Travis Tailwind: Friday, June 16, 2023

349th Air Mobility Wing launches open house recruiting day PAGE 2

TRAVIS TAILWIND

LET’S GLIDE

Staff Sgt. Aaron Irvin/U.S. Air Force

U.S. Air Force personnel jump out the back of an HC-130J Combat King II assigned to the 81st Expeditionary Rescue Squadron over Djibouti, May 9.

349th AMW launches open house recruiting day

Rossi D. Pedroza

349TH AIR MOBILITY WING

TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE —

The 349th Air Mobility Wing took a whole new approach to recruiting efforts by getting off the internet and getting personal.

You’re invited June 4 to Travis AFB: Over 150 posters advertised the upcoming open house throughout Solano County as local radio broadcasters announced the event to the community.

“In planning for this, we had a lot of meetings. The logistics in this alone is unbelievable. We had to get the timing right,” said Lt. Col. Daniel Noyer, 349th Maintenance Squadron commander.

Noyer said the idea was to reach out to the community and generate interest among those who may be considering joining the Air Force Reserve. “We have the KC-46A Pegasus showing up July this year and we want to bring in new recruits in all the different areas, whether it is in sheet metal, metals technology, aerospace ground equipment, you name it.”

Noyer and his coordinators organized the open house tour into three groups. Group A consisted of local high school and technical school students from areas surrounding the base. Group B attendees were diverse in ages 17 through 32, and Group C was comprised of students from the Discovery Challenge Academy located in Lathrop, Calif.

The academy’s structure is like a military school environment.

“It’s, the Challenge Academy’s, young men and women that may be struggling through high school. The discipline they are getting through the academy is helping them get through, finish up and graduate,” said Noyer. “Hopefully, with the military mindset, they can join us at the 349th Maintenance Squadron.”

Cadet Izion Miller, who attends Discovery Challenge Academy was on the open house tour with two of his classmates. He said the whole point of the school was to intervene and reclaim the lives of 16 to18-year-old high school dropouts.

“We take bad people from bad environments with bad habits, and provide them with discipline, structure and everything else you need to succeed as a productive citizen,” said Miller.

Miller said he wants to thank those responsible for scheduling the tour, and that it was informational and fun, pointing to a parked KC-10A. “We are getting ready to go on this big aircraft right here, and it’s been a very good day.”

In the planning stage, one of the goals was not to stack one group on top of another and to set the tone for the entire open house right from the beginning. “As far as I know, no one else has done this before,” said Noyer. “It seems like this event we just had turned out great. I’m real excited about it.”

Staff Sgt. Stephanie Abella was one of the core coordinators and serves as an aero repair

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technician with the 349th MXS. She is from the local area. “I decided to join the Air Force Reserve because living so close to Travis, I saw the airplanes flying overhead,” said Abella. “This exposure gave me a huge fascination with aircraft. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to join.”

Abella said she and the planning team took off with Noyer’s idea of hosting the exclusive event, unlike an airshow, they

aimed to give the guests actual views of the back shops in real time. The coordinators exposed the three tour groups to the jobs maintainers do daily to continue the global mission.

“It was hard work, but very rewarding. We had around 125 guests, and our mainte nance team members came in on their own time to help support the open house,” said Abella. She said some of her family members

See RECRUITING Page 11

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MSgt. Jose Aquilizan/U.S. Air Force photos

The 349th Maintenance Squadron at Travis AFB, hosted a day long open house during the June 4, 2023, unit training assembly to bolster up qualified new recruits interested in aircraft maintenance, welding, and other mechanical career fields.

Air Force civilian engineer accepted in foreign exchange program in

Brian Brackens AIR FORCE LIFE CYCLE MANAGEMENT

ERDING, Germany (AFNS) —

When Caleb Wagner was notified that he had been accepted into the U.S. Air Force’s Engineer and Scientist Exchange Program and would be placed in Germany, he couldn’t believe the news.

A civilian engineer with the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center’s Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory, Wagner applied to the exchange program as an opportunity to broaden his career.

After acceptance into the program, he began six months of fulltime German language studies through the Defense Language Institute. Before this instruction, he had only a basic knowledge of German language.

In September of 2021, Wagner, his wife Sandra and their daughter packed up and moved to Erding, Germany, a small town on the outskirts of Munich, to begin the two-to-three-year assignment.

As part of the assignment, Wagner works in a GAF lab called the Arbeitsgruppe für Technische Untersuchungen or Working Group for Technical Investigations.

“At the lab, we are responsible for investigating aviation accidents and incidents of the German armed forces, which includes their Air Force, Army and Navy,” Wagner said. “Any flying weapon system that has an issue, is sent to us for failure analysis. It’s rewarding yet challenging in part because nearly all of the work is conducted in technical German [language] versus conversational German. I’m definitely fluent in conversational German, for example, going to the coffee shop, placing an order, and having a chat with a friend. That’s no problem at all. However, I’m still developing fluency in

technical German.”

Being in Erding has been an immersive experience.

“We are really embedded in the culture,” Wagner said. “I’ve met maybe one American here in Erding. It’s very rare to hear English in this town. Even some of our doctors don’t speak English. My wife is learning German. My daughter who is two and a half is doing really well. She attends a German pre-kindergarten. She also has multiple babysitters who only speak German. It’s funny, because her pronunciation is getting better than mine.”

Wagner explained that one of the benefits of living in the town is convenience.

“It’s so bike friendly here,” he said. “I bike to work every day, and I’ve only driven to work a handful of times in the last year. The train system is really good here. We are only a ten-minute walk from the train station and from there you can get to nine countries within five hours.”

The only minor inconvenience is when craving food from home, Wagner and family must drive to the nearest U.S. Army commissary.

“When we drive to the commissary, it’s normally to pick up mail from our APO, Mexican food ingredients, and a bag of Jalapeño Cheetos, which you can’t get here in Germany,” he said. “The problem is that it’s a two-hour drive one-way, and by the time we get back to Erding, the bag is already gone.”

Working with the GAF, Wagner has been exposed to a number of unique experiences.

“In Germany because of their history, every soldier is required to attend a minimum of 24 hours of politische Bildung each year, which is political, cultural training and civic engagement that can take many forms. The goal is to ensure military members understand the mission of the armed forces, support democratic

citizenship, promote a pluralistic society, and understand the dangers of extremism,” Wagner said.

“In my case, I was invited to attend a weeklong event in Berlin last September, and it was really insightful. There were academic lectures on human rights. We attended a televised forum on digital sovereignty in the European Union at a newspaper. There

Caleb Wagner courtesy photo

The Wagner family poses in front of the Tennengebirge Mountain range in Austria, Oct. 12, 2022. One of the perks of the program are the travel opportunities that come with the European assignment. See EXCHANGE Page 10

This US military base says it is ready for any enemyincluding climate change

The Washington Post ALBANY, Ga. — The Department of Defense produces the most carbon emissions of any single institution in the world, but the military base in this rural corner of Georgia generates as much renewable electricity as it consumes.

The leafy Marine Corps base in southwest part of the state, which has been working for years to build its renewable capacity, is the first in the military to reach its net-zero goal. Power plants generate electricity from natural gas captured at a nearby landfill, and from discarded tree bark and sawdust from a neighboring paper factory. Solar panels warm water for its barracks. Air that is chilled under the ground cools warehouses and other facilities.

Top Pentagon leaders say the base - which is a hub for equipment going to and from Marine Corps deployments around the world - is a test project for

the future of the military. Going green helps sharpen the military’s effectiveness, they say, making it less dependent on fossil fuel supply lines that can turn treacherous. Renewable energy on bases makes them more resilient and less prone to blackouts from the civilian grid. And reducing the Pentagon’s overall carbon footprint slows the climate change that President Biden and others fear could lead to future conflicts.

“This is the direction that we’re going. It saved money. It created reliable energy. It’s a good community partnership,” said Meredith Berger, the assistant secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, who has overseen the final stretch of work at the base, known as Marine Corps Logistics Base Albany.

Now officials on the base preside over a delicate, daily dance to match their electricity

See CLIMATE Page 5

Military Discounts Gratefully Given

Matt Odom/The Washington Post Navy Lt. Cmdr. Michael Feeney observes a landfill gas generator. The Marine Corps base in Albany, Georgia., is the first in the nation to meet its net-zero goal.

Climate

From Page 4

production to their energy needs, dialing their power generation up and down to meet demand. Installations around the country will soon need to follow suit as part of Biden’s ambitious climate goals. The Department of Defense accounts for 56 percent of the federal government’s emissions and 52 percent of its electricity use, so any effort to reduce the federal carbon footprint needs to take on the military.

The defense spending bill passed last year for the first time imposed a requirement to electrify all noncombat military vehicles by 2035, another step in the greening of the military, and other bases are also working to install renewable energy and reduce waste and power consumption.

“This is more playing into the mind-set of: ‘How do we get ready for the next conflict?’” said the Marine Corps base’s commander, Col. Michael Fitzgerald, adding that he studied energy issues at top U.S. military institutions because he was frustrated about the dangers caused by the need to move fuel around conflict zones.

Weaning the military off oil

The Albany base does maintenance and channels equipment to and from combat deployments. One goal of the net-zero effort there is to prepare the military to take full advantage of a world in which they are freer from fossil fuel. Fuel convoys are lumbering facts of life in many recent conflicts, and slow-moving tanker trucks were tempting targets for the Taliban and Iraqi insurgents in the wars the U.S. military fought in the decades following 9/11. A U.S. Army study found that in 2007, there was a U.S. casualty for every 24 fuel convoys that ran through Afghanistan.

“If we’re on a base, how do we not drag fuel around to run a generator? Are there other systems out there we can do?” Fitzgerald said. “As military guys, the less convoys we have to put out, the less vulnerability we have.”

When base leaders started thinking years ago about how best to find renewable sources of energy, they seized on the waste products of the surrounding community. They built a microgridan electrical grid for the base that can function independently of the civilian power grid, which makes it easier keep the lights on using local power sources, and harder

See CLIMATE Page 13

Matt Odom/The Washington Post Fleet Manager Zachary Haller uses the charging station to charge two of the vehicles.

Military academies use affirmative action.

Will the US Supreme Court stop them?

The Washington Post

The nation’s military service academies now enroll far more people of color than they did at the turn of the century, as administrators seek future officers who will reflect the diversity of the forces they will lead and the country they defend.

The share of cadets at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., who identify with a racial or ethnic minority group ramped up from 20 % in 2000, according to federal education data, to 36 % in 2021. That minority share of midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., rose in that time from 19 % to 37 %. Similar trends held at the Air Force and Coast Guard academies.

But the Supreme Court could soon prohibit what the Biden administration calls a vital element of this transformation: a policy allowing colleges to consider race in the selection of an entering class. The court is weighing whether to ban race-conscious admissions in cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A ruling is expected within a few days or weeks.

More than 30 prominent retired generals and admirals argue in an amicus brief that the court should uphold the race-conscious policies. Just as diversity matters on college campuses, they say, it matters within military leadership.

“It’s a key aspect in creating a trust relationship with our client, the American people,” said retired Army Lt. Gen. Robert L. Caslen Jr., the superintendent at West Point from 2013 to 2018, who joined the brief. “It makes you a lot stronger organization - more tools, more talents. . . . We’re not lowering standards whatsoever.”

At the Naval Academy in the fall of 2021, about 13 % of midshipmen were Latino, 10 %

multiracial, 8 % of Asian descent, and 6 % Black or African American.

“Everyone just kind of gets thrown in a room with people from diverse cultures and races, and they’re forced to just kind of live together, and you’re forced to work together,” Midshipman Jason Hainze, 22, of Seattle said late last month at the academy’s spring commencement just before he was commissioned an ensign.

Hainze, who is Chinese American, said he appreciates the academy’s push for racial and ethnic diversity. “The fact that we are moving in the right direction is very important to me.”

Midshipman Lewis Gray, 22, of Jupiter, Fla., was heading soon to assignment as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. With parents of Jamaican and British background, Gray identifies as biracial and said he “always felt at home” at the academy. Asked whether the academy was diverse enough, he said: “Do we have to be exactly representative of the population in every aspect?” he asked. “Is that even possible to get?”

Within the military community, there is much debate about methods of obtaining racial diversity. A group called Veterans for Fairness and Merit, which said it represents hundreds of veterans from enlisted and officer ranks, argues that there is no rationale for race-conscious admissions at the academies.

The “military’s use of racial preferences today is unquestionably harmful to our national security,” the group said in an amicus brief to the high court. “Such preferences are antithetical to the ‘selfless servant,’ colorblind culture necessary for our military to prevail on the battlefield.”

During oral arguments in the fall in the two affirmative action cases, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority was skeptical

of practices at Harvard and UNCChapel Hill that allow consideration of race as one factor among many in a holistic review of applications.

Any decision to ban consideration of race, which analysts consider likely, would overturn decades of legal precedent and send shock waves through higher education. Racial quotas or set-asides in admissions have long been outlawed. But the high court has permitted the limited

Michael Robinson Ch·vez/The Washingont Post Naval Academy graduates cheer during their May 26 commissioning ceremony in Annapolis, Maryland. Midshipman Caitlin Doran, center, was headed for assignment as a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. See COURT Page 7

Court

From Page 6

use of race – alongside grades, test scores, extracurricular activities, family circumstances and other factors – in the process of deciding who gets into competitive schools.

The Biden administration contends that a ban on race-conscious admissions would undermine progress in diversifying prestigious institutions that train future military officers and provide them with a liberal arts education.

“Our armed forces know from hard experience that when we do not have a diverse officer corps that is broadly reflective of a diverse fighting force, our strength and cohesion and military readiness suffer,” Solicitor General Elizabeth B. Prelogar told the justices on Oct. 31. “So it is a critical national security imperative to attain diversity within the officer corps. And, at present, it’s not possible to achieve that diversity without race-conscious admissions, including at the nation’s service academies.”

One of the court’s sharpest critics of affirmative action acknowledged the significance of the issue Prelogar raised. “What you say about the military is something that we have to take very seriously,” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. told her.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. asked whether “it might make sense for us not to decide the service academy issue in this case?” That prompted some analysts to wonder whether the court majority would consider an exception for race-conscious admissions at the academies.

Prelogar told the justices that diversity is also crucial for Reserve Officers’ Training Corps programs at other colleges and universities.

Service academies have figured in the affirmative action debate for decades.

In 2003, retired generals and admirals submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in

See COURT Page 8

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support of race-conscious admissions for the academies and ROTC programs. The landmark ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger cited that brief as the court upheld raceconscious admissions at the University of Michigan’s law school.

Columbia University’s outgoing president, Lee C. Bollinger, who was president at Michigan when the lawsuit was filed, said arguments from the military carry special weight.

“That’s a big deal, because that links in national security,” Bollinger said. “It brings a dimension to this - that it’s not a bunch of liberal do-gooder universities just trying to bring about social justice. It’s a concrete, hard problem that every sector is working on.”

Affirmative action is not universal in higher education. Nine states, including California and Florida, prohibit consideration of race for admission to public universities. Some colleges and universities say they choose to ignore race.

Those that do take race into account

insist it is just one element in the review of an individual’s background and credentials. The academies say the same, with the added element of evaluating physical fitness.

“Do we have visibility of what ethnicity or race an individual will have?” said Capt. Michael S. Fredie, director of admissions for the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. “Yes, we will. Is that the primary factor for selection? Absolutely not. The primary factors for every single student who’s earned an appointment are academic readiness and leadership potential.”

In 2010, Congress approved a measure allowing the Coast Guard Academy to consider race in admissions. The academy enrolls about 1,050 undergraduates. Those at West Point, Annapolis and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs all enroll more than 4,000.

The academies are all selective. Federal education data shows that the four military institutions admitted fewer than 20 % of applicants in 2021. The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, N.Y., which also has ties to the military, admitted 25 %.

To be eligible for Annapolis, Colorado

Springs or West Point, applicants must secure a nomination from a member of Congress, the president or another authorized source. The nominating process

ensures a significant degree of geographical diversity but not necessarily racial diversity. Caslen said that when he was

See COURT Page 9

Michael Robinson Ch·vez/The Washingotn Post Naval Academy graduates gather before the May 26 commissioning ceremony in Annapolis.

superintendent at West Point, he sought to build close relationships with the Congressional Black Caucus to bolster the academy’s recruiting efforts.

At West Point, federal education data shows 13 % of cadets were African American in 2021, roughly echoing the Black share of the national population. In 2011, the data shows, the Black share at West Point was 7 %. Latinos, who constitute about 19 % of the national population, according to census estimates, are underrepresented at West Point. About 12 % of cadets there in 2021 were Latino.

West Point officials did not respond to emailed questions about the academy’s demographic profile and the role of race in admissions. Nor did Air Force Academy officials.

The share of cadets in Colorado Springs in 2021 who were African American was 6 %, federal education data shows, and the share who were Latino was 11 %.

At Annapolis, the White share of midshipmen fell slowly but

steadily during the past two decades.

“I believe that our diversity as an institution and as a service is one of our greatest strengths,”

Vice Adm. Sean Buck, the Naval Academy’s outgoing superintendent, said in a statement. “Our admissions team works tirelessly to bring in the best talent from around the nation that reflects the people that we serve and the Sailors and Marines that we lead.”

Buck said that “early engagement, outreach and strategic processes” are crucial for building a diverse pool of candidates.

Defense Department data shows some racial gaps between enlisted forces and military officers. About 9 % of active-duty officers identify as Black, the defense data shows, compared with 19 % of active-duty enlisted service members.

Those figures underscore the stakes of the impending Supreme Court decision. They also highlight the significance of the Lindsay family’s achievement on a spring day when the first Black secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, addressed the latest class at Annapolis.

After a roaring Blue Angels flyover, the conferral of degrees

and the ritual toss of midshipman hats into a bright blue sky, retired Navy Capt. Timika Lindsay, 54, and newly commissioned Ensign Elise Lindsay, 22, exulted May 26 on the turf of Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

The Lindsays had just become the first Black mother-daughter pair of graduates from Annapolis. Sharing their gleeful hugs was the ensign’s little brother, Midshipman Eric Lindsay, class of 2025. “My biggest role models in life,” he said of his mother and sister.

Said Ensign Lindsay: “I’m just happy to have my mom by my side and go through this with her and make this milestone. This is a great accomplishment for both of us.”

The elder Lindsay said she could count on one hand the number of Black women in her class when she graduated in 1992. The numbers have risen since then. But the retired captain, who recently was chief diversity officer

Kelly Eskelsen/U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association and Foundation Retired Navy Capt. Timika Lindsay, left, and her daughter, Ensign Elise Lindsay, celebrate at the Naval Academy last month, along with her son, Midshipman Eric Lindsay, who’s set to graduate in 2025.

at Annapolis, said the academy has much more work to do. She is impatient with firsts.

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was an opportunity to visit a museum on the Holocaust. We met with the director of the Ministry of Defense’s legal agency, and we met with a former European Union ambassador. We also got to meet with four active members of the German parliament, each from a different political party. We got to talk with them

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AFLCMC’s Life Sciences Equipment Laboratory is a priority for Wagner.

“Overall, my goal is to collect new investigative methods, techniques, and lessons learned that can be integrated into my lab at AFLCMC,” Wagner added. “I’m building a network of technical experts in Germany that can be leveraged for future collaborations. Ultimately, we hope this exchange increases the safety and survival of our airmen.”

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Recruiting

From Page 2

have retired from the 349th MXS. Two Discovery Challenge Academy students on tour were all smiles and shook their heads in unison when asked if they thought they would enlist. Miller also agreed with his friends.

Cadet Erick Trejo, an academy student, said he liked riding on the bus and exploring the entire base. He said they were shown old aircraft, the museum, and the fire station.

Trejo said, “Actually, I’ve been out here talking to recruiters to get information about security forces, fire protection and Air Force Special Warfare, Tactical Air Control Party (TACP).”

Cadet Alec Rodriquez said he was interested in the different types of welding demonstrated during the tour that caught his attention.

“We saw the metal inert gas (MIG), tungsten inert gas (TIG) and the oxygen and acetylene welding demos, and it was my favorite part, and it was cool,” said Rodriquez.

The open house guests learned some

facts about reserve lifestyle in the Air Force. One topic the cadets spoke about was some of the benefits mentioned, without an active-duty commitment, and returning to civilian life after scheduled tours of duty.

Lt. Col. Richie Buenviaje, 349th MXG deputy commander, is a traditional reservist. He is a laser communication engineer in his civilian career. “I have the opportunity to be in a command position and influence people,” said Buenviaje. “I move obstacles out of the way, so the maintainers can have the runway to do their jobs without distractions.”

Buenviaje said it was gratifying to witness a lot of enthusiasm and engagement from the squadron’s airmen to be present and to be part of the open house.

“We are building stronger community relations with our civilian partners to eventually close the divide and grow appreciation for what we do, who we are, how we operate, and that we are different from a stereotypical image of the military,” said Buenviaje.

The U.S. Recruiting Service mission is to inspire, engage and recruit the next generation of airmen and guardians, and

See RECRUITING Page 15

MSgt. Jose Aquilizan/U.S. Air Force

The 349th Maintenance Squadron at Travis AFB, hosted a day long open house during the June 4, 2023 unit training assembly to bolster up qualified new recruits interested in aircraft maintenance, welding, and other mechanical career fields. The tour covered many areas of the base, flight line, shop areas and briefing about the Air Force Reserve and what it means to serve.

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Climate

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for hackers to target it - and then they began feeding renewable energy into it.

The decomposing trash at the Albany city landfill was generating methane that needed to be flared and wasn’t being used to generate power, so they built a system to capture the gas and pipe it to a small power plant on the base. Uniformed Marines stop by from time to time to check on the civilians who are contracted to operate it from an

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

air-conditioned control room where the refrigerator sports a yellow magnet that says “Navy/Marine Corps Energy Efficiency: You Make it Happen.”

Next to the base, trucks line up to dump wood scraps at a biomass power plant that generates steam for electricity by burning the detritus from the papermaking of a Procter & Gamble toilet paper factory. Cables run from that power plant across the road to supply more electricity to the base.

Environmental advocates sometimes question the green bona fides of biomass such as the paper factory waste since burning it still leads to emissions at the

smokestack, but advocates of the power source say that when done correctly, replanting forests offsets the carbon that is released from the power generation.

Albany’s lessons go broader

Base leaders say they are trying different approaches to see what might work more broadly in the military. The installation in Albany is unusually small for a Marine Corps base, at 1.6 square miles, so new, base-wide projects are cheaper than they might be at a bigger one.

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Matt Odom/The Washington Post Col. Michael J. Fitzgerald believes that the base can be self-reliant in terms of energy with the resources now available.

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From Page 13

One large field in a corner of the base is covered with solar panels, although they are leased to the civilian power company to supply energy to city of Albany, an arrangement that Fitzgerald said he hopes the base might eventually alter.

“We’re a small base so we can experiment with, ‘How does a smart grid work?’ If it does on a smaller scale, we can extrapolate it to bigger bases,” Fitzgerald said. “If it works, run with it. If it fails, we didn’t spend that much money.”

The base is also starting to electrify its fleet of noncombat vehicles along with the rest of the military. For now, that’s just four plug-in hybrid Chrysler minivans and a brand-new electric Ford F-150 pickup, but the base’s plan is to electrify half the fleet by 2025. Fitzgerald even tried to pursue an electric semi truck, although the funding didn’t work out.

Military planners have just as much range anxiety as civilians when driving electric cars, it

turns out, and some on base fear about the complications of stopping to charge their vehicles during the frequent back and forth trips to a big Marine Corps base 520 miles away: Camp Lejeune in North Carolina.

“The biggest thing is the charging,” said Ronnie Williams, the fleet manager of the base in Albany, who is directing the plans to expand the base’s capacity to recharge electric vehicles.

Not everyone in the U.S. military is enamored with working on climate issues. Fitzgerald said some of his friends question putting an effort into the green project.

“In the military, I’ve got some friends, who look at this as just: ‘Hey, we’re focused on one thing. We don’t care about the efficiency. More about effectiveness,’” he said.

But senior Pentagon leaders are careful to connect their climate efforts to the military’s bottom line, and to avoid packaging their efforts as going green purely for the sake of going green.

“Net-zero is not an organizing principle for the Department of Defense. Resilience is the organizing principle. And by building resilience, we will reduce our

greenhouse gas emissions and we may get to net-zero,” said Richard Kidd, who, before retiring at the end of May, was the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Environment and Energy Resilience, where he oversaw the Pentagon’s climate initiatives.

He said that across the military, a wide range of efforts is being directed at improving energy usage. Bases across the country are building microgrids. The Air Force is investing in new fuel-efficient airplane designs. The Pentagon’s research divisions are working on small nuclear reactors that can help provide emissions-free power to bases in remote locations.

Leaders say they are excited to replicate the work they’ve done at the Marine Corps base elsewhere.

“It ends up that there are all of these benefits that come out of it, that give back to the Marine Corps mission,” said Berger, the assistant secretary of the Navy. “And that’s something that every installation is looking to do in terms of making sure that they can operate reliably, efficiently and effectively.”

Recruiting

From Page 11

to promote the vision of one team, innovating to be the first choice of America’s top talent.

“Everyone is a recruiter at Travis. It’s a large wing with a hefty requirement for aerospace maintainers,” said Senior Master Sgt. Charles Wandzilak, 349th Recruiting Squadron flight chief. “When I asked for support, the 349th MXS jumped at the opportunity by offering to host an open house.”

Wandzilak said he learned a lot about maintenance during the tour and witness untapped enthusiasm among the maintainers eager to share their adventures and conversations with prospects and influencers during the BBQ lunch.

“I appreciate the 349th MXG and the all-in approach delivery of the message; there are more ways to serve,” said Wandzilak. “Travis is more than an active-duty base. To see reservists in action, hear their stories, and to experience a unit training assembly with the airmen was priceless.”