Page 1 - Desert Lightning News So. AZ Edition, April 6 2018
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Vol. 11, No. 4 Serving Southern Arizona’s military community, including Davis-Monthan Air Force Base April 2018
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INSIDE JBLE Airman overcomes
STORIES
defeat, pays it forwardï®DistinguishedFlying
Cross, 3
ï® Drug take-back at D-M, 4
ï® Pilot shortage, 5 Story and photo by Airman 1st Class
MONICA ROYBAL
ï® Spouse appreciation day, 8 633rd Air Base Wing Public Affairs Staff Sgt. Dajon Begin, left, 45th Intelligence Squadron full
ï® Grand Canyon, 14 motion video imagery mission supervisor, Senior Master Sgt.
ï® PURPLE crying, 15 JOINT BASE LANGLEY-EUSTIS, Va. — As he drove home on Travis Shaw, Headquarters Air Combat Command Surgeon
ï® Indirect child abuse, 16 an overcast winter’s day, a flood of critical thoughts fueled feelings General pararescue programs manager, and Civil Air Patrol
FEATURE of defeat that consumed every moment since the blow horn was Cadet 1st Lt. Thomas Hall, practice water confidence exer-
pressed to signal, “I quit.†cises March 6 in Anderson Field House at Joint Base Langley-
Senior Airman Mya Crosby Eustis, Virginia. The Airmen practiced buddy breathing, which
Staff Sgt. Michael Svoleantopoulos, 497th Operations Support requires two Airmen to share one snorkel.
HERITAGE FLIGHT TRAINING Squadron weapons tactician, returned from the Air Force Para-
See Page 10 rescue Indoctrination Course much sooner than he anticipated. pool to help others.â€
Svoleantopoulos said although he cannot tell his training part-
Continue to get Davis-Monthan Svoleantopoulos spent the previous three years mentally and
Air Force Base latest news physically training for his goal to successfully cross-train into ners exactly what he did at the indoctrination course, he can guide
and information from these pararescue. Four weeks into the 13-week development and indoctri- them in the right direction.
nation course, he blew the horn to signify self-induced elimination.
sources: http://www.aerotech- “I’m trying to help them learn from my mistakes,†Svolean-
news.com/davis-monthanafb “I was feeling extremely low and pathetic,†Svoleantopoulos topoulos said. “I am the baseline of where they should start to
said. “I stopped working out, and I just didn’t care. My direction
and social media in life was to get that beret, and I failed. I didn’t know what to See FOWARD, Page 4
do anymore.â€
Desert Lightning News
Svoleantopoulos said a chance run-in with his training partners
Date of publication at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, in December 2017, is what sparked
the beginning of his recovery process. He said the support system
First Friday of friends and his desire to want to give back to the battlefield
Airman community is what helped him bounce back from this
of the month personal defeat.
Submission deadline
The first step toward recovery was returning to the water
15th day of the month confidence classes instructed by Senior Master Sgt. Travis Shaw,
Headquarters Air Combat Command Surgeon General pararescue
prior to date of publication programs manager. Svoleantopoulos said he has been attending
the classes since they met two years ago.
Veterans
“He has invested so much time in us and I owe it to him to use
Tell us Your Story the insight that I have gained to help others in the class to suc-
Active-duty, Reserve, Retirees ceed,†Svoleantopoulos said. “I need to show my appreciation for
All military branches are included his hard work by paying it forward.â€
Email name, phone number and a
brief description of your service to For the past five years, Shaw, who cross-trained into pararescue,
has been teaching an informal water confidence training class for
deborah.leuthold@us.af.mil service members interested in cross-training into battlefield Air-
man careers such as pararescue and combat control.
“I focus on water training because I know from personal experi-
ence how much guidance is needed in that part of the indoctrination
course,†Shaw said. “This is where most people falter, so I need to
prepare them for the toughest part.â€
Upon hearing about Svoleantopoulos’ self-elimination, Shaw
said he knew he had to allow time for personal healing, but he also
knew now was the time Svoleantopoulos needed the very close-knit
community of battlefield Airmen.
“This is an exceptional network of like-minded people--that is
incredibly important for service members to fall back on,†Shaw
said. “We got together to work through this failure, and this was
his opportunity to learn from it and grow. I believed the best way
for him to move past it was to bring this experience back into the
