HICKAM AIR FORCE BASE, Hawaii (AFPN) -- Keeping the Air Force's aircraft ready to fly, fight, and win is an intense job. In the Pacific Air Forces alone, it takes the hard work of more than 10,000 people.

Maintenance and logistics jobs are notoriously thankless. The hours are long, and most of the work is done 'behind the scenes,' to make sure higher-profile missions execute properly.

But there's no denying a job well done. On Jan. 16, the vice chief of staff of the Air Force presented the command with the Gen. Wilbur L. Creech Maintenance Excellence award. The Creech Award honors the major command demonstrating the most improved performance in aircraft maintenance and logistics readiness.

On any given day, PACAF's logisticians and maintainers prepare aircraft for the missions they fly--and they fly a lot of missions. From Oct. 2006 to Sept. 2007, PACAF clocked almost 110,000 flying hours to numerous deployed locations around the world. During that period, maintainers and logisticians increased maintenance and supply mission capability rates, aircraft fix rates, and decreased customer wait times.

And that's not all. The Pacific theater 'loggies' and maintainers have managed to do all that while standing on air power's leading edge, meeting the challenges of aging aircraft like KC-135 Stratotanker, while also supporting the Air Force's newest fighter jet platform, the F-22 Raptor.

"What our folks have done under some incredibly tough conditions is simply spectacular," said Col. Bruce Litchfield, PACAF's director of logistics.

"When I think about our fleet today, our aging aircraft fleet, what we've been able to do across the board is incredible," he said.

Col. Litchfield said this award reiterates what he already knew: PACAF Airmen are doing a critical job incredibly well.

"If you're a logistician or a maintainer, wherever you are in the world, your job is to generate air power," said Col. Litchfield. "And quite frankly, you're generating that air power so that the pilots and the operators can employ it."

Col Litchfield said when you look at generating and employing airpower side-by-side, it's impossible to tell which is more important.

"Both of them have to work together or we can't get the Air Force mission done: To fly, fight and win."