Operation Combined Eagle soars pg 6 - Hurlburt Field

Updating personnel records readinessvital to mission, families and Airmenby Staff Sgt. Jeremy LarleeAFPNRANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE,Texas – Nobody can predict thetwists and turns life can take, butwith a little bit of preparation Airmencan make the best of any situation.Military members should useevery opportunity to review theirpersonnel records for accuracy. Thevirtual record of emergency data, orvRed, and personal information inthe Virtual Military Personnel Flightshould be kept updated.The commander of AFPC, Maj.Gen. Anthony Przybyslawski, saidevery Airman needs to take chargewhen it comes to their records andthey need to inform someone whenthere are errors.“Things change in our lives andwe need to make sure the Air Forceis aware of those changes,” he said.“Everyone has a personal responsibilityto make sure their records arecomplete, accurate and up-to-date.”If tragedy strikes, having yourrecords in good shape is one lessheartache in what can be a turbulenttime.The general spoke of an Airmanwho was injured while serving inIraq. The Airman had not updatedhis virtual record of emergency datato reflect that he no longer wantedhis mother notified in case of anemergency.She was in bad health and he didn’twant to tax her health with stressfulnews. Thankfully, the Airman wasconscious after his injury and wasable to prevent officials from contactingher.While updating emergency data isimportant, updating records of everykind is just as key. For example, thegeneral said nearly every promotioncycle there are people missing itemsin their records that could help themget promoted.General Przybyslawski said mostrecords can be checked and fixedonline and that AFPC is constantlylooking for ways to improve the process.He said the emphasis of maintainingrecords is an example of themilitary family watching out for eachother.Force protection exerciseHurlburt Field will be conducting a forceprotection exercise in the coming weeks.During the event, expect delays entering andexiting the base and problems parking as thebase goes through force protection conditions.Check areas around buildings for extraneousboxes, bags and other materials that mightgenerate “suspicious package” responses.For any questions, call Capt. Mari Garcia at884-6208.Air Force historian visits AFSOC,1st SOW, discusses future of career fieldby Staff Sgt. Kelly Ogdenpublic affairs“The Air Force Special OperationsCommand history office has an outstandingprogram, one of the best inthe Air Force,” were the words thedirector of the Air Force history andmuseum programs used to describeHurlburt’s history offices.C.R. “Dick” Anderegg, metwith base historians Tuesday andWednesday to discuss the past, presentand future of the career field.One hot topic he discussed wasthe secretary of the Air Force’s decisionto civilianize the historian careerfield, a decision made three yearsago because of several active-dutycareer fields identified as “stressed”and career fields that have been continuouslydeployed over the last fiveyears.The idea was to put military positionsinto stressed career fields.The three-year program began infiscal year 2005 and will be completedby FY 2007. To date, 90 militaryhistory positions have been converted,with 24 left to convert, hopefully,by June.“The military historians we’ve hadin the Air Force have done a marvelousjob, but the SECAF felt it wasimportant to get the uniformed positionsto where they had to be,” saidMr. Anderegg. “About 30 percent ofthe historians we are hiring into theprogram have been prior enlisted AirForce historians.”“One of the major benefits of hiringcivilians is we’re not driven somuch by a permanent change of stationrotational schedule,” he said. “Iexpect to see our civilian historiansstaying in place somewhat longerthan the military historians, so thereis more corporate memory (continuity).“If corporate memory means anythingto any career field in the AirForce it’s the historian career field. It’shighly important.”Mr. Anderegg said another advantageof civilianizing the historiancareer field is the Air Force will beable to hire historians who have abroader experience base than militaryhistorians.“One of the interesting thingsabout Air Expeditionary Force 5 and6 is for the first time ever all six of ourhistorians that are deployed are civilians,”Mr. Anderegg said.Each of the 114 civilians hired arepostured in AEF buckets.If there is a unit deployment outsidethe AEF deployment, they’lldeploy with them as well (dependingon the commanders wants), whichmeans the civilian historians we arehiring have to meet certain physicalrequirements, he said.For more information on the AirForce historian program, contact yourlocal history office.COMMANDO