F r i d a y , F e b r u a r y 8 , 2 0 1 3 T H E R E D 7 . n E T

Army family makes do during Soldier’s

rehabPage 3

aLSO INSIDe

Briefs...............................7

Philpott............................6

Divisions to get 9 Gray Eagles to train, but deploy with 12

Page 4

After 45 years, a Silver Star PAGE 2

Page 2 | THE RED 7 | Friday, February 8, 2013

Year No. 3 edition No. 6

The Red 7 is published by the Northwest Florida Daily News, a pri-vate firm in no way connected with the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) or the U.S. Army.

This publication’s content is not necessarily the official view of, or endorsed by, the U.S. govern-ment, the Department of Defense, the Depart-ment of the Army or 7th Special Forc-es Group (Airborne). The official news source for 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) is http://www.soc.mil/.

The appearance of advertising in this publication does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. govern-ment, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) or the Northwest Florida Daily News for products or services advertised. Ev-erything advertised in this publication shall be made available for purchase, use or patronage without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national ori-gin, age, marital status, physical handi-cap, political affiliation or any other nonmerit factor of the purchaser, user or patron. Editorial content is edited, prepared and provided by the North-west Florida Daily News.

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By.LAUREN.DELGADO

Northwest Florida Daily News

CRESTVIEW — In Octo-ber 1968 in Vietnam, then-1st Lt. Vernon JB Ward Jr.’s team was

ambushed after completing a mission to gather intelligence and capture enemy troops.

Ward led his men away before he and another soldier were wounded. Ward carried his com-rade to the pickup spot, only to learn that it had been overrun. He then coordinated with air support to cover his team before guiding them to a second loca-tion where a helicopter rescued them.

Ward carried the injured Sol-dier 400 meters to the helicopter and lifted him into it. After he made sure his team and their three prisoners were aboard, Ward killed five North Vietnam-ese soldiers and saved the crew. As he lifted himself into the he-licopter, he used his own injured body to block a prisoner from escaping.

Almost 45 years later, the retired chief warrant officer 4 accepted the Silver Star — the third-highest combat award in the military — from retired Lt. Gen. Donald C. Wurster in the Army 7th Spe-cial Forces Group (Airborne) auditorium in front of about 100 visitors.

From January 1968 to July 1969, Ward was assigned to Forward Operating Base 1, Command and Control North, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne). It was part of Mili-tary Assistance Command, Vietnam — Studies and Observations Group, or MACV-SOG.

The highly classified unit was not publicly recognized until 2000, which has delayed awards and recognition for its members.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson’s Con-stituent Services office has worked with MACV-SOG mem-bers and advocates to process 65 awards to Ward and 33 other

MACV-SOG members over the last three years, according to a letter from Clyde J. Sincere Jr. and Roy W. Bahr, two former Special Ops commanders who commended the work of Frank J. DeToma, Nelson’s senior con-stituent advocate.

Ward, who now lives in Mary Esther, joked that he wished they would have sent the award in the mail. He said no one joins the Special Forces for recognition or rewards, but from a deep sense of duty to their country.

“Today there are excep-tional soldiers from this very compound doing extraordinary things all over the world, and no one will ever know,” Ward said earlier during his accep-tance speech. “That is why Special Forces always have and always will be the quiet profes-sionals who answer our coun-try’s call.”

After 45 years, a Silver Star

STAff.SGT..RAmON.m.mARRERO..| U.S. Army

Col. Miguel D. Howe poses with retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Vernon JB Ward Jr., after Ward was pre-sented with the Silver Star medal during a medal presentation ceremony in the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) auditorium on Feb. 1.

STAff.SGT..RAmON.m.mARRERO..| U.S. Army

Retired Lt. Gen. Donald C. Wurster pins the Silver Star on retired Chief Warrant Officer 4 Vernon JB Ward Jr. during a medal presentation ceremony.

By.WENDY.VICTORA

Northwest Florida Daily News

Dan Carlton went home for the first time in months recently. But he didn’t return to his house in Hammock Bay in Freeport.

Instead, the 31-year-old 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) Soldier moved into a rental home in San An-tonio with his wife, Juanita, and four young children.

The family will live there until at least October so Dan can visit the rehabilitation facilities he’ll need.

Carlton, a chief warrant officer 2, had his left leg am-putated after he was injured by an IED in Afghanistan on Nov. 29.

“Dan is doing extremely well, keeping in good spirits, looking forward to getting back to work, as crazy as it sounds,” Juanita said during a telephone interview from San Antonio. “He can’t wait to get on his motorcycle.”

Dan returned to the states Dec. 5 and has been in San Antonio ever since. Juanita and their children, who range in age from 1 to 7, were waiting for him when he got there.

She and the children lived in a hotel across from the hospital for nearly two months.

Thursday was their first day with Dan in the rental home, which is being paid for by the Army.

The family’s friends in Freeport also are raising money to help the Carltons with any extra expenses.

They are members of Christ the King Catholic Mission, which is sponsoring a car wash and bake sale Feb. 16 at the BP station at the corner of State Road 20 and U.S. Highway 331 in Freeport.

“She’s an inspiration to me as a mother,” said

Margaret Aresco, a church member and family friend. “Her family is her top priority.

“She’s been living in a hotel room with four kids,” she added. “It’s exhausting, I think. Really hard. She’s holding the whole family together.”

While Dan was in the hos-pital, Juanita and the kids walked back and forth the street to visit him.

Since being discharged, Dan’s schedule has involved three-hour workouts and at least one other medical ap-pointment every day.

Although Juanita home-schooled the children in Freeport, she has put the oldest two in a Catholic school in San Antonio.

Church friends have paid the children’s tuition through March.

“Public school is not go-ing to work for our family,” Juanita said. “I want them (putting) God first.”

She’s not sure how she will pay the tuition after March, but isn’t worrying.

“One day at a time; that’s what they tell us,” she said.

Accommodations have been made for Juanita, who is in the Army Reserve, to fulfill her obligation two hours a day rather than going away for a weekend each month. Dan, who is in a wheelchair, still needs her help and is not able to take care of their children.

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Army family makes do during Soldier’s rehab

Special to the Daily News

Dan and Juanita Carlton are seen with their children in San Antonio. Carlton, who is with the Army 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), had his leg amputated after he was in-jured in an IED explosion in Afghanistan last November.

See rehab Page 4

Page 4 | THE RED 7 | Friday, February 8, 2013

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The couple misses Flori-da and hopes to be home by Halloween. Dan still needs to be fitted for a prosthetic leg and learn how to use it.

Juanita is amazed by the support they have received from their church friends.

“The whole Christ the King family is very genuine, very sharing, very authentic people,” she said.

And Dan’s fellow soldiers at the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) canton-ment near Crestview are amazed by his great attitude.

“He’s one of two that had that degree of injury, and both of them are extremely positive,” said Capt. Brian Connolly, commander of the headquarters company.

“He accepts his injury as another challenge he’s going to overcome. It’s very humbling.”

rehab FrOM Page 3

WASHINGTON. (Army News Service) — The Ar-my plans additional Gray Eagle units, one for each of 10 active-duty divisions, and several more for spe-cial operations units, aerial exploitation units and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif.

With the current pro-gram of record, a purchase of 152 Gray Eagles in to-tal, the Army won’t have enough of the aircraft to give a full assignment of 12 aircraft to every one of the divisions it plans on equip-ping; so some may get as few as nine aircraft. But when those units go down-range, they will get a full component, Army aviation officials said.

“The plan is, when a Gray Eagle company deploys, like we have downrange

now with F-227 (Aviation), they would deploy with a full complement of three platoons of four aircraft, or 12 aircraft total,” said Col. Timothy Baxter, proj-ect manager, Unmanned

Aircraft Systems, during a media roundtable, Feb. 4.

T h o s e e x t r a a i r-craft would come from other units who are not

U.S..ARmY

An MQ-1C Gray Eagle unmanned aircraft makes its way down an airfield on Camp Taji, Iraq, before a surveillance mission in the Baghdad area, in this undated file photo.

Divisions will get 9 Gray Eagles to train, but deploy with 12

See eagLeS Page 5

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deploying.“[U.S. Army Forces

Command] would task organize from other Gray Eagle companies to make sure when they are de-ployed in harm’s way, they would have a full 12,” said Jeff Crabb, deputy product manager, Medium Altitude Endurance UAS. “That’s the current strategy.”

The direction to equip the combat aviation bri-gades within all Army divi-sions with the Gray Eagle came from Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Ray Odi-erno. But the Army plans to buy 152 of the aircraft to distribute among those units.

“The only way you could do that without buying more assets is to reduce the numbers,” Crabb said.

The Army has contract-ed for 103 Gray Eagles to date.

Today, the Army has one Gray Eagle company al-ready deployed, Company F, 227th Combat Aviation Brigade, or CAB, 1st Cav-alry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. While deployed in Af-ghanistan, it is assigned to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). Company F, 227th CAB, is equipped now with 12 aircraft, and will re-tain all 12 when it returns home sometime within the next two months. The 1st Cavalry Division also has an additional company of 12 Gray Eagle aircraft, Com-pany E, 227th Combat Avia-tion Brigade.

Another company, Com-pany F, 1st Aviation Regi-ment, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan., also with 12 Gray Eagles, will re-place F-227 within the next 90 days, officials said. They now have an advance party already in theater, and are

preparing to deploy soon.Also in Afghanistan now

are two “quick reaction ca-pability” units, each with four Gray Eagle aircraft. Those two QRC units have been deployed since 2009. The first was deployed initially to Operation Iraqi Freedom and stayed though until the end of Op-eration New Dawn before moving on to Afghanistan to support Operation En-during Freedom. The sec-ond QRC has always been in Afghanistan.

The Army is also fielding another company to the 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Stewart, Ga. And by Octo-ber, another to the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. The 160th may end up with two companies of 12 aircraft each.

Baxter said it’s been a “busy year” for the Gray Eagle program, which has

culminated with the direc-tor of operational testing and evaluation publishing a “beyond low rate initial production” report for Gray Eagle IOT&E that was conducted last July and August.

The report “deemed us effective, operationally suitable, and meeting our survivability and force pro-tection key performance pa-rameters on the program,” Baxter said. Additionally, he said, a “number of rec-ommendations” came out of the Beyond LRIP report, involving maturing tactics, techniques and procedures on the Gray Eagle pro-gram, improving training on the program, improving doctrine across the Army on the program with re-spect to Gray Eagle and all UAS, and also maturing the manned/unmanned team-ing capabilities.

eagLeS FrOM Page 4

Congressional leaders appear to have reached consensus that it is safer politically to allow deep and arbitrary cuts to military budgets than it is to nego-tiate a large debt-reduc-tion deal that would have names attached.

With Republicans and Democrats unwilling to make difficult decisions to address budget deficits in a balanced way, the military is being forced to cut train-ing, cancel construction projects, defer mainte-nance of ships, aircraft and vehicles, cancel profes-

sional con-ferences, halt most temporary duty assign-ments and interrupt supply and equipment purchases.

Quality of life for

the military also is being impacted as dependents lose jobs, local economies and businesses lose con-tracts, and base operations — including family support programs — take immedi-

ate budget cuts.The entire Department

of Defense has imposed a civilian hiring freeze. At least 46,000 temporary employees are getting pink slips and many more employees under “term” contracts won’t see those contracts renewed.

Gordon Adams, a national security policy specialist with the Stimson Center and a senior White House budget official in the last Clinton administra-tion, said he is “amazed” to watch congressional leaders, in effect, “fold their hands” on trying to prevent deeper defense cuts this year.

With the Iraq war ended and U.S. combat forces scheduled to leave Afghani-stan in 2014, defense “is not the centerpiece” of the Capitol Hill budget argu-ment. “The centerpiece is the overall federal budget and (tax) revenue … This is leadership driven. The armed services commit-tees are almost irrelevant,

which is very unusual.”Even as Defense of-

ficials and military leaders ordered commands to take broad cost-cutting actions, they held out hope Con-gress will come to share their concern and take two remedial actions. One is to pass a defense appropria-tions bill for the fiscal year that began last October, thus removing spending caps imposed by operating through March under con-tinuing budget resolution. The resolution freezes their budgets just below 2012 levels.

Service officials now fear Congress intends to extend the continuing reso-lution through September. If so, at a minimum, they seek authority to “repro-gram” or transfer money between accounts to fully fund their highest priorities to sustain operations and protect readiness.

Second, Defense of-ficials want Congress to swiftly reach a deficit re-duction deal and avoid bud-

get sequestration, which as adjusted during the Jan. 1 fiscal cliff deal, would still impose an 8 percent cut across 2,500 separate defense programs. Seques-tration was a scheme Con-gress concocted in 2011 to scare itself into a debt deal. It has failed.

Effective Feb. 15, the Navy will cancel private-sector contracts for ship maintenance in the last half of fiscal 2013, impacting 10 ships in Norfolk, Va., 10 more in San Diego and one ship apiece in New London, Conn., Bremerton, Wash., and Jacksonville, Fla. This alone will save an estimat-ed $600 million.

“The way we have tried to manage this is to protect forward deployed readiness so that our ships, aircraft and sailors forward de-ployed can continue to do what they need to do. Their mission won’t be affected,” Rear Adm. John Kirby, Na-vy chief of information, said in a phone interview.

The next goal is to pro-

tect training and readiness for “next-to-deploy forces.” However, that might not be possible if Congress allows sequestration to take effect March 1 as rescheduled, Kirby warned.

Operating under a con-tinuing resolution popped a $4.6 billion hole in Navy op-erations and maintenance budgets. Sequestration would expand that hole by $4 billion, Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, chief of naval operations, said in fleet-wide message Jan. 25. The Navy would have to stop all deployments to the Carib-bean and South America, limit European deploy-ments to ballistic missile defense ships only, and cut steaming and flying hours across the fleet. Most ships and aircraft preparing for deployment would see stateside training, flying and steaming operations end, he warned, unless fleet commanders find other budget offsets.

That word “unless” in Greenert’s guidance is sig-nificant, Adams said. Like the other services, he noted that the Navy paints worst-case scenarios for operat-ing under a continuing budget resolution through September and taking the additional sequestration hit. When actually forced to take those cuts, sequestra-tion would allow flexibil-ity in how operations and maintenance dollars get chopped, Adams said. The service can, for example, target personnel service contracts, which have bal-looned over a decade of war.

“It’s everything from cutting the grass at Fort Belvoir to serving the food at Bagram Air Base,” Ad-ams said. “That’s an area, given our departure from Iraq and coming out of Af-

Page 6 | THE RED 7 | Friday, February 8, 2013

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Deep military cuts begin as Congress dawdles

Tom Philpott

See cuTS Page 7

2084071

Friday, February 8, 2013 | THE RED 7 | Page 7

ghanistan, that ought to be a low priority.”

The Army’s own “risk mitigation” budget guid-ance directs a 30-percent cut in base operations sup-port to include “reduced levels of installation service delivery and reduced new and current contracts” for the same. To help imple-ment that, Army leaders promise further guidance “on the use of soldiers to perform installation

functions.”“That’s where you can

manage” priorities, Adams said. “You might actually have a soldier pushing a lawnmower at Fort Belvoir come spring.”

Adams said Congress seems resigned to allow se-questration in part because

it’s easier than reaching a balanced budget deal and in part because lawmakers recognize the military is in a post-war drawdown, a period when taking deep spending cuts is natural, particularly for ground forces.

But Kirby countered

that the Navy isn’t drawing down.

“All by itself the continu-ing resolution is going to have a readiness impact. Those ships will have to get maintenance sooner or later, and it is probably going to cost more. Just like maintenance on your

car, defer it and when you finally get it into the garage you’re probably going to need more work than you originally needed and it will cost you more

“The other cost is time,” Kirby continued. “If you had that ship scheduled for deployment in 2014 or ’15,

now it will not be achiev-able because of needed maintenance. There’s a real readiness impact.”

Tom.Philpott.is.a.syndicated.columnist..You.may.write.to.him.at.military.Update,.P.O..Box.231111,.Centreville,.VA.20120-1111;.or.at.milupdate@aol.com..

cuTS FrOM Page 6

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Family campout and movie

Join Outdoor Recreation for a family campout under the stars at Camp Robbins on Feb. 15-16. A hot-dog dinner will be served at 5 p.m. followed by a family-friendly movie and s’mores. Cost is $5 per person and includes all activities, food,

tent and sleeping bag. Camping equipment is lim-ited, so register and make your reservations early. 850-882-5058

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Communitycivil air Patrol Squadron plans

Open houseThe Florida Wing Chap-

ter 423 Eglin Composite Squadron, local unit of the Civil Air Patrol, is host-ing an Open House at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 19 at the squad-ron building 38, 502 Choc-tawhatchee Ave., Eglin AFB. The invitation is open to youth ages 12+ interest-ed in joining CAP. Come check out what we do in regards to: emergency ser-vices, search and rescue, disaster response, aero-space education and our cadet programs. For more information visit www.fl423.flwg.us.and find us on Facebook: Eglin Composite Squadron FL 423 Civil Air Patrol.

aFa Fisher house 5K set for March 2

The Air Force Associa-tion Eglin Chapter, with the support of the Eglin Top 3 Association, and the gener-ous sponsorship of Quality Toyota, Northwest Florida Regional Airport and the Crestview Military Affairs Council is hosting the third annual Eglin AFA Fisher House 5K. The run starts at 8:30 a.m. March 2 at The Landing in Fort Walton Beach. There will be 5K run/walk/wheelchair categories, as well as a 1 mile fun run for the kids. Registration is $20 until Feb. 28. Register for the run, or sign up to donate or become a fundraiser at www.imathlete.com/events/Eg-linAfAfisherHouse5K. Late registration will be 6:30-7:45 a.m. the morning of the race. Join us for the after party and awards ceremony at the historic Magnolia Grill.

brIeFS FrOM Page 7