Maj. Bruce Taylor, USAFR, was piloting a Delta Air Lines md-88 into New York Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Taylor diverted to Atlanta. As soon as he was inside the airport terminal, he called his Air Force Reserve unit to check in. Taylor is an mc-130 pilot with the 711th Special Operations Squadron (SOS), part of the 919th Special Operations Wing (SOW), at Duke Field, Fla. Q 1st Lt. Richard Pope, USAFR, a licensed

real estate agent who owns a mortgage broker company in Pensacola, Fla., drove to Duke Field immediately after the first plane hit the twin towers. “I just knew,” says Pope, who then was operations officer and now is commander of the 919th Security Forces Squadron. “From the time I heard the news until I got out there, we had probably 20 phone calls [from people who were] ready to go. We had boots on the ground, 15 people in a matter of hours on man-day status, just in preparation for what might be coming.”

What would come, both Taylor and Pope knew, were many busy days. They had no idea it would be so
many—about 730.
 
The 919th sow is the only reserve unit in the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC), which is headquartered at Hurlburt Field, Fla. Its members fly mc-130e and mc-130p aircraft providing logistical support to special operations forces and air refueling for special operations helicopters. The wing, with 1,400 reservists and civil service employees, comprises half of AFSOC’s helicopter refueling capability.

“When you go to war, you can’t leave 50 percent of your capability at home,” says Col. Guy Gordon, USAF, reserve advisor to AFSOC. “At the time [the 919th] had more crews than the active duty side. They knew AFSOC needed them. It was no surprise when they were activated.”

On the front line

The 919th was, in fact, the first reserve unit activated, the order coming within two weeks of Sept. 11. “We were part of the initial forces into Afghanistan, and we were also the initial forces into Iraq,” Taylor says. The wing’s operations tempo was among the highest in the Air Force. “I don’t think anybody anticipated at that point that [the reserve members wouldn’t be demobilized until] two years later,” Gordon says. Two years activation is the maximum allowable by law.

The 919th’s case is unusual and yet a potential harbinger for all Guard and Reserve members. The wing is a good example of DoD’s total force policy. That strategy, forged as part of the post-Cold War military drawdown, was intended to give more front line combat responsibility to Guard and Reserve units and make their capabilities seamless with active forces. Today the Guard and Reserve provide more than half of the U.S. Army’s total manpower. So it should be no surprise that a reserve unit provides half a mission capability, even a first-one-in type of mission.

Fusing the force

The 919th, though, is “total force to the max,” Gordon says. The 919th is the Air Force’s only active associate unit. While the reserve wing’s 5th SOS is grafted to the active duty 9th SOS at nearby Eglin AFB, the active duty 8th SOS and 716th Maintenance Squadron were assigned to the 919th, the only reserve unit in the Air Force with active duty members assigned to it.

“In the grand scheme of things it works, but when you get to the worker-bee level, it gets a little confusing,” says Col. Max D’La Rotta, chief of flight standards for the Air Force Reserve Command at Robins AFB, Ga. In his previous jobs as branch chief for training with AFSOC and functional manager for rescue and special operations, D’La Rotta was intimately involved with the 919th’s transition to an active associate wing between 1998 and 2000. The only historical precedent he found for such a blending was during the Vietnam War, when active duty pilots were assigned to a reserve unit at Homestead Air Reserve Base, Fla., flying the soon-to-be obsolete ec-121; then it was a way to keep active pilots’ ratings current.

Now, the structure is all about big-picture mission capability. “You would see them as a force multiplier,” D’La Rotta says. “With active associate, while we can only support it with a percentage of reservists, we can maintain a 1.5 crew ratio per aircraft.” He says the Air Force Reserve Command is talking with other major commands to form more active associate wings.

A common goal

The 919th wing commander, Brig. Gen. Mark Stogsdill, USAF, says the only hiccups have been blending the reserve and active duty mentalities, especially among those with longevity. The younger members, for the most part, adapt well, and the blending has paid off particularly in aircraft maintenance, where 20-year-plus reservists mentor just-out-of-tech-school active airmen and sergeants.

“We have the highest mission capability of anybody, and I think that has to do with the lashing together of reservists with young active duty guys,” Stogsdill says.

On the battlefield, the wing performed as one fully integrated unit. The wing deployed first with the reserve commander as forward operating commander; he rotated with the active duty commander as the deployment continued. The active 8th SOS averaged 136 days of deployment this past year, the busiest in the Air Force.

However, all was not equal. “One issue that didn’t sit right with us as reservists, even though we were on active duty, was that we weren’t given any of the Air Force specialty codes [for pay bonuses],” Taylor says. “So, in effect, as a 5,000-hour pilot, I was getting paid significantly less than a new major who joined the active duty squadron. If you do the same amount of work, you should get the same amount of pay.”

He and others also took exception to the active duty lifting stop loss for its members while his reserve wing’s activation was extended. “A lot of these active duty guys got out of the Air Force and in some cases took civilian jobs vacated by reservists who were activated,” Taylor says. “I’d love to see some of those disparities changed.”

Voicing concern

Total force architects perhaps did not expect such a catastrophic cause for war as Sept. 11 and back-to-back contingencies requiring as long an activation as the 919th reservists endured. The 919th’s experience, along with other reserve units, has the Pentagon considering modifying the concept.

“We are looking at mission areas that have reserve participation to see if it all should be brought back on active duty,” D’La Rotta says. “[From] personal experience I see that active duty can only do so much before you’ll have a rising attrition rate.”

But what about the potential rising attrition rate among reserves? The 919th wing offers a good case study. The wing’s roster saw a definite decline after demobilization, but it was not what Stogsdill expected. Historically, the average annual attrition rate was 15 percent, he says, and he figured that with activation effectively forcing the reservists into a two-year stop-loss mandate he would lose 30 percent upon demobilization. The rate was only about 20 percent, however, and many of those transferred to other reserve units or went on active duty.

The wing is experiencing critical shortages of radio operators and navigators, the latter being a tough slot to fill. Both versions of the mc-130 use two navigators per crew, and fewer and fewer planes in the Air Force inventory (and no commercial airlines) use navigators, so it’s a dwindling field to recruit from in the first place. Overall, Stogsdill says, manning is more than 100 percent. Pope’s security forces squadron, for example, is authorized 58 members; he has 68 assigned. “I can be selective about who can come in this squadron,” he says.

Making ends meet

Although many pundits have dwelled on the negative impact such frequent and long-lasting mobilization can have on morale, the 919th saw a positive impact. “I had a lot of people, young students especially, [for whom] the activation gave them financial opportunity, enabled them to get federal jobs,” Pope says. “In many cases it gave people pay raises and opportunities they didn’t have.”

He says most of the personnel he lost went to active duty. Pope himself not only gave up his business but also had to let go of eight people who worked for him. A member of the Escambia County (Fla.) Soil and Water Conservation Board, Pope also had been appointed to the Santa Rosa Island Authority board of directors but had to resign when his activation was extended. Even while on active duty, however, he kept his real estate agent’s license current and now is working with another company. Pope also is running for political office, trying to parlay his military experience into community government.

Taylor, like many other commercial airline pilots, took a pay cut when he was activated, but even that ended up being a financial blessing. In the post-Sept. 11 air travel slump, many airlines furloughed pilots, including those serving in the reserves. Taylor was not one of those furloughed, but he has yet to return to Delta Air Lines as he awaits assignment to be recertified. In the meantime, he is serving as the 919th Operations Group’s standardization and evaluation officer.

“I’m trying to make ends meet. I’m not full-time, but it’s the only job I’ve got, so I work a fair amount of time for the reserves,” Taylor says.

He wouldn’t change a thing, though. “Some people lost a significant amount of money on active duty, and I don’t know one guy who would not do it again,” he says. “I was more than happy to take a significant pay cut to go over and fight.”

Morale boost

This brings up another seldom-publicized confidence issue: the impact of not being activated. “From our perspective at headquarters, if you leave a unit untouched or not activated as part of a team, you definitely have a detriment,” D’La Rotta says. “Whether it is a blended unit, associated unit, or active associate, having them play a total-force piece in this global war on terrorism is a win-win as far as morale.”

“Activation was a positive on the whole,” Pope says. “That’s what we train for, that’s what we prepare for. Everybody walks a little taller, a little prouder. I have some people who want to get back into the fight,” Pope says.

Stogsdill agrees that activation and deployments made for a more cohesive unit as the focus of the wing’s reserve members shifted from civilian jobs to military duties. “We’ve got a lot tighter unit than before. Their only focus was flying these airplanes, and they got better. These guys will have fantastic war stories to tell for the rest of their lives.” Still, he’s cautious. “If they activate us again and again, that is going to have a detriment to our unit. We will see what the future holds for this war on terrorism.”