On Patrol

Charlotte Motor Speedway officials last month announced the Welcome Home Our Troops pre-race show for the Coca-Cola 600. Photo by Harold Hinson for Charlotte Motor SpeedwayBefore the drivers start their engines, they will first thank some veterans.

On Memorial Day weekend, while the nation pauses to honor the sacrifices of generations of Americans, NASCAR—that most patriotic of sporting organizations—is hosting what it calls the World’s Biggest Memorial Day Celebration during Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Pre-race festivities include a pizza party for up to 10,000 military members and their families, flyovers featuring vintage military aircraft and an American bald eagle circling the infield during the national anthem.

Among the numerous promotions leading up to the race was the opportunity for fans to purchase a $25 ticket for a member of the military. As much as 10 percent of the crowd at the 140,000-capacity speedway could be military members and their families, according to a USA Today story this week.

"These guys have been out there with their lives on the line for America and for freedom, and what's it to us to provide a great time to them?" Marcus Smith, Charlotte Motor Speedway president and general manager, told the paper.

Several cars, including fan favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s No. 88 National Guard Chevrolet, will feature special patriotic paint schemes.

Army Sergeant Zach Smola, rear door gunner on a CH-47, keeps watch last week on the mountains in Uruzgan province, Afghanistan. Army photo by Sergeant Jessi Ann McCormick

Army Sergeant Mathew Gilling provides security on top of a barrier last week in the village of Hesarak in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. Army photo by Specialist Vang Seng Thao

During the busy season of military transfers, adjusting to new communities and registering children for school, more than 2,000 museums across the nation will open their doors, free of charge, to service members and their families as a break from the summer challenges, a Defense Department official said Tuesday.

From Memorial Day through Labor Day, all active-duty service members, National Guardsmen and reservists and their families can take advantage of this cultural and educational opportunity in all 50 states.

“It’s an exciting, inspiring, educational and economical activity for our families to enjoy this summer,” said Navy Commander Leslie Hull-Ryde, a Pentagon spokeswoman.

Launching its fourth year in a news conference today at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the 2013 Blue Star Museums Program is a collaboration among the Defense Department, Blue Star Families, the National Endowment for the Arts and the museums to give service members and their families a way to spend time together in their local museums.

“After long deployments, rigorous training schedules and very long hours, our time with our families is very limited and extremely precious to us,” Hull-Ryde said. “We are so grateful [to have] these programs. This program is an investment in our families.”

A record number of museums are participating this year. The program began in 2010 with free access to about 600 museums, while this year’s 2,000 is a figure that’s still growing, Blue Star Families and NEA officials said.

“This program is helping us make memories—memories for our families,” Hull-Ryde said. “But it’s more than that. It is making a difference not only in the force of today, but in the force of the future.”

An Air Force pararescueman prepares to rappel down from a HH-60G Pave Hawk earlier this month over the Grand Bara Desert, Djibouti. The 449th Air Expeditionary Group regularly conducts training in support of Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Nicholas Byers

Nature’s fury shifted its focus from Texas, where 16 tornadoes killed at least six and injured dozens May 16, to Moore, Oklahoma, yesterday.

The Moore tornado, preliminarily classified as an F4, hit the city Monday at 4:01 p.m. EDT. Initial reports were that 51 were dead and many more injured with and those numbers expected to increase. Tuesday morning brought some better news, though. The death toll was lowered to 24, including nine children, though it could rise as the clean up continues.

For residents of Moore, the storm hit just 17 days after the 14th anniversary of an even more powerful tornado, an F5 that killed 26 and injured 295.

When tragedies like these hit, confusion can reign. Family members may be OK, but not reachable because phone lines are down or over burdened. Understandably, children who experience a storm – whether first-hand or via news reports – can be shaken and confused.

To help with these situations and more, DOD Live has compiled a list of resources, including a link to the Red Cross Database where individuals who can’t reach loved ones can list themselves as “safe and well” or family members can list names of those family members unaccounted for.

For more information, please visit DOD Live.

Nearly 250 members of the Oklahoma National Guard were assisting Tuesday with victim search and security in Moore, Oklahoma, where a monster tornado left at least 51 dead, including 20 children, authorities said.

The twister hit Monday afternoon when children were still in two elementary schools in the Oklahoma City suburb.

The tornado, packing winds of up to 200 mph, tore off the roof of Plaza Towers Elementary School and pulverized walls. Volunteers joined first responders who helped rescue children and staff from the devastation, the Associated Press reported.

Governor Mary Fallin activated the airmen and soldiers on Monday. Among those responding was the 146th Air Support Operations Squadron from nearby Will Rogers Air National Guard Base in Oklahoma City.

Second Lieutenant Gabriel Bird said the unit members carried thermal imaging gear to help locate those buried in rubble.

“Hopefully, we’ll find survivors,” Bird said.

Members also carried multi-band radios to communicate with ground and aircraft crews and basic medical supplies, Bird said.

“We’re a pretty new unit so we haven’t supported any state emergencies,” Bird said, but noted that many members are veterans who themselves have supported other disaster-recovery operations.

A young girl waits for her father, a soldier in the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), to be released from a formation last week at a welcome home ceremony at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Army photo by Sergeant Duncan Brennan

Sailors from the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis march through the streets of Bremerton, Washington, during Saturday’s Armed Forces Day Parade. Stennis recently returned from an eight-month deployment in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and continued theater security cooperation efforts. Navy photo by Seaman Jose L. Hernandez

Midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2016 conduct early morning physical training and obstacle course maneuvers on the shore of the Severn River as part of the U.S. Naval Academy Sea Trials. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Todd Frantom

Army National Guard Staff Sergeant Jesse Mullinax swings across a pit using rope on Victory Tower on Fort Jackson, South Carolina, during the Region 3 Best Warrior Competition at the McCrady Training Center. Air National Guard photo by Staff Sergeant Jorge Intriago

Navy Chief Petty Officer Jay Okonek, left, and Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Blase guide pilots as they fill a 360-gallon Bambi bucket to help extinguish fires near Naval Base Ventura County's base housing at Point Mugu, California, on May 3. Navy photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Chris Fahey

Joseph "Joey" C. Smith, a member of the Marine Corps team, is competing in shooting and swimming events during the 2013 Warrior Games in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Army photo by David VergunIn 2005, former Marine and now-retired Army Sergeant Joseph “Joey” C. Smith lay in a Veterans Affairs hospital, wracked with pain. He watched other wounded veterans around him suffering, many despondent and without hope.

He was at the lowest point in his life.

A year earlier, he had been at a remote forward operating base in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment when he was injured. He was working alongside Afghan soldiers around some storage containers. He said two of the Afghans climbed onto the roof of one of the containers and intentionally pushed another container on top of him.

For the next four years, he transferred among multiple hospitals where he underwent three surgeries on his spinal cord, as well as one on his leg. Doctors told him he was lucky to be alive.

He also lost the use of his voice for those four years, but using pen and paper, he wrote just a few words that he said helped to inspire other wounded warriors in that hospital as well as himself.

The Marine Corps later adopted what he wrote as their own “Creed of the Wounded Warrior,” and the words quickly spread, inspiring countless others.

“Though I am wounded, I will always be a warrior. I will never give up, nor quit in the face of adversity. I will do my best in all that I do and achieve. I will not allow my injuries to limit me, and most of all, I will never forget my fallen comrades or leave a fellow injured warrior behind,” reads the creed.

That such a simple message as this inspired so many is amazing, he said.

Following his hospitalization, Smith followed his creed to “do my best in all that I do and achieve” by entering the 2010 Warrior Games, the first year of that competition. He competed in shooting, swimming, cycling and archery. At the games, the athletes are all wounded, ill or injured veterans and service members.

Smith has returned every year since and this week he’s competing in the shooting and swimming events at the Olympic Training Center and U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He said the intense interservice and interpersonal rivalries really motivate the athletes, but “at the end of the day, it’s one team, one fight,” meaning that they are all friends who are helping each other through the healing process.

Things have been looking up for Smith, who said he plans to return to the games in the future.

In 2010, he and his wife, Debbi, received a special gift. Homes for Our Heroes, a nonprofit organization, donated a wheelchair-accessible home for them in Thomasville, N.C. He said words can’t describe how much that meant to them.

During the competitions this week, some 400 members of the media from around the world are covering the games, outnumbering the athletes nearly 2 to 1.

Smith said he thinks that is “awesome” and that he hopes the media will get the word out to the world about what it means to be a wounded warrior and how they are all trying hard to rebuild their lives, assisting one another, despite the suffering they have endured.

Marines fire an M777 A2 howitzer during exercises at the Combat Center's Quakenbush Training Area in Twentynine Palms, California, in late April. Marine Corps photo by Corporal William J. Jackson

Air Force General Philip BreedloveNavy Admiral James StavridisNATO’s focus will remain squarely on Afghanistan as Air Force General Philip Breedlove succeeds Navy Admiral James Stavridis as the alliance’s supreme allied commander, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Monday.

On a cool, windy day in Mons, Belgium, Rasmussen passed the colors of Supreme Allied Command Operations from Stavridis to Breedlove. Rain threatened, but never materialized.

NATO is the heart and soul of the 50-nation coalition in Afghanistan, the secretary general said, and the alliance has been involved since the formation of the International Security Assistance Force.

“On your watch,” he said to Breedlove, “Afghan forces will be taking full responsibility for the security of their own country, and ISAF will complete its combat mission–as planned–at the end of 2014. You will help shape a new and NATO-led mission to train, assist and advise Afghan forces after 2014.”

But the alliance is more than the war in Afghanistan, Rasmussen noted. NATO forces also serve off the Horn of Africa to deter piracy, patrol the Mediterranean Sea, serve in Kosovo and patrol the Baltic Sea. NATO forces deployed to Turkey are protecting that ally from Syrian missiles, he said.

These are demanding operational tasks, the secretary general said, but Breedlove also must complete the reform of NATO’s command structure to make it “leaner, more effective and more affordable.” Rasmussen expressed confidence in Breedlove’s ability to meet the challenge.

The secretary general then turned to Stavridis, the first admiral to hold the position. Rasmussen said the Stavridis “has navigated these uncharted waters with great skill.”

Rasmussen said the secret of the admiral’s success lies with his philosophy that the security of the future should be built by bridges, rather than walls. In Afghanistan, Stavridis built bridges among NATO allies, coalition partners and the Afghan government, he said.

“Your bridge-building skills were also evident in 2011 when NATO responded to a United Nations call and deployed a force in record time to protect the people of Libya,” Rasmussen said. “You have also stayed focused on the strategic horizon and NATO and [Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe] have benefited from your innovation.”

During his time at the headquarters, Stavridis established a comprehensive crisis management center and an alliance special operations headquarters. And he has reached out, Rasmussen said.

“You have blogged and you have tweeted to help explain the value of our alliance and to sustain political and public support for what we do,” the secretary general said to the admiral.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, Rasmussen presented Stavridis with the NATO Meritorious Service Medal. The admiral will retire from the Navy and become the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.