SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) – When Airman 1st Class Cabe Feller joined the Air Force two years ago, he was hoping to see the world beyond his farm town. He didn’t expect one of his first stops to be Vermont.
Now, during his working hours, Feller, 20, of Herscher, Ill., is learning the intricacies of maintaining F-16 fighter jets. He’s getting plenty of one-on-one tutoring about the airplanes from Vermont Air National Guard technicians, some of whom have worked on the planes for longer than he’s been alive.
During his off hours, Feller has learned to snowboard. He’s been exposed for the first time in his life to what he sees as the ethnically diverse communities of Bosnians, Vietnamese and Sudanese who live in the Burlington area.
“The set-up here is fantastic,” said Feller, an active duty airman taking part in a first-of-its-kind program that sends a small number of active duty Air Force personnel on a three-year rotations to the Vermont Air National Guard base at the Burlington International Airport.
The program is known as “community basing” and is designed to help the active duty Air Force work closely with the Air National Guard.
“It takes advantage of the years of experience that the guardsmen have in training our young airmen while at the same time it exposes our young airmen to the guard operations,” said Air Force Col. Michael Vidal, commander of the 20th Maintenance Group at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, S.C., the active duty parent of the service members in Vermont.
There are similar programs under way at another base in South Carolina and one in Utah, Vidal said.
The program was conceived by Vermont Guard Maj. Gen. William Etter, who was just appointed to the staff of the chief of staff of the Air National Guard in Washington. And it was promoted by U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the co-chairman of the Senate’s National Guard Caucus.
Leahy saw the program as a way to help the Air Force and to help ensure the Vermont National Guard remained important enough to the Air Force that the South Burlington base wouldn’t be targeted for closing.
“It has helped cement the ties between the Air National Guard and the active Air Force,” Leahy said. “It can and should be a model now for the entire Air Force. I’d like to see the program expanded aggressively in Vermont and across the Air Guard.”
Last month, Leahy wrote a letter to Air Force Secretary Michael Wyne and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley, saying the Air Force had not followed through with an effective program.
“We are not surprised but we are disappointed,” said the letter signed by Leahy and co-chair Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo.
Working with the Air Guard doesn’t exempt active duty personnel in Vermont from overseas missions. Feller spent about six weeks in Iraq last year with the Vermont Guard’s 158th Fighter Wing, and he’s due to return again later this year.
Currently, there are 14 active duty Air Force personnel at the South Burlington base. Two are pilots, the rest are maintenance technicians, the majority young people new to the Air Force on their first tours after they completed technical training.
Vermont Guard Lt. Col. T.J. Jackman, who oversees the maintenance of the Vermont Guard’s 15 aircraft, said when the airmen arrived there was some concern the active duty airmen wouldn’t fit in with the guardsmen. But the two groups have blended well.
“We’re all Green Mountain Boys,” Jackman said, using the unit nickname that grew out of Vermont’s Revolutionary War militia led by Ethan Allen.
Air Force Master Sgt. Roger Harms, 35, originally from Clinton, Mo., is the noncommissioned officer in charge of the young airmen.
He and his wife like living in an area where crime is low and schools are good.
“It’s a real good place to raise a family,” Harms said.
For some of the young airmen, the quiet life of Vermont isn’t fast enough and the military opportunities too few, everything from the lack of low-priced military theaters to being able to work on a broader range of equipment than are available in Vermont.
Feller has been working on his own toward a bachelor’s degree so he can qualify for officer training and, eventually, pilot training.
“The family atmosphere here is awesome,” Feller said.
The airmen in Vermont are due to leave in the fall of 2008.
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