[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 102 (Friday, July 29, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 29, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
MERIDIAN, MS, AIR NATIONAL GUARD UNIT CITED FOR ITS CONTRIBUTION TO THE 
                              TOTAL FORCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Montgomery] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Speaker, Lt. Gen. Malcolm Armstrong, commander of 
the 21st Air Force, visited the 186th Air Refueling Group in Meridian, 
MS, on July 24 and expressed his appreciation for the role this Air 
National Guard unit is playing in our ``Total Force'' policy that 
incorporates active duty, National Guard and Reserve units side by side 
to help us maintain a strong national defense.
  His visit came while the 186th was undergoing a Quality Air Force 
Assessment [QAFA]/Aircrew Standardization and Evaluation Visit [ASEV] 
inspection. He and Col. Alan Briding from headquarters, Air Mobility 
Command, commented on the accomplishments of the 186th. I wanted to 
share their remarks with my colleagues.
  Following are the comments of General Armstrong:

       I'm delighted to have the opportunity to come down and 
     accept a debrief of this quality. It is particularly 
     gratifying for a unit that has been through the kind of 
     turbulence that you've been through in the last couple of 
     years with all of the construction on your part of the 
     airfield here. But, I love to see dirt flying, because once 
     we finally get the dust settled, you'll have some better, 
     more effective and more efficient facilities to work out of. 
     So, that's one of those inconveniences that we're all pleased 
     to grit our teeth and carry on through with.
       And, of course, it is particularly gratifying to me to come 
     to a Guard unit or a Reserve unit, in this case a Guard unit, 
     that upholds the standards of appearance and professionalism 
     that you've established. Sometimes we loose a little bit of 
     that in some of our units . . . and not always in a Guard or 
     Reserve unit either, by the way. But it is particularly 
     gratifying to come and see that. General Wallace, I want to 
     take my hat off to you and your folks, and certainly Colonel 
     Feinstein because that is clearly a direct reflection of the 
     attitude of leadership in an organization. It tells me that, 
     when the chips are down, you folks having been hard-nosed 
     with yourselves over and over on professionalism, will in 
     fact get the job done no matter what the pressure is that is 
     there, I mean, if you've been watching TV lately, there's 
     plenty of pressure out there for us. We are getting into 
     Rwanda big time right now. We're shipping off some more 
     airplane loads of people from McGuire this morning, some last 
     night, some the night before, going in there. We are tanking 
     in and out of there a lot. We've set up a tanker task force 
     at Moran; and you may get your chance. I don't think this is 
     going to be over very quickly. Perhaps the intense portion of 
     the airlift will be over quickly, because hopefully, if we 
     can just get a lot of water in there we can begin to save 
     some lives. But its going to take an awful long time for 
     those people to get themselves redistributed and to go back 
     and harvest their crops and get themselves properly fed and 
     back to some similance of health. And the U.S. and its allies 
     are going to be involved in that, and we should be involved 
     in that. So you may very well get a chance at that.
       But my message to you is; it is clear to me, and I 
     compliment you for it, that you folks are hard on yourselves. 
     You're hard-nosed about taking a professional approach to 
     every single aspect of your military mission, and you're 
     proud of it, and you want to make sure you look like it as 
     well as act like it, and you've done a fine job of that, and 
     I really appreciate that. I'm pleased to see that this is the 
     best . . . we don't give reports; or report grades, but this 
     report is the best report that I've read to date on any unit; 
     United States Air Force, or Air National Guard, or U.S. Air 
     Force Reserve.

  In addition to General Armstrong's strong endorsement of the unit, 
Col. Alan J. Briding, representing headquarters, Air Mobility Command, 
had the following comments regarding the 186th Air Refueling Group:

       The group was very proactive in its conversion from RF-4's 
     to KC-135R's and made the transition well ahead of schedule. 
     Twenty-first Air Force ASEV results depict an exceptionally 
     well-prepared aircrew force. Morale appears to be excellent. 
     Pride in past achievements and determination to become the 
     benchmark tanker unit in the command flow from the top and 
     permeate throughout the group. Every indication the QAFA team 
     looked at suggests that the 186 ARG will maintain its 
     superior operational performance record.
       Available performance indicators, the health of key 
     processes, and the SORTS program all indicate that the 186 
     ARG is an exceptional unit and is fully capable of 
     accomplishing its assigned missions.

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