USAF total force family

  • Published
  • By Capt. Rose Richeson
  • 39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs
INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey --  Some use the cliché "it's a small Air Force" when they run into old supervisors, co-workers and friends throughout their career, but for two brothers, the term was anything but a cliché. After a combined 34 years in the service, they found themselves reporting under the same chain of command.

Majors Bob and Jim Dittus fly, fight and win while performing tanker and air lift missions assigned to the 385th Air Expeditionary Group at Incirlik. Major B. Dittus flies for the 22nd Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron out of Manas Air Base, Kyrgyzstan, and Major J. Dittus flies for the 817th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron. Although their current deployments didn't bring them together on this occasion, when a fellow 385th AEG member heard they were so close he made sure they would cross paths.

"The commander of the 817th, Lieutenant Colonel Brian Newberry, likes all the people deployed here to get a little taste of both theaters of operation - Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom," said Major J. Dittus.

As the 817th EAS Detachment 1 commander at Manas Air Base, Major J. Dittus would have spent his entire four-month deployment without seeing OIF. That, coupled with the fact that Colonel Newberry knew his brother was deployed to Incirlik for a period of time, made this the perfect opportunity to call him down for about a week before finishing out his deployment.

Military service runs in the Dittus family and without that background the brothers would most likely have never traveled to this area of the world.

The Dittus' father had an interest in aviation and served as an electronics technician for 21 years in the Air Force. That got both brothers interested and so began their service at the Air Force Academy. They both graduated with Bachelor's degrees in Computer Science, however, the similarities did not end there.

Major J. Dittus graduated in 1992, four years after his brother, and was assigned to the same airframe - the KC-135 Stratotanker.

When Major B. Dittus decided to transition from active duty to the Reserves in 2000, he was treated with a formation flight accompanied by his brother as his wingman to Las Vegas for a tasking to take fighters across the country. This was the first mission that brought them together and wouldn't be the last.

"There have been times where we've gone 18 months without seeing each other, but that is pretty rare," said Major J. Dittus. "Usually we see each other every six or nine months."

In November 2006, Major J. Dittus graduated from C-17 crossflow training and is now flying the airlifters that his brother is responsible for refueling.

"I'd say professionally I know I have definitely lobbied Bob's experience and knowledge about the Air Force, especially in the KC-135 community," Major J. Dittus said.

Major B. Dittus, permanently assigned to the 336th Air Refueling Squadron, March Air Reserve Base, Calif., worked this particular three-week deployment to fulfill his yearly Reserve requirements. Prior coordination was made with his current employer to serve for three weeks and then come right back to his old job as a pilot for American Airlines.

"One way I look at it is that it took about 12 years in the active duty before I ever got an opportunity to fly with him formation-wise in the tankers," said Major B. Dittus. "Now, seven years later we are brought together and maybe one day we'll eventually have that opportunity again."

Although tankers and airlifters are two different worlds, two different types of aircraft and two different missions, the brothers are both in Air Mobility Command and a future meeting is not impossible.

"Hopefully sometime in the future we'll actually get to be in the sky together again - he as a tanker and me as a receiver," said Major J. Dittus.