USAF first woman bomber wing commander takes command

[frigidmagi]

shreveport times

The drizzle let up just long enough Friday morning to allow Col. Kristin Goodwin to safely perform one of the last ritual acts of taking command of the vaunted 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale Air Force Base.

She removed the stencil of the name of her predecessor, Col. Andy Gebara, from the wing’s flagship B-52, “Spirit of Bossier and Shreveport,” to reveal her own.

“Not too shabby!” she said clearly from the open window by the aircraft commander’s seat, from where she peered at the base’s immense parking apron, filled with people who moments before had seen her assume command in Hoban Hall. “Wow – this is a big transport!” Then, knowing full well it was a bomber, she added, “it’s an amazing symbol of air power right here, I tell you.”

As she took the command flag from 8th Air Force commander Maj. Gen. Scott Vander Hamm, she uttered the four simple words that mark control of the lives of hundreds of men and women and assets worth millions of dollars that constantly move the power of life and death on battlefields around the world.

“Sir, I assume command.”

If, by those four words Goodwin knew she was making history as the nation’s first female bomb wing commander, she didn’t let on. All of her comments, in front of the ranks of uniformed airmen now under her command and a gaggle of civilian community leaders, as well as to media after, reflected someone who knows the authority she now exerts and the history she carries forward as the granddaughter, daughter, stepdaughter and daughter-in-law of men and women who have worn the nation’s uniforms and have answered its call.

“It is an opportunity and an honor to lead and I take that very seriously,” she said before a reception at Patrick Hall, the former officers club. “Historical significance? The way I look at it is I’m another airman and another commander. I don’t see myself as different.”

In some of her first words to her new troops, she promised “you will always be my top priority ... I will have your back and I know that each of you will have mine.”

Vander Hamm lauded Gebara, who is headed to Washington, D.C., for his work guiding the wing through 27 exercises, 10 major inspections and deployments that included two stints as a continuing bomber presence in the Pacific Ocean at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

“During his command the professional and disciplined airmen of the 2nd Bomb Wing have soared,” Vander Hamm said. “It has been an amazing tenure marked by substantial change and great progress.”

He was unstinting in praise for Goodwin, who he commanded or worked with on several levels over the past decades.

He described her as “another winner, a superb officer who will continue a long line of proud leadership of the 2nd Bomb Wing. Kristin, welcome to Barksdale, a land where Cajun, Texan and Southern all converge, a place of strong community support and good neighbors and also a place where you will have not fewer than eight general officers telling you how to run the base.”

Vander Hamm spoke at length of her background as a pilot and behind-the-scenes work planning war missions.

“Kristin was an outstanding addition to the bomber community,” he said, noting that soon after she shifted from flying EC-130s she “found herself planning Operation Iraqi Freedom ... they were to develop a plan to penetrate the most heavily defended airspace the B-2s had ever encountered. ... Her efforts resulted in the destruction of over 300 targets and the crippling of Saddam Hussein’s regime. Years later she would lead that same mission planning cell but in a different capacity, this time as the 509th Operation Support Squadron commander during Operation Odyssey Dawn. Make no mistake, Kristin knows airpower. She has advocated long range combat airpower in many circles ... There is no doubt the B-52 will see the result of these efforts in the coming years.”

Goodwin noted her new wing, under Gebara’s stewardship the last two-plus years, is “a more lethal fighting force ... the Deuce is the embodiment of global power projection.”

She noted her family members who taught her about service, sacrifice and being part of a team, and also the service family from whom she also learned valuable lessons.

“Those lessons can be summed up in three words: people, mission and pride,” she said. “Value people, execute the mission and take pride in what you do ... people, mission and pride can change the world.”

The Air Force rounded out the ceremony with the traditional presentation of flowers to Nikki, spouse of the departing commander, and Kelly, Goodwin’s spouse.

Later, Goodwin put it all into perspective.

“I joined the Air Force to fly planes, and I tell you right now I am staying in the Air Force to take care of people and to make a difference,” she said. “The B-52, and the men and women that work on it, every day, I have seen, getting checked out, they are dedicated, they are warriors and they are committed to making sure that we are able to provide air power, any time, anywhere, around the world. It’s an amazing aircraft with amazing capabilities and I am very excited. I am honored to get to fly the B-52.”

[rhoenix]

Little steps, little precedents being set in history are notes such as this. I'm glad to see it happen.

[LadyTevar]

*salutes*
May she never have to use that ship in defense of this nation.

[Batman]

Given the the things 'males' have done to mess up this sorry excuse for a planet, she's hard-pressed to do worse.

[General Havoc]

Given the the things 'males' have done to mess up this sorry excuse for a planet, she's hard-pressed to do worse.

Things such as belching out bigoted stereotypes about vast numbers of people you've never met so as to vent personal frustrations on another target?

Those things?

[Lys]

I think Batman is saying that women in leadership positions are no worse than their male counterparts and also expressing general cynicism with respect to the nature of humanity. That's not bigotry it's just misanthropy.