You might have caught this news update about Lakewood leading a $500,000 effort to improve Interstate traffic near Fort Lewis.

Given its proximity and relationship with the installation, the city is the ideal candidate to take the lead on the project. The Lakewood City Council started the process Monday night by approving $500,000 worth of studies to the corridor.

City officials say Fort Lewis is somewhat unique from other installations in that it’s located next to an urban area. I-5 gets nasty in the morning and afternoon when traffic from the post, along with McChord Air Force Base, floods nearby roads.

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A C-17 Globemaster from McChord Air Force Base ferried response teams to Louisiana on Saturday ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Gustav.

The massive jet left shortly after midnight, picked up members and cargo from the 615th Contingency Response Wing at Travis Air Force Base in California and then landed at Louis Armstrong International Airport in suburban New Orleans.

It returned to McChord by mid-afternoon. The aircraft commander expects his crew will be sent to the Gulf Coast again, as early as today.

“It’ll be a matter of whether we can get in and out before the hurricane hits, or if we have to wait until after it hits,” said Maj. Michael Maguire of the 10th Airlift Squadron, 62nd Airlift Wing.

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July is gonna be busy. The Tall Ships are returning. Freedom Fair is back. If you're my age, apparently everyone you know from college and your hometown is getting married.

Well, squeeze in another event.

The folks at McChord have set up a Web site for the Air Expo 2008. The event on July 19-20 will be free (!) and feature the Thunderbirds, among a bunch of other exhibitions.

According to a release the base sent out, here are some of the performances on the schedule:

■ C-17 Aerial Demonstration
■ U.S. Air Force Academy Parachute Team "Wings of Blue"
■ AD-3 Skyraider Legacy Flight
■ F-15C Eagle Tactical Demonstration
■ F/A-18F Super Hornet Tactical Demonstration
■ P-51 Mustang Heritage Flight
■ Air Force Reserve Jet Car
■ Bombing of Pearl Harbor reenactment "Tora Tora Tora"
■ Bud and Ross Granley's Dueling YAKs (YAK 18 vs YAK 55)
■ Cold War Era Dog Fight "Mig Fury" Mig 15 and Mig 17 versus a U.S. Navy FJ-4
■ Jacquie B's Pitts S2-B
■ Steve Cowell's Tuskegee T-6
■ Tim Weber's Geico Extra 300

If you're one of those guys (like myself) who salivate at watching the Blue Angels fly at Seafair, this will be really, really cool.

Remember Don White? He is the reserve airman who was honored for saving two lives after a car wreck on Highway 101 between Port Angeles and Sequim.

The Seattle Mariners also picked up on White's heroism and honored him at a recent home game at Safeco Field. I e-mailed Don about it, and here's what he said:

They had the wrong date in the paper. I was there on the 1st of April, Mariners day to salute the military. At the end of the ceremony and national anthem, I carried the game ball out to the pitchers mound and placed it there. They showed the picture you published and shot footage of me while I was walking. They announced the rescue event and said some kind words to honor me for the award of the Airman's Medal. They gave me and my family 8 seats in the Terrace Club to sit and enjoy the game. They also lavished my family with souvenirs and kindness. They have great hospitality.

Good job, M's.

An audio of Master Sgt. Don White's Airman's Medal citation can be heard here.

Master Sgt. Don White picked up Allison Norman and sat her on his lap. The 2-year-old smiled so wide, she almost dropped her pink pacifier. She giggled and clapped her hands.

And the crowd of more than 100 airmen at McChord Air Force Base followed the child’s lead, giving White a standing ovation moments after he received the Airmen’s Medal for saving the lives of Allison and her older sister, Emily, after a car accident two years ago.

The medal is awarded to service members who voluntarily risk their life under extreme conditions other than combat. White, a reservist with the 446th Airlift Wing and a civilian pipe fitter at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, was a technical sergeant when awarded the medal.

“What was supposed to be a fun event became very chaotic,” said Maj. Gen. Harold Mitchell, who awarded the medal to White. “Who knows how any of us would have acted in that situation?”

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I rarely link to other TNT blogs -- you should be reading all of them, right? -- but I'm a giant nerd when it comes to fighter jets, so you need to check this out: The Thunderbirds are coming to McChord Air Force Base for the Air Expo this summer.

Freaking. Awesome.

Near the bottom of the globe, an American crew took off from a New Zealand runway to help a stranded British ship.

In one of the most treacherous reaches of the earth, a crew comprised of units based at McChord Air Force Base were the heroes Friday.

The Argos Georgia, a British fishing trawler, was stuck since Christmas Eve amidst floes near the Ross Ice Shelf deep below the Antarctic Circle. A broken engine piston left the ship without main power for six days. Dangerous icebergs weren’t far off. Two low-pressure systems were approaching the area, and Lt. Col. Jim McGann, the commander of Operation Deep Freeze, didn’t need Doppler radar to know that the trawler’s 25-person crew was in trouble.

“You could see two big sets of dark clouds coming in,” he said. “And once that gets rocking, those icebergs look even more dangerous. Those guys were going to be in a lot of trouble if they didn’t get any help.”

Other options to save the stranded crew would take at least 10 days, so on Friday night, a C-17 Globemaster III with an Air Force crew comprised of units from McChord Air Force Base took off from Christchurch, New Zealand, and airdropped the engine part to the trawler.

McGann received a call Friday from New Zealand Rescue Coordination Center asking for help. The request from the owner of the ship’s company went through several layers of bureaucracy – submitted through the British Embassy, and then approved by Pacific Command, Transportation Command and the Air Mobility Command – before the situation was designated an emergency and approved.

This time, the machine worked quickly.

“They approved it in 18 hours,” he said. “That’s pretty spectacular.”

The airmen purchased the engine parts from a local marine store and picked up parachutes from McMurdo Station. Crews palletized the equipment and attached buoys on them. The C-17 flew at about 135 mph and as low as 300 feet above at the surface as it approached the ship, and it dropped the 15-by-7½-foot pallet at just after 10 p.m. New Zealand time. The crew recovered the shipment in about five minutes.

The mission took about 10 hours.

“I’ve flown more than 50 missions down here, and yesterday’s mission was one of the most spectacular I’ve ever flown,” McGann said.

The 118-foot vessel, registered in the British overseas territory of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, was on a long-haul fishing expedition.

Operation Deep Freeze is a joint mission with crews from the 62nd and 446th Airlift Wings based at McChord Air Force Base assisting the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Antarctic Program. They’re there six months a year to airlift supplies to research stations in Antarctica.

“We have a motto: ‘Global Reach,’ ” McGann said. “And yesterday’s mission demonstrates that we can be anywhere in the world in hours. It demonstrated we can do it, and that we do do it.”

I just got off the phone with Lt. Col. Jim McGann, the mission commander for Operation Deep Freeze. I was talking to him about a mission to drop a crucial engine part to a fishing trawler trapped below the Antarctic Circle.

I mentioned I was at Qwest Field, and he got pumped. The game apparently isn’t on TV in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“What’s the score, man?” he said. I told him the Hawks were up, 7-0, and he let out a little cheer.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget we’re fighting a war on two fronts. Local TV news carries few reports from Iraq and almost nothing from Afghanistan. Newspapers – this one included – bury stories from Baghdad and Kandahar deeper as the wars drag on. And for many Americans, the wars haven’t affected life on a daily basis. There’s no rationing, no pleas for war bonds, no draft.

Anyone who regularly reads this blog knows that we here at Word on the Street are big on the military – especially the joes who are the most in harm’s way. It’s not easy being away from loved ones, especially during the holiday. It’s probably doubly difficult if you’re in a military hospital recovering instead of exchanging gifts by the Christmas tree.

But we can help, even if just a little bit. The American Red Cross is accepting cards with messages of support to wounded service members. It works like this: We fill out and mail in the cards to the Red Cross, it bundles the, Pitney Bowes Government Solutions then ships them to military hospitals. They must be received by Dec. 27, so you must send them soon.

Everyone knows cards aren’t a substitute for a healthy body and quality time with the family, but hopefully they can make a bad situation just a little bit better.

Click below to read get more details and read the press release:

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Lt. Col. Leffry Staha, the commander of the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron, delivered the
first speech of the ceremony.

Lt. Gen. Donald Wurster, the commander of the Air Force Special Operations Command, followed him.

And here is Tech. Sgt. Scott Iniss' citation read aloud.

A three-star general had just pinned three medals to Scott Innis’ left lapel, but the technical sergeant avoided talking about himself.

The 16-year veteran of the Air Force said he was happy his family could attend the ceremony and the honor bestowed on his unit, the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron.

But, someone asked Innis, what did it mean to him personally?

“I’m happy for my unit,” he replied. “I like that I got the promotion points. And I think it’s 10 percent on my retirement, and that’s kind of cool.”

Innis might have deflected the personal glory, but make no mistake – plenty of attention was focused on him.

A Silver Star has a way of doing that.

Innis received the nation’s third-highest award for valor at a ceremony in a hanger at McChord Air Force Base for calling in aerial strikes from an exposed position during an attack in Afghanistan last year. He also received a Bronze Star and the Air Force Combat Action Medal for his duty while working as a joint terminal attack controller attached with an Army Special Forces unit.

Thirteen other airman received medals at the ceremony, but Air Force officials asked the news media not to identify all but one for security reasons. Ten Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts and 12 Air Force Combat Action Medals were awarded.

Lt. Gen. Donald C. Wurster, the commander of the Air Force Special Operations Command, was on hand to award the medals. He compared the elite airmen to warriors from the Old Testament.

“A dozen Special Forces soldiers with a combat controller is an extremely lethal force when combined with airpower,” he said after the ceremony. “We showed it in the early days of Afghanistan, and we continue to show it today.”

Innis’ medal stems from his actions on March 28, 2006, when Innis and other members of the Army Special Forces detachment came under fire of rocket-propelled grenades, mortar rounds, heavy machine-gun and small-arms fire from three directions. Despite the danger, Innis scaled a ladder to an observation platform stationed at the center of their firebase. The platform was the only structure visible outside the perimeter and received the bulk of enemy fire.

From that platform, he called in and helped guide aerial counterattacks. He remained on the platform despite several close calls during the 24-hour battle and also coordinated to get injured coalition soldiers evacuated. The airpower he directed led to the death or injury of more than 100 Taliban insurgents.

“He’s a quiet professional,” said Lt. Col. Jeffrey F. Staha, the commander of the 22nd Special Tactics Squadron. “He’s one of the guys I turn to handle tough missions.”

Tech. Sgt. Jason Dryer received a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. In April, insurgents ambushed his unit in Afghanistan with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. Dryer fought through the ambush and called in an airstrike by an AC-130 gunship. He also called in strikes to quash second and third waves of the ambush.

He later injured his knee and soldier when an improvised-explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Afghanistan.

“I remember turning back to my friend and saying, ‘I can’t wait for this to be over,’ ” he said. “I turned back and don’t remember anything else. I woke up in my friend’s arms with all my clothes were cut off me and all bloody.”

He went to Kandahar for treatment and returned to his unit downrange about 10 days later.
Dryer said he’ll continue training and awaits his next assignment. Wurster had a message for him.

“I told him I didn’t want to give him another Purple Heart,” Wurster said, “so don’t earn one.”

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