COMPACAF visits Kadena

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Alesia D. Goosic
  • 18th Wing Public Affairs
KADENA AIR BASE, Japan --  General Gary North, Pacific Air Forces commander, attended the Kadena Special Olympics Nov. 6, and before he left, shared some key messages for Kadena's Airmen .

The general spoke about the magnitude of Kadena Special Olympics, Kadena's partnership with the Okinawan people, the importance of cost-savings in today's Air Force and other hot topics.

"In the last 11 years the volunteers from the Okinawan community, all our U.S. Military Services and the JASDF have clearly made this a special event for the special needs children on Okinawa, both Okinawan and U.S.," General North said of the Kadena Special Olympics. "The participation of the community highlights the relationship between the United States and Japan and the strength of the community when we come together for a common cause."

The general spoke about the significance of this partnership between Kadena and the Okinawan people.

"My message as the Pacific Air Forces commander is the same as it was when I was the commander here at the 18th Wing some 10 years ago," he said. "The strength of this relationship allows like-minded people to have stability and security for the civilian populations, and that strength continues today; in fact, it gets stronger every year."

Kadena's strategic importance was also a topic of discussion with the commander. "Certainly with our combined and joint force flow here the ability to move our U.S. Marines, U.S. Army soldiers and Special Operations Command personnel through this air [point of debarkation] is very, very important.

"If you look at it geographically, Kadena is ideally situated to enable both the global flow, the airway traffic, and then the ability to rapidly project humanitarian disaster relief, and operations required by both our nations," General North said. "It is a very strategic area and base for us, and we work on communicating this everyday with the host nation to ensure the understanding of our intertwined strategic relationship remains strong, not only today, but into the future."

Another key to Kadena's ability to maintain its strategic importance is by more effectively utilizing its resources, the general said. He discussed the need for prioritizing costs and implementing money-saving initiatives across the Air Force.

"In the alignment of mission requirements to mission needs, to our quality of life measures in our Air Force, it requires each and every one of us to be ever mindful about what is most important," he said. "As Airmen, every one of us is responsible for looking at how efficiently and effectively we utilize our precious dollars with meet mission and quality of life requirements."

In doing so, the general challenged Airmen to look around and bring up ideas or suggestions on how to improve processes, save resources or reduce costs.

"Every one of our ideas or suggestions are enabled by great young Airmen who are out there turning wrenches, driving our vehicles, fixing our airplanes, providing security for our installations and taking care of our infrastructure," he said.

On the topic of physical fitness, the general stated, "being fit to fight is also being fit for life; the message is very simple," he said. "Get out and work out, make the test part of an annual routine exercised every day not just once or twice a year."

General North also discussed quality of life issues among PACAF Airmen.

"This is something that most folks do not recognize or they sometimes take for granted," he said. The general said that he and the PACAF command chief, Chief Master Sgt. Brooke McLean, spend a lot of time looking at big ticket quality of life items such as remodeling and restructuring dormitories and improving community centers and childcare centers.

"The needs of every base are unique, and it's our challenge and our task to be responsive to those needs, incorporate them into our Force Support domain or our civil engineer domain, and then be able to respond rapidly so that Airmen -- particularly on our short tours in Korea -- can see results during their timeframe," he said. "We work very hard at this."

Before departing, General North spoke of the unique responsibility and challenges of serving overseas and his gratitude to Airmen and their families for their service.

"Our Air Force is on a perfect glide path for the future and it depends on each and every Airman and their families, to understand how important they are in that relationship for the future of our Air Force. We thank you for serving and we thank you for serving in the Pacific Air Forces."