Hampden airman goes north to Alaska

ELEMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska – There’s an old joke that a Hampden Academy graduate shares with other service members stationed in this nether region where temperatures can drop close to 100 degrees below zero and the nearest neighbor can literally be found a hundred miles away. They say that they may not be at the end of the Earth, but they can sure see it from here.

But training in this frigid land in the middle of a wilderness is no joke for Air Force Airman 1st Class Ryan N. Sleight, son of Donald and Debbie Sleight of Hampden, who spent nearly two weeks training alongside 7,500 fellow service members during the air combat and coastal defense exercise dubbed “Northern Edge” and “Cope Thunder.”

For Sleight and his fellow service members it was the ultimate training experience, pitting man against the elements and each other. The goal of both exercises was to sharpen their skills in support of air, ground and sea operations in an extremely cold weather environment. Sleight supported the exercise as an aircraft maintainer.

“I work on F-16 fighter jets here. We do everything from performing preflight maintenance checks to helping to recover the jets and then doing the post-flight checks,” said the 1999 Hampden Academy graduate.

“Then we take the information we get from the checks and determine what work needs to be done on the aircraft.”

Some of the exercise scenarios took place in an area larger than some of the lower 48 states. The tremendous land mass of Alaska – equal to one-fifth of the continental United States – allowed for the employment of weapons, tactics and drills not possible in populated areas, giving the participants valuable cold-weather experience.

During the two combined exercises, air crews were subjected to every conceivable threat while naval and ground forces provided coastal and land defense – including anti-terrorism training.

“This exercise gives our unit the opportunity to train in a cold-weather climate, and to see how the elements affect our aircraft. Because of that, we’ll be better prepared in case we have to deploy to a cold-weather locale for a real-world mission,” said Sleight.

Weather had an enormous effect on the exercise. About 25 percent of the scheduled combat flights were canceled, making troops feel the harsh effects of northern-tier training. The exercise was a challenge that showed Sleight why Alaska is viewed as one of the last great frontiers.

“This area of Alaska has a beautiful landscape that is unlike anything I’ve ever seen,” he said. “You seem to notice something different every day. And the weather seems to be changing constantly – from a snowstorm one hour to sunshine the next. It’s been a great experience.”

Sleight and his fellow service members may not be at the end of the Earth, but one thing they will bring away from the training they received in this frigid, isolated practice is the ability to fight a war if they are ever asked.