48 hours embedded with 910th (and others)

The Youngstown Air Reserve Station and its resident detachment, the 910th Airlift Wing Mission, hover in our existence here in the Valley much like the planes they pilot: quiet and often out of sight, but a commanding and pausing presence in select times.

Two weeks ago, I was fortunate to be one of 36 Valley citizens and base staff who shared a two-day up-close look at the operation to understand more about its net effect on our lives.

Embedded of sorts with the 910th, you get a good understanding from a lot of angles.

My first was from the cockpit of the base’s signature C-130 military transport plane as it barreled down the Vienna airstrip — rumbling and bumping its way until its nose rose and clouds were in our path.

Another view came from the camo-green passenger area of the plane. It’s where 36 of us sat on cargo nets fitted into L-shaped seats by a system of poles and clips. With our knees lined up in a staggered row with the knees of the people across from us, we sat less like guests and tourists and more like the imaginary folks in the hand game SDLqHere’s the church, here’s the steeple ... .” It’s dimly lit to mask the austerity, I suppose.

One unique measure was from the perched platform in the back corner of the plane with a brown camo tarp around three sides: That was our in-flight latrine.

All true assessments of the flight, but the latter two truly trivial.

The best and truest assessment came, I would imagine, in Mississippi, which was our home for the two days.

And it came from a humble Southern boy who apologized off the bat for his deep accent. With a wry smile, he said he’d gladly repeat anything he said that we did not understand.

He related to us the impact on his home caused by the back-to-back assaults from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and 2010’s British Petroleum oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It was about as bleak a picture as you could imagine.

He then told the story of Vienna’s 910th and 10,000 other Ohio Reservists who flew missions in and out of the airport he monitored. His Stennis International Airport, to see it on a map, sits as an elbow of sorts between Biloxi, Miss., and New Orleans. But to drive the area, see the pictures and hear the stories — those events 10 and five years ago are still alive today.

And when our Southern friend related the impact of the 910th on the area’s recovery, his voice found a chord just above choking- up.

While our visit with him last week was new for most of us, for a handful, it was a reunion. Near us were two plaques — one from Stennis to the 910th, and vice versa. One reads: “Friendships were formed, bonds were created, and visitors became family.”

It was our most poignant moment in 48 hours of many moments.

Our trip officially was called a Civic Leader Tour and is designed to give citizens a close look at their hometown military base. The event aims to make communities more protective of such operations when bases come up for closures and reductions. Our base means $82 million a year in wages and millions more in support expenses. Its nine aircraft are America’s single military-based aerial-spray corps.

Our group was a mix of private business folks and public officials, including Youngstown Mayor John A. McNally and Ohio state Rep. Sean O’Brien. It was Dutch treat of sorts, with each person funding their own food and hotel.

Keesler Air Force Base was our host base, and it is home to many cool things. Two of the highlights there were meeting the Hurricane Hunters and the trauma staff at Keesler Medical Center.

The hurricane division employs C-130 planes — same as those flying out of our Vienna base — but with one unique distinction: These folks fly into the eyes of hurricanes. Ten planes are based at Keesler, and they track storms from the Atlantic to the Pacific. When Katrina hit, the operations were relocated to Atlanta before eventually returning to Keesler.

While the Hurricane Hunters tackle storms, the staff at Keesler Medical Center tackles intricate surgeries anywhere in the world aboard military aircraft. More special, they get as close to the front lines as military surgery has been performed. With their risk and medical ingenuity, lives are saved in places such as 30,000 feet over Afghanistan.

Our group was able to try compressing an artery on a replica of a wounded soldier that was stunningly lifelike.

How lifelike? When they pulled back the sheet to show his injuries, people in our group gasped. Then the staff used a control pack to flail the limbs and squirt blood from the wounds. It was not hard to imagine this guy getting treated. (See photos on The Vindy Facebook page.)

One last visit was the Naval Construction Battalion Center, home to Seabee construction specialists. There, specially constructed video combat simulators drop soldiers and a humvee into the middle of lifelike battle situations.

It dropped us, too. And we were far from successful. One bad guy survived for so long around our humvee, he circled us as if we were at a campfire dance. I think the mayor finally got him. Or maybe it was me.

Though the visits were telling throughout the 48 hours, consistently telling regardless of where we were was the personal investment and passion of the personnel. Most were in military gear; many were civilians. Each shared a goal of making a better country.

It’s tough to keep up with them all the time due to the jargon they spew equal to their airplane propellers. But they’re disarming folks in that at their most jargony, lingo-laden, square-jawed moments, they can drop a coffee counter dose of humor that brings you all back to Earth together. I’ll try here:

“This here is your C-130 advanced individual fluid repository station. It is a fully mechanized, self-directed human bodily function anticipator and facilitator. Gas-fueled injectors overhead fed direct off our Lockheed turbine generators serve to dissipate all matter foreign or domestic in a downwardly direction. The 4-foot platform you will utilize is a gyroscope functioning base capable of maintaining ideal personal engagement opportunity amid the most reviled weather episodes ...

“And it’s certified to hold 37 Taco Bell dinners. God as my witness.”

Their passion, their protection, and their humor — it’s all from the heart.

When you become their guest, you get all of them.

And you get a great feeling of the things they do that — when we choose not to bicker about it — make this a special country.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on Vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.