, Tech. Sgt. Daniel Caban, a 1st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron F-22 Raptor crew chief from Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia, articulated an idea to the judge’s panel