Special Forces Viet- nam veteran to receive DSC Army

T H E R E D 7 . n et
Friday, May 16, 2014
Soldiers
hone skills
at Emerald
Warrior
page 2
page 2
ALSO INSIDE
Philpott............................6
Army Rangers
hold Open House
Special Forces Vietnam veteran
to receive DSC
Page 4
Page 5
Page | THE RED 7 | Friday, May 16, 2014
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Year No. 4 Edition No. 20
Emerald Warrior hones SOF skills
By Raquel Sanchez
Air Force Special Operations Command
More than 1,500 Special Operations Forces from around the services participated in Emerald Warrior, a
two-week joint service, interagency
and partner nation exercise that concluded here May 9.
Emerald Warrior leverages lessons learned from Operations Iraqi
Freedom and Enduring Freedom
to provide trained and ready forces
to combatant commanders. It is the
Department of Defense’s only irregular warfare exercise that uses both
live and virtual forces.
“We concentrate on the unique
skillsets needed to meet the demands of irregular warfare,” said
Col. Bruce Taylor, exercise director for Emerald Warrior. “Our elite
Special Operations Forces rely on
Emerald Warrior to provide pre-deployment training and refine tactics,
techniques, and procedures that are
vital to our National Security.”
The exercise provided tactical
airlift, fires support and Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance
assets, including 90 live aircraft players and 17 virtual aircraft players
from active-duty, guard and reserve
units on the ground and in command
and control elements.
This was also the first year the
MQ-9 Reaper from Cannon Air Force
Base, N.M., participated in the exercise. Remotely Piloted Aircraft,
like the MQ-9, provide unique ISR
capabilities for the warfighter.
“We’re excited to demonstrate
our MQ-9 rapid deployment package to the Emerald Warrior training
audience,” said Capt. Christopher
Hill, MQ-9 lead for Emerald Warrior. “This new capability will give
commanders greater flexibility to
respond to changing requirements
around the globe.”
Emerald Warrior incorporates
Live, Virtual, Constructive Operational Training to bring realistic integrated combat training to local and
distant aircrews as well as to help
minimize costs as portions of the
missions are simulated in place of
actual flights.
“Emerald Warrior integrates
combat forces on military ranges
Senior Airman Nicholas Byers | USAF
A U.S. Soldier with the 7th Special Forces Group watches the night sky for jumpers during a high-altitude, lowopening parachute jump at Hurlburt Field, May 6, during Emerald Warrior 14.
Senior Airman Nicholas Byers | USAF
U.S. Soldiers with the 7th Special Forces Group navigate to their infiltration
point during a helocast and infiltration exercise at Hurlburt Field, May 2.
throughout the eastern U.S. with
cutting-edge aircraft simulators and
gaming software to provide realistic
close air support training at a fraction of the cost relative to conventional training methods,” said Taylor. “A
new milestone was reached during
this year’s exercise when LVC-OT
was used to integrate eight joint and
partner nation units in a complex,
six-hour full mission profile to execute 16 close air support and 12
airlift sorties.”
Emerald Warrior also provides a
unique opportunity for components
of U.S. Special Operations Command, conventional, interagency,
partner nation and non-governmen-
tal agencies to train in a joint, realistic environment.
“Emerald Warrior provides an
outstanding operational framework
to train within a realistic coalition
construct which deepens interoperability between SOF elements,” said
Maj. Matthew McCloskey, 2nd Special Operations Company, Canadian
Special Operations Regiment. “The
scale and scope of the exercise also
allows us to leverage and work with
assets not normally available to us
at home. The realistic training we
conducted throughout our time here
has been outstanding.”
The exercise’s operational area
stretched across several acres of air
and ground space covering multiple
training areas at Hurlburt Field, Eglin Air Force Base and Apalachicola
in Florida; Camp Shelby and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi; Pelham Range in Alabama; and Melrose
Range in New Mexico.
“Emerald Warrior brings together
conventional and Special Operations
Forces, along with our sister services
and those of our partner nations, to
provide the most realistic and integrated warfare experience short of
actual combat,” said Taylor.
Friday, May 16, 2014 | THE RED 7 | Page Air Force: Military should expand training into state forests
What would it look like?
Public hearings will be held on the proposal early next month.
In this area, one will be held at the Santa Rosa County Bagdad
Recreation Facility in Milton on June 5 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Comments can be submitted then or by visiting the report’s
website at grasieis.leidoseemg.com.
l Up to 72 troops could move across the area by foot about eight times a year. They would avoid
areas people use for recreation.
protecting the red-cockaded woodpecker, an endangered species that calls the
forests home.
The proposal was released in draft form on Friday. Public hearings will be
held early next month.
Public input will be considered before a final proposal is released.
Spaits said he expects
comments to roll in as people have a chance to peruse
the hefty document, which
comes in at over 500 pages.
Once a final proposal is
released, it still requires approval by the Department
of Defense and the Florida
Forest Service.
View the full report at
grasieis.leidoseemg.com.
Magnolia Grill
magnoliagrillfwb.com
l Troops could fire a maximum of 772,000 rounds of blanks across both forests each year. In
Blackwater River State Forest, blanks could be fired only at two abandoned Department of Justice
campsites. In Tate’s Hell, they could be fired anywhere, although troops would avoid recreational
areas.
l About 50,000 paintballs and 7,000 smoke grenades would be devployed each year.
l Helicopters could hover about 3,000 feet in the air or just above the ground to drop off troops or
supplies. They could land only in areas that have already been cleared of vegetation.
l Fixed-wing aircraft could land on existing runways and dirt roads, including Munson Airfield in
Blackwater.
l Troops could conduct survival training missions that would require hunting small game or
rodents. Protected wildlife and plants would be avoided.
lDuring hunting season, most operations would be limited to night time.
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would affect their beloved
parks.
They worried about
noise of helicopters whirring overhead, the startling
sound of rounds of blanks
fired from large guns and
the sight of armed men
traipsing through their
parks.
Spaits said concerns
about the proposal were
considered as the draft was
crafted.
“Where there were concerns about noise or conflicts of interest regarding
use of the parks, we made
sure we addressed those in
the analysis,” he said.
Over 100 operational
constraints are included in
the proposal, such as those
Here are some examples of the type of training that would take place if the proposal is approved:
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The Air Force has officially recommended the
military be allowed to train
on state forest lands in
Northwest Florida.
They warned in a recently released report that
if the proposal does not go
through, the region likely
will not be able to sustain
the increased demands for
training space in the coming years.
“We’ve done a study that
told us all of the things we
are looking to do in the near
future can’t be done, we
don’t have the space,” said
Mike Spaits, environmental
spokesperson for Eglin.
Eglin’s vast 460,000-acre
range is used primarily for
weapons testing.
In recent years, it has
become increasingly congested with higher demand
for training space for Air
Force Special Operations
forces at Hurlburt Field, the
Army 7th Special Forces
Group (Airborne) and the
F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
program. Range managers
often don’t have the available resources to meet all
the requests for training
space.
The proposal to use
some land in Blackwater
River State Forest near Milton and Tate’s Hell State
Forest near Apalachicola
would help alleviate that
problem, the Air Force
contends.
The Air Force proposes
using the land for “nonhazardous” on-the-ground
training, some aircraft
training and for installing
up to 12 emitter sites for
simulated air-to-ground
weapons training.
As the idea has developed over the past few
years, some state park users have expressed alarm
about how military training
Questions or comments?
Woodbine Road
Northwest Florida Daily News
2101478
By LAUREN SAGE REINLIE 6 1 4 8 O L D B A G D A D H I G H W AY, M I LT O N , F L O R I D A • ( 8 5 0 ) 6 2 6 - 1 9 6 1
BL#CBC043518
Page | THE RED 7 | Friday, May 16, 2014
Rangers, visitors make noise at Open House
By KAREN ROGANOV
Daily News Contributing Writer
I
t was a bad day for
chickens, a good day for
alligators, a so-so-day for
weather and a great day for
gunshot noise.
About 1,200 visitors gathered at Camp James E. Rudder on
Saturday, May 10 for the 6th Ranger
Training Battalion’s 62nd Open
House.
“Oooh … get him. … I wanna
see it again!” said visitors, either
aghast or delighted to watch a live
rooster being fed to an alligator in
the holding pool outside the camp’s
reptile house.
“It was awesome,” Christy
Williams of Crestview said of the
show.
Still, she said she preferred the
“big ol’ rattlesnake” being handled
to be lunch, instead.
The reptiles were one of about a
dozen interactive training displays
that gave many people a feel for
what it’s like to be an elite Army
Ranger and experience the conditions the Soldiers encounter in
Eglin’s wooded and swampy training range.
“This is one of the most
concentrated schools in leadership
in a combat environment,” said
Tech. Sgt. Sam King | USAF
Sgt. 1st Class Labron Paschall,
who spearheaded organizing the
With a little Army support, a “soldier in training” aims his rifle downrange during the 6th Ranger Training Battalion’s Open House.
event.
In another corner of the camp,
made a bit of noise himself in an
The morning jump by eight paragreen and yellow smoke blew past
area lined with people waiting to
troopers from a C-130 was a highbleachers as people watched a
shoot blank ammunition for M-4
light to the day.
squadron of Rangers demonstrate
and M-14 semi-automatic rifles.
Roger Wildermuth, 65, of Shalian ambush.
“Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop.”
mar, was waiting for a second
The boom of bomb blasts,
In yet another area, Hunter
demonstration, but rain began
and rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire and
Beale, 10, of Mossy Head put his
about 3:30 p.m. and closed down the
whistling noises of falling training
baseball arm to use. He chucked
displays.
explosives added realism to the
expended simulated hand grenades
Toward the exit, Aodhan and
show.
at a target, earning himself the
Ronan Hooks, twin 6-year-old boys,
“Incoming,” shouted Sgt. Daniel praise of those nearby and a special climbed on a 1944 GPW Jeep used
De La Cruz, a medic whose team
Ranger sticker.
to preserve history.
dove for cover at another display.
Also on hand was the Special
Joe Burke, the owner dressed in
“M is for massive hemorrhaging.”
Operations Warrior Foundation,
a World War II D-Day paratrooper
he said of their checklist to tend to
which was raffling off a 2014 Harley uniform, told the boys, “The shootthe wounded.
Super Glide custom motorcycle.
ing position is sitting on the spare
Tech. Sgt. Sam King | USAF
The realism prompted some
The proceeds would be used to
tire.”
children to ask about a “bleeding”
A
Ranger
team
member
steps
forward
during a demhelp put children of deceased
Aodhan and Ronan seemed deSoldier’s condition.
onstration
at
the
6th
Ranger
Training
Battalion’s
Open
special operators through
lighted as they pointed the mounted
Taylor Burns, 8, of Crestview,
college.
weapon to shoot.
House event May 10 at Eglin Air Force Base.
Friday, May 16, 2014 | THE RED 7 | Page Cross Creek Estates
Special Forces Vietnam
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EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE – A Special Forces
Vietnam veteran will
receive the nation’s
second highest military
award 46 years after he
repelled an enemy attack,
thuse saving his fellow
Americans.
Patrick N. Watkins,
Jr., will be presented
with the Distinguished
Service Cross during a
ceremony scheduled May
22 at the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne)’s
compound on Eglin Air
Force Base.
On Aug. 23, 1968,
Watkins, then a Staff
Sgt., was serving
with Headquarters,
Headquarters Company,
Command and Control
North, 5th Special
Forces Group (Airborne),
when the compound
he was located at was
attacked by a North
Vietnamese sapper
force.
Watkins, though
wounded in the initial assault, quickly organized
a small reaction force,
repelling the attack and
rescuing wounded Americans while leading them
through machine gun fire
and grenades to a safe
location.
Throughout the engagement, Watkins continued to engage and kill
sappers from the enemy
force while repeatedly being wounded, and is credited with fiercely charging
and killing an onrushing
NVA sniper.
Courtesy photo
Pat Watkins with puppies.
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Joint Chiefs divide over cuts
to commissary savings
All seven members of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff testified
last week on the need to slow
growth in military compensation and apply dollars saved
to underfunded readiness
accounts for training, equipment and spare parts.
But their united front for
easing current budget burdens cracked over the notion
of slashing savings for commissary shoppers.
Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos called
the proposal to cut commissary appropriations, from $1.4
billion yearly down to $400
million within three years,
and the projected cut in average shopper savings from 30
percent down to 10 percent,
“a sore point for me.”
“That’s a 66 percent drop
in savings for my Marines. I
don’t like that,” Amos told the
Senate Armed Services Committee. Families don’t either.
“The commissary issue itself
is radioactive,” Amos said.
At the same hearing, Navy
Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr.,
vice chairman of the Joint
Chiefs, defended lowering the
appropriation for the Defense
Commissary Agency (DeCA)
in increments, starting with
$200 million next year, and
suggesting
the initial
impact at
least would
be modest.
“We think
DECA can
find at least
the firstyear savings
through efficiencies, not
price increases, especially
since we exempted them
from the 20 percent staff cuts
that everyone else is taking,”
Winnefeld said.
Later, Winnefeld said
first-year savings might be
achieved if Congress would
just repeal a law requiring
commissaries to stock only
brand names.
It’s a law “apparently lobbied for by the food industry,”
Winnefeld said, which “takes
money right out of our people’s pockets. It really does.”
Industry sources said
brand names do generate
higher profits for suppliers
but the issue is more complex
and less disturbing than Winnefeld implied. Brand name
suppliers can afford to support DeCA with trade offs in
store services such as free
stocking of shelves and with
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DeCA provided a statement explaining that commissaries evolved by design
into a brand-name system
to ensure “worldwide availability of quality, recognizable
brand-name products such
as Kellogg’s cereals, Kraft
cheeses”
A brand name “bestows
a known quality assurance
that our military families rely
upon wherever they serve,”
DeCA explained.
Though it doesn’t carry generic items, DeCA since 2000
has operated a “best value
items” program with name
brand products “equal to or
cheaper in price than the private labels found downtown,”
the agency said.
Winnefeld assured senators that the budget plan
to squeeze commissaries
doesn’t order any store closures. The goal is efficiency.
“Whatever they can’t ring
out of efficiencies would be a
price increase,” he acknowledged. “So you might go
from the 30-percent claimed
advantage [in prices] right
now…to 26 percent” that first
year.
In looking at the competitiveness of stores in each
market, 26 percent savings
should ensure that most
thrive. But “there are probably situations where you
might close one or two,” Winnefeld said. The plan overall,
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he said, is “a heck of a lot gentler than it looks.”
Winnefeld did not describe
the impact on commissaries if
DeCA takes a $500 million hit
2016 and $1 billion hit starting
in 2017, as is also proposed.
Amos didn’t either. But he
said a better solution to raising prices would be “to force
DeCA to become more efficient and figure out how to do
it, and don’t put that burden
on the back of our young enlisted Marines.”
“We don’t need to turn
our back” on making commissaries part of compensation reform, Amos said. “But
I think we are going at it the
wrong way. I think we ought
to force DeCA to do some of
the things that the services
have had to do over the last
year to try to live within our
means.”
Base exchanges or department stores used to depend on appropriated dollars
too, Amos said, but they were
forced at some point to be run
like businesses. Commissaries should be made to run as
efficiently.
What the commandant
did not mention, but that resale officials describe often
and openly, is that exchang-
es, because they are run as
businesses, deliver a level of
savings about half what commissaries do. Indeed commissary prices are a magnet
to bring more exchange
shopping.
There were other signs
in the hearing that the Joint
Chiefs were out of their comfort zone in discussing the
military retail store system.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.),
tried to sum up what he just
heard on the commissary
plan from Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, JCS chairman,
and from Winnefeld whom
Dempsey said “did most
of the heavy lifting” on the
issue.
“You would like to get efficiencies out of the system”
and you believe DeCA “can
generate these efficiencies,” Reed said. If DeCA
can’t, “then they are going to
have to curtail some of their
operations.”
Given that, Reed asked
Dempsey, have you “thought
about a criteria for curtailment…something other then, ‘We’ll get some
efficiencies’?”
“We have sir,” Dempsey
said, “and I will tell you that
commissaries has been the
most difficult issue to wrap
our arms around, because it’s
very difficult to understand
the functioning of the commissary, and the effect that a
reduction in the subsidy will
have, until you make the decision to do it.”
That’s why, Dempsey
said, the first cut would be
only $200 million. Even senior
enlisted advisors, he added,
“say ‘Let’s see what happens.’ Let’s see how much
efficiency we can ring out
of it in order to gain some
savings.”
Because if “left unaddressed,” Dempsey warned,
“we will be providing $1.4 bil-
lion in perpetuity” to subsidize grocery shopping, “and
that just doesn’t seem to be a
reasonable course of action.”
A day later, the House
Armed Services Committee
voted for only a $100 million
cut in commissary funding
in 2015. Its chairman, Rep.
Harold “Buck” McKeon
(R-Calif.), said he rejects increasing out of pocket costs
for service families. But
McKeon, whose family once
ran a popular chain of cowboy clothing stores, also said
he knows “efficiencies can be
made that reduce the cost of
the program without increasing prices.”
GREYHOUND RACING
Starts May 16, 2014
2101113
LIVE RACING • SIMULCAST WAGERING
FAMILY FUN NIGHT • POKER
For more information:
(850) 638-6013
5020799
www.visitwashingtoncountyfl.com
Page | THE RED 7 | Friday, May 16, 2014
Discover the
perfect community
for your BAH.
Low 100s*
Reserve Pointe, Navarre
Approx. 16 miles
Mid 100s*
Keylan Cove, Pensacola
Approx. 37 miles
Winners Gait, Pace
Approx. 26 miles
LaGrange Landing, Freeport
Approx. 55 miles
High 100s*
BIG
New Home Savings So
We are keeping them
under our hat!
SALE ENDS MAY 18
Autumn Woods, Crestview
Approx. 48 miles
Brownstone Manor,
Crestview
Approx. 48 miles
Low 200s*
Driftwood Estates,
Santa Rosa Beach
Approx. 52 miles
Forest on Oriole,
Gulf Breeze
Approx. 28 miles
Liberty Oaks, Crestview
Approx. 40 miles
Magnolia Village, Navarre
Approx. 20 miles
Summerset, Gulf Breeze
Approx. 22 miles
Spencer’s Ridge, Pace
Approx. 30 miles
Hammock Bay, Freeport
Approx. 53 miles
Winners Gait, Pace
Approx. 27 miles
Waterford Sound,
Gulf Breeze
Approx. 22 miles
Abernathy, Pace
Approx. 23 miles
Mid 200s*
Low 200s*
Terra Bella, Pace
Approx. 27 miles
Cottonwood, Milton
Approx. 22 miles
Habersham, Pace
Approx. 28 miles
Ashley Plantation, Pace
Approx. 32 miles
High 200s*
877-786-0329
Find out the full details
drhorton.com/savings
Home and community information, including pricing, included features, terms, availability
and amenities, are subject to change and prior sale at any time without notice or obligation.
Terms and Conditions Apply. See a D.R. Horton Sales Representative for Details.
Price effective 04/25/2014. *Home and community information, including pricing, included
features, terms, availability and amenities are subject to change and prior sale at any time
without notice or obligation. Mileage is approximate and may vary. Note: BAH stands for
2108840
Basic Allowance for Housing; BAH varies from installation to installation.