By Marine Corps Pfc. Sean Dennison
2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward)
HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Sept. 14, 2011 - A Marine Corps pilot switched his workplace from the air to the ground to coordinate sky-launched assaults against the enemy here.
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Capt. Daniel Fiust had flown missions with other AV-8B Harrier jet pilots assigned to Marine
"We look at what type of support the Marines need, and update our tactics based on what we're seeing of the enemy from the air," said Fiust, who hails from San Carlos, Calif.
In his role as air officer and a forward air controller for 3rd Battalion, 4th Marine Regiment, Fiust serves as the coordinator between the battalion and the fixed- and rotary-wing assets of 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward). A battalion air officer serves as a liaison for aviation squadrons supporting ground Marines, directing and dispersing air assets across the battalion's area of operations.
Fiust said he's responsible for coordinating flight times and routes for dozens of combat aircraft dedicated to protecting Marines on the ground.
"We integrate all functions of aviation with ground combat missions," he said. "Basically, anything aerial, we have a role in."
A veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Fiust had spent more than three years with flying squadrons, when he reported to the air officer's course, part of Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1's Weapons and Tactics Instructor course.
"I really wanted to work with infantry units," Fiust explained. "As a [close-air support] pilot, I wanted to see what things were like on the ground and do my part to contribute."
The air officer is the senior forward air controller in a battalion, supervising the unit's forward air controllers and enlisted joint terminal attack controllers, who patrol with their squads and protect them by calling in airstrikes.
Fiust said he believes the relationship between air officers on the ground and the squadrons is an example of military teamwork that saves lives.
And�his new responsibilities on the ground provide a different perspective about fighting the war, Fiust said.
"As a pilot, I sometimes felt detached from the
situation," he said. "As an air officer, you're more
emotionally invested."
NATO International Security Assistance Force
U.S. Forces Afghanistan
Face of Defense: Marine Controller Sends Sky Support |
Walter Reed Closes, Legacy Lives On, Commander Says
By Terri Moon Cronk
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 2011 – An ambulance carrying the last inpatient
from Walter Reed Army Medical Center here slowly made its way out of
the Georgia Avenue gate this morning, pausing briefly for the crowd
of flag-waving troop supporters and shouts of “Thank you for your
service! We love you!”
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As the ambulance turned north on Georgia Avenue toward the National
Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., the once-bustling Walter Reed
hospital fell silent.
This early morning move of inpatients -- one to an ambulance --
marked the end of an era for Walter Reed and its 102 years of Army
medicine that has saved hundreds of thousands of military lives.
Walter Reed and the National Naval Medical Center are consolidating
as one medical center as mandated by the 2005 Base Realignment and
Closure Act. The Army and Navy complex on the grounds of Bethesda
will be renamed the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
“It's been 102 years for Walter Reed, but the legacy lives on,” Army
Col. Norvell "Van" Coots, Walter Reed commander, told reporters this
morning at the hospital. “The name lives on, and it’s a new
beginning for our health care system.”
Earlier expectations were to move 150 inpatients this weekend, Coots
said, but the number was reduced to 50, and gradually became 18 this
morning after eight were moved to Bethesda yesterday. Walter Reed’s
staff also was able to discharge and relocate many other patients
who wanted to be hospitalized closer to their homes.
With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast today, the move
was made a day earlier than planned.
As the Red Cross flag came down from the front of the hospital this
afternoon, it signaled the final closing of the iconic medical
center.
“The Red Cross flag is the symbol of health and healing, and
symbolizes the end of physical patient care at Walter Reed,” Coots
said.
Walter Reed has been the Army's flagship of military medicine since
1909, and cared for soldiers during World War I and World War II,
the Korean conflict, the Vietnam War, and the decade-long wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan.
A small post, Walter Reed had no room to expand and accommodate more
wounded warriors, Coots said in a press conference earlier this
summer. The medical center straddles a couple of neighborhood blocks
between Georgia Avenue and 16th Street.
The Walter Reed garrison and installation will remain open until
Sept. 15, Coots said. When the U.S. flag comes down that day, he
added, the installation and the garrison will close for good.
Sometime afterward, Walter Reed will become the property of the
District of Columbia government, and the State Department is
expected to take over the hospital building.
Looking forward to a new beginning, Coots said today was emotional
as he walked the wards early this morning, stopping in to check on
each of the remaining 18 patients.
“There’s still an energy you can feel in those halls,” he said.
“It’s an energy that’s left behind from the hundreds of thousands of
patients we’ve treated in these 102 years, and the tens of thousands
of staff members.
“We take Walter Reed with us,” Coots added. “And we leave a piece of
it here."
Biographies:
Army
Col. Norvell V. Coots
Related Sites:
Walter Reed Army Medical Center
National Naval Medical Center
Related Articles:
Arrival of Patients Marks New Beginning at
Bethesda
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The last inpatient from Walter Reed Army Medical Center in
Washington, D.C., receives a police escort during the
transport of inpatients to the National Naval Medical Center
in Bethesda, Md., Aug. 27, 2011. Officials moved up the
transfer date by one day to avoid the worst effects of
Hurricane Irene along the East Coast. DOD photo by Sebastian
J. Sciotti Jr. |
Program Helps Disabled Vets Become Entrepreneurs
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, Aug. 1, 2011 – Retired Army 1st Sgt. Renee Floyd wasn’t
about to let a disability stop her from realizing her dream of
having her own business.
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Applying 21 years of experience as an Army mechanic, she launched
BRF Mobile Lube Service in Phenix City, Ala., in 2009 and began
traveling to people’s homes and businesses to provide convenient oil
changes and maintenance services.
But her big break came last month, she said, when she attended the
Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans With Disabilities at Florida
State University. The nine-day EBV crash course is part of a program
designed to help participants get their businesses off the ground or
enhance ventures they have started.
Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management in New York was
the first to offer the program for veterans disabled as a result of
their military service since Sept. 11, 2001.
Florida State University in Tallahassee, Fla., launched its own
program in 2008. Now, a consortium of seven universities around the
United States participates, anxious to help disabled veterans make
their dreams of entrepreneurship a reality.
Randy Blass, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who serves as
director for the FSU program, said entrepreneurship offers the
veterans something a regular job can’t.
Particularly for those struggling to deal with a separation from
military service that they didn’t initiate and often didn’t want,
Blass said entrepreneurship offers a new sense of identity.
“They are no longer that corporal or that sergeant or that captain.
They are going through an identity transition, and to just get a job
doesn’t always address that psychological identity need,” he said.
Entrepreneurship also holds allure to those who see it as a way to
continue serving the country. “By being an entrepreneur, we are
helping with the economic recovery,” Blass said. “You are creating
jobs. … That message is not lost on someone who still wants to serve
and is looking for some identity to latch onto.”
Participants begin online training before arriving on campus for an
intensive boot camp that Blass said keeps them engaged from sunup to
long after sundown. Through classes and workshop sessions, they
learn the nuts and bolts of running a business: how to write a
business plan, raise capital and build a customer base.
The cost of the boot camp, including food, lodging and
transportation, is picked up by participating universities with
gifts from alumni, entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders.
After the program, participants receive a full year of ongoing
support and mentorship.
The training is demanding, and expectations of participants are
high. “We don’t coddle,” Blass said. “We also don’t dwell. We don’t
even really talk about their disabilities.”
Rather, the focus of the program is strictly on entrepreneurship.
“We talk about business,” Blass said. “We are going forward. We are
not looking backwards.”
Floyd had made good headway in building her mobile lube business.
She had put her bachelor of science degree in business
administration from American Military University to work,
formulating a strong business plan and marketing motto: “We change
lives, one car at a time.”
What she didn’t initially recognize was that a fear of
approaching authority figures had kept her from fully marketing the
business. “It was holding me back from going to the corporations and
small businesses and offering my services to them,” she said.
But it took a professor at the FSU boot camp to help her realize and
press through that fear, she said.
“After he hit me with that and made he think about it, I was able to
resolve that issue right away,” Floyd said. She immediately began
pushing herself to single out and engage business leaders to promote
her business.
Another big takeaway from the boot camp was learning to rethink her
approach to the business. “I realized that I had to come out of the
technician role and into the management role to make it a success,”
she said.
The boot camp experience and follow-on mentoring already is making
an impact on her bottom line.
“I’m seeing an increase in my business and new opportunities to
expand it,” she said. “I came back here [from the boot camp] on
fire. And I am still implementing those things I learned from the
school, and making them a permanent part of my daily business.”
Now, Floyd calls herself “a walking kiosk” in extolling the value of
the EBV program to other disabled veterans.
“The business or idea that you never thought you could own is only
an EBV class away,” she tells them, and “the business that you
currently own is only an EBV class away from success that you could
never have imagined.”
Other graduates of the program share Floyd’s enthusiasm.
Chris Cancialosi, a former Army National Guard aviator, started his
own business, gothamCULTURE, shortly after returning from Iraq in
2005. But it was the EBV program, which he attended in 2009, that
helped him realize the difference between being self-employed and
being an entrepreneur.
“If you expect to grow, you have to focus on growing the business,”
he said, rather than trying to do it all solo. Now that he’s hired a
staff and delegates some of the company’s support functions,
Cancialosi is seeing his company grow by leaps and bounds.
“Being an entrepreneur means that I have the ability to control my
destiny, to make a difference in the world in my own way,” he said.
“The only limits that are set for me as an entrepreneur are those
that I set for myself. I am [now] able to create something in the
world in my own vision.”
Other alumni of the program say they are applying the lessons
learned through EBV in building their businesses.
Jose Rene “J.R.” Martinez, an Army veteran severely burned when his
Humvee hit a landmine in Iraq in April 2003, graduated from FSU’s
program in 2008 and now serves as a motivational speaker and actor
on ABC’s “All My Children” soap opera.
Daniel Hash, another graduate of the 2008 boot camp, founded United
Doves, a company that releases doves at weddings, funerals and other
events, then retrieves the birds after they return home.
Marylyn Harris, a former Army nurse who attended last year’s class,
runs Harrland Healthcare Consulting, a management consulting firm.
Former Army staff sergeant Claudel Aubry, a 2010 EBV graduate, runs
a logistics management firm that specializes in transportation and
supply chain management.
Reggie Crane, a retired chief master sergeant who attended the same
class, is applying lessons learned to his company, Next Level
Coaching and Consulting Services.
Cancialosi called the program one of the best things going for
disabled veterans who have the fire in their bellies to become
entrepreneurs.
“For people who are very serious and very committed to starting
their own business and world of entrepreneurship, this program is
fantastic,” he said.
“It is a phenomenal program. The people running it are extraordinary
human beings” he added. “It really is that epitome of the idyllic
American spirit.”
As the program grows, Blass said, the next plan is to expand it to
include caregivers of veterans with disabilities and spouses of the
fallen.
Syracuse University was the first to offer that program, and Blass
said FSU will offer its first Entrepreneurship BootCamp for Veterans
Families in February.
Details about the program and how to apply are posted at
http://whitman.syr.edu/ebv/ with links to participating
universities’ websites.
