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Deputy Secretary Visits McChord

Jul-26-2004 » Filed Under: General Military

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By Staff Sgt. Scott McNabb, USAF

McCHORD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash., July 24, 2004 – A joint audience of more than 800 airmen and soldiers heard firsthand from one of the nation's top military leaders here July 23.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz held a town hall meeting with airmen from McChord, soldiers from neighboring Fort Lewis, and their families. He visited, he said, for a simple reason: to say thanks.

"I don't know how to thank you enough, but that's what I came here to do," Wolfowitz said. [...]

Even though news reports highlighted the Iraqi forces that fled in Fallujah during operations earlier this year, they forgot to mention the ones who held their ground in other parts of Iraq, Wolfowitz pointed out.

"Some of the Iraqi forces performed heroically in Mosul, right next to their friends from Fort Lewis," he said. [...]

Wolfowitz also discussed how the nation's airlift capabilities give it enormous reach and allow the United States to deploy wherever and whenever the need arises.

"We gave two medals out today to two people who were able to have tremendous striking power, but I can also see the day when C-17s might land a whole Stryker brigade at some rudimentary airfield out in the middle of nowhere," he said. "If you go back to World War II, there was the famous Battle of Arnhem where the airborne was dropped in, they say, a bridge too far.


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