Action Line - Base Exercises

  • Published
  • By Anonymous
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Question:

I understand that the Wing Schedule is constantly hectic and very limited on availability for events. Between the inspections, tours, DVs, and let us not forget our real-world missions to all parts of the world, this base seems to run on full cylinders at all times of the day and week. However, I wish to inquire why the base has chosen to conduct an exercise (with alarms, smoke, and sirens) on a recognized holiday. Even tomorrow, a day when host nationals are still off in observance of the holiday, would have made a more polite impression. On the very day of the holiday, however, what kind of impression is that making?

Granted war can come at any place and at anytime...history has taught us that; even here at Incirlik AB. Subsequently, I have no issues with the base exercising or donning gear. But at a location such as this, where both nationals live on / together / within close proximity of one another, why would we choose to practice such an war-time environment on a day celebrated but the other as a day of remembrance and reverence? We constantly hear from leaders, supervisors, and fellow airmen to always be mindful, courteous and respectful to our local national hosts...but how do today's actions match our words?

Thank you for your time and your guidance as I would like to have an answer to better explain this to my subordinates and my family members.



Response:

Thank you for being a concerned guest who is mindful of how we are viewed by our Turkish hosts. As you noted, we have been operating at a fever pitch over the past few months; however our AFIs required us to complete the exercise in question before the end of December. Given our own holidays along with the events you mentioned, our choice of dates was extremely limited. We felt that conducting a major exercise on the Friday before the four-day weekend as you suggested wouldn't be very productive and as a result, we chose Thursday Dec 20 as the date for the exercise.

Out of deference and in the spirit of being courteous to our hosts, we coordinated with 10th Tanker Base Command on how to minimize the impact on those folks celebrating Kurban Bayrami (Feast of Sacrifice). Specifically, 10th Tanker agreed to our offer to disconnect several giant voice speakers located near the base housing areas. The feedback I received from our Turkish hosts after the exercise is that our activities did not impact their celebration in any way and in fact most folks did not even know we conducted the exercise.

Thank you again for your note and please continue to be mindful, courteous, and respectful of our hosts. We will continue to do the same at the wing level.