From the Northwest Florida Daily News…
Iraqi Air Force Gets Rebuilt
For an American officer used to the organization and structure of the U.S. Air Force, Maj. Tim Teets finds reconstituting the decimated Iraqi Air Force a particular challenge. Working with the Coalition Air Forces Transition Team, or CAFT-T, for the last two months, Maj. Teets explained his unit’s mission.
“Specifically what we’re trying to do is make the Iraqi air force a modern and effective air force so they can take care of their own air sovereignty issues,” Teets said.
Ever since the first Gulf War in 1991, little has remained of Iraq’s air defense forces. “We’ve pretty much started from scratch,” Teets said. “The project started about two years ago.”
While rebuilding the nation’s ground military forces started soon after the current U.S. invasion and occupation, “in the last six months Iraq’s air force has made significant strides and they’re actually out flying missions now,” the major said.
Today the Iraqi Air Force has “right around 50 airplanes,” Teets said, “and approximately a thousand people. They’re hoping to grow that quite a bit larger. We’re trying to use the pilots that have experience in what we call the ‘old Iraqi Air Force’ and use them as the basis for the new Iraqi Air Force.”
With diverse equipment, including C-130s, some Huey UH-1 helicopters and “they’re also flying some Mi-17 aircraft, a Russian design,” Maj. Teets and his colleagues have their work cut out for them. “It creates some unique challenges.”
But Teets has a lot of support. Especially on the home front. Waiting for him back at his Crestview home is his wife of 15 years, Sandy, and their youngest of four sons, Shawn, 21. “We love the people of Crestview,” Teets said. “The people are absolutely wonderful. I miss interacting with the people there.”
Teets’ deployment will keep him in Iraq until nearly the middle of next summer. Of such separations often necessitated by a spouse’s deployment, Sandy Teets said, “I don’t think you ever get used to it. I think you just accept it a little bit better.”
To help pass her time, “I have hobbies. I like to play golf and I scrapbook. Now that my kids live in Georgia, I get to see them. I get a lot of time with family.” Still, that Maj. Teets won’t return until next summer is “kind of a bummer,” Sandy said, “because we have two grandbabies that are expected and he won’t be here for their birth. But I will be!”
She also channels her experience as a military spouse into support for other spouses whose servicemen are deployed abroad. “Be strong, because you have to be strong,” she counsels. “If you feel you need somebody or something, don’t be afraid to speak up and ask somebody for help. “There are a lot of good people in the military and they don’t think twice about helping you out,” she advised. “We’re one big family.”
Meanwhile, her husband and many other area spouses are performing important duties in a hot, sandy country far away.
“We are rebuilding national pride for the Iraqis,” Maj. Teets said. “It’s amazing to see the reaction when an Iraqi helicopter flies overhead and it’s got an all-Iraqi crew and an Iraqi flag on it, and the people are waving at it and jumping up and down because it’s their own asset.
“It’s Iraqis helping Iraq to get back to what Iraq should be,” Teets said proudly. “It’s a message we need to get out that they are stepping forward to the plate and making it happen,” he concluded.
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Iraqi Air Force Soars to New Heights in Recent Months
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