Reserve commander delivers holiday message to deployed Airmen

Published Dec. 5, 2007
By Capt. Michael Meridith
455th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan -- The Air Force's top reservist visited here Dec. 3, offering a holiday message of thanks to deployed Airmen for their service.

Lt. Gen. John Bradley, commander of the Air Force Reserve Command, spoke with scores of 455th Air Expeditionary Wing Airmen during his daylong visit here, personally expressing his pride at their accomplishments.

"The performance of our Airmen has made me really proud. You are saving lives, improving security and getting equipment to people who need it so they can do their jobs. It's not easy to be away from family and it can get kind of tough, but the job needs to be done," General Bradley said.

During a town hall for reserve component Airmen, General Bradley also addressed some of the more pressing concerns on people's minds; from deployment lengths to the impact of personnel cuts.

"Over the years we have seen a lot of growth in 179-day tours," said General Bradley. "My guess is there will be more. I worry about that a lot, but we do some cycling of Guardsmen and Reservists inside those rotations and I'd like to see more. It frees up people to volunteer, because not everyone can volunteer for a full 120 or 179 days. The more tours we have that are shorter length, the more volunteers I can provide which means that an active duty Airmen deploys less often."

General Bradley also took time to address another hot topic among Airmen - the impact of recent personnel cuts as the Air Force seeks to recapitalize its aging fleet.

"I was issued a cut along with the regular Air Force. They're going down from 350,000 to 316,000 people and we're going from 76,000 to 67,000. We tried to do it in the smartest way we thought possible. We stood down a flying wing and restructured our medical support to make it more efficient. The rest of it we did by restructuring our IMA [individual mobilization augmentee] force," General Bradley said.

"It's a huge impact, but we've found enough money to keep a lot of people on board next year. We also think that in the next year enough will retire or leave that we can move some people back in," he added. "It's been a big challenge, but I think we have a good future."

General Bradley ended his remarks to Airmen by thanking them for their deployed service, pointing out that in addition to carrying out the wing's mission, they were also doing important work for the entire Air Force, as well as for themselves.

"I want to thank you sincerely," he said. "It [deploying] makes you a better Airman and it makes our Air Force stronger when we work together. I am very, very proud of what you do."