Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota

 

My journey continued when I left Aviano Air Base in Italy as I found my new home at Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota. I remember flying in and as we were beginning our decent, I could see the landscape; farm land, and lots of it. And straight, flat roads for as far as the eye could see! Here we are in May of 2004 and yes I volunteered to become a “Warrior of the North!” 

Grand Forks AFB is a rare example of an Air Force Base that was never an Army base; a base built after World War II and named for a local community. Ongoing Cold War tensions led the Air Force to desire a northern tier area as a central observation and fighter-interception base. The base site was chosen in 1954, following a community land donation by citizens of Grand Forks, established in 1955, and constructed over 1956-57. Grand Forks would become home of the 478^th Fighter Group, the 18^th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, the 4133^rd Strategic Wing, the 321^st Missile Wing, the 319^th Bombardment Wing, which transitioned into the 319^th Air Refuelling wing, and finally into what it’s known as today; the 319^th Air Base Wing as the home to the 69^th Reconnaissance Group, operating RQ-4 Global Hawks. This base in the frozen north has a storied aircraft past. If a runway would speak, this one would have stories to tell with aircraft such as the F-101 Voodoo, F-106 Delta Dart, KC-135 Stratotanker, B-52 Stratofortress, B-1B Lancer, and RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) having launched from its airstrip.

During my time in Grand Forks, I would find myself on two additional deployments, my 3rd and 4th. I deployed to Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) in 2005 for 4 months and to Manas Air Base just outside of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2008 for another 4 month tour.

Diego Garcia is an atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of 60 small islands comprising the Chagos Archipelago. It was settled by the French in the 1790s and was transferred to British rule after the Napoleonic Wars. Between 1968 and 1973, the population was forcibly removed by the United Kingdom and the United States to establish an American base through intimidation of locals and denying the return of any who left the island. Many were deported to Mauritius and the Seychelles, following which the United States built a large naval port and military base, which has been in continuous operation since. As of August 2018, Diego Garcia is the only inhabited island of the BIOT; the population is composed of military personnel and supporting contractors. It is one of two critical United States bases in the Asia Pacific region, along with Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in the Pacific Ocean. Diego Garcia was a strategic location for bomber aircraft flying over Afghanistan and Iraq during Operations Allied Force and Iraqi Freedom.

Our Air Force adventure would take us further north all the way to Alaska. However, there would be two linking moments to this base in North Dakota. First, the 18^th Fighter Interceptor Squadron which was an early housed unit at Grand Forks Air Force Base, now called the 18th Aggressor Squadron would be at my next base. Additionally, the man known as “the father of Alaskan Aviation,” Carl Ben Eielson was from a small North Dakota town near Grand Forks. This would also be the namesake of our next assignment, Eielson Air Force Base just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. I departed with my wife and two children on May 24th, 2009 and started driving north to Alaska for yet another stop in my military journey.

 

Manas Air Base, a former U.S. military installation at Manas International Airport, near Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan was initially named after New York Fire Department Chief Peter J. Ganci, Jr., who was killed in the September 11 terrorist attack. The all-ranks club/recreation center on base was known as “Pete’s Place” in his honor. Shortly after the U.S. Air Force had used the name “Ganci Air Base”, it was found that an Air Force Instruction (AFI) dictated that non-U.S. air bases could not bear the name of any U.S. citizens. Since that time the air base has been officially called Manas Air Base, after the name of Manas International Airport where it is located. It was primarily operated by the U.S. Air Force; the primary unit at the base was the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing.

The base was opened in December 2001 to support U.S. military operations in the ongoing war in Afghanistan. The base was a transit point for U.S. military personnel coming and going from Afghanistan. Several events, such as the shooting of a local civilian and rumors of fuel dumping, had led to strained relations with some of the local population. Powers such as Russia and China had been pushing for the closure of the base since 2005.

In 2009, the Kyrgyz Parliament voted to close the base after the two governments failed to agree on a higher rent for the property. American and Kyrgyz officials continued negotiations after the announcement, and in June of that same year, a tentative agreement was reached. Under the new arrangement, the United States would pay $200 million a year, three times the previous rent, for continued use of the facilities. All U.S. forces vacated the base in early June 2014, at which time control of the base was handed over to Kyrgyz military forces. The U.S. lease officially expired in July of 2014.

It would also be on my deployment to Kyrgyzstan that my daughter Danielle, who is now nearly 12 would be born on June 16th, 2008. She would come into this world at 7:43 in the morning weighing in at 7 pounds and 7.8 ounces, born at Altru Hospital in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Welcome to this world baby girl!

Back at Grand Forks, I was afforded a great honor of being STEP promoted in December of 2007. This stands for “Stripes For Exceptional Performers,” essentially an automatic promotion. I was promoted to Technical Sergeant on December 16th 2007. Here’s how it went down. I was working an off shift at the time working from 3pm until 11pm. One evening, I was told that I needed to attend a safety briefing that following morning. To say I was thrilled would be a stretch of the imagination. So, here I am at 8 in the morning sitting through this briefing when the wing commander comes in. As he goes to the front and starts talking, he starts off by saying as he walked up, he saw an individual blatantly out of uniform. From there, he called my name; I’m thinking of what I possibly did to be called out like this. Then it hit me. I knew I was put in for this program months before, but the chances of it happening were very low. In fact, on this particular occasion, the wing commander handed out one other set of stripes to the entire base. I was one of two promoted under this program at Grand Forks that year. On top of that, as soon as I walked up and he promoted me on the spot, I saw my wife off to the side of the stage. She had known before I did!