F r i d a y , J u l y 1 0 , 2 0 1 5 T H E R E D 7 . n E T

Tom Simms sells hats to raise funds for veterans’s causes

Page 2

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Philpott............................6

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Alaskan expedition

7th Group Soldier part of team competing in adventure race | 4

From.staff.reports

Read to the RhythmEglin’s Integrated Learn-

ing Center (ILC) is planning a summer of fun activities and reading for children and teens of all ages. This year’s summer theme is “Read to the Rhythm” and features weekly story hours every Tuesday from June 8 to July 31. Story times will be held 9 a.m.-12 noon in the multi-purpose room at Family Child Care (Bldg 2579, the “bubble building” near Eglin Elemen-tary) and will feature music, crafts, and lots of fun activi-ties, with access to books for all ages. Register at the Hangar 3 ILC, located inside Bldg. 825 across from Eglin’s main Fitness Center, call 882-9308 or email eglinilc@gmail.com. Weekly prizes will be awarded throughout the program, and special events will be scheduled all summer long, including: Saturday Family Movies —July 11, 25; Air Armament Museum Tour — July 15; End-of-Summer Party — July 31 at the Eglin Youth Center.

Some events have lim-ited space and will require registration, which will open two weeks prior to the event date.

air expeditionary Families Night

Team Eglin members and their families are in-vited July 21 to the Bayview Club for a free family event featuring an information fair and children’s activities beginning at 4 p.m., followed by a spaghetti dinner at 5:30 p.m. Family activity areas will feature make-and-take crafts, LEGO building, ro-botic vehicles, and karaoke. There will also be live enter-tainment and the opportuni-ty to have free family photos taken in a patriotic setting. The event is designed to foster fun and fellowship, bringing unit leadership to-gether with their military and civilian families who have a member deployed, soon to deploy, or recently returned from deployment. Unit leadership will mark their assigned tables and

a prize will be awarded for the most creative marker or centerpiece. To attend, participants must register via their Unit Commander, Civilian Leaders, First Ser-geant, or Key Spouse by Tuesday, July 14. Event is limited to 300 participants. Casual civilian attire is appropriate.

Scream Free Parenting

Eglin’s Airman & Family Readiness Center is pleased to present “Scream Free Parenting” from 10 a.m. – noon July 14, 21 and 28. “Scream Free Parenting” is a free powerful parenting series designed to help par-ents and caregivers bring some calm to their world. Whether you’re at your wit’s end or just need a little more quiet in the chaos, this four-part parenting series empowers parents to take control of their parenting styles, own their emotions, and create boundaries when dealing with children. Class-es are held at Eglin Fam-

ily Child Care, Bldg. 2579 on Gafney Road. A graduation is planned for all participants. Call to register.

For information, contact Eglin’s Airman & Family Readiness Center at 882-9060 or 882-9061.

Summer Fun activities

Signups are underway now at the Eglin Youth

Center Monday through Friday, noon to 7 p.m. for summer youth activities. Classes include archery, art, performing arts, bas-ketball, cooking, drama, music, soccer, sewing, science, cheerleading,

Tae Kwon Do, dance, and many more. Class sizes are limited and registration is taken on a “first come, first serve” basis. For informa-tion, go to www.eglinforce-support.com/youth or call 882-8212.

Page 2 | THE RED 7 | Friday, July 10, 2015

Year No. 5 edition No. 28

The Red 7 is published by the Northwest Florida Daily News, a pri-vate firm in no way connected with the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) or the U.S. Army.

This publication’s content is not necessarily the official view of, or endorsed by, the U.S. govern-ment, the Department of Defense, the Depart-ment of the Army or 7th Special Forc-es Group (Airborne). The official news source for 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) is http://www.soc.mil/.

The appearance of advertising in this publication does not constitute endorsement by the U.S. govern-ment, the Department of Defense, the Department of the Army, 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) or the Northwest Florida Daily News for products or services advertised. Ev-erything advertised in this publication shall be made available for purchase, use or patronage without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national ori-gin, age, marital status, physical handi-cap, political affiliation or any other nonmerit factor of the purchaser, user or patron. Editorial content is edited, prepared and provided by the North-west Florida Daily News.

Mail2 Eglin Parkway nE,

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advertising863-1111 Ext. 1341

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By.KELLY.HUMPHREY

Northwest Florida Daily News

For the better part of 60 years, Tommy Simms has been serv-ing his country and his fellow veterans.

From 1955 to 1975 -- 19 years, 10 months and 14 days, if you ask Simms -- the Fort Walton Beach resident served in the Air Force. On his last day in the military, he took on another role.

“I retired at 10:30 in the morn-ing, and went to work at the DAV as a volunteer at 1 p.m.,” he said.

Serving his fellow veterans is second nature to Simms. In 2007, when he heard the Department of Veterans Affairs needed a van to transport local vet-erans to the VA medical facilities in Pensacola, he set about rais-ing funds for the project.

“I set up a table at the Golden Corral in Fort Walton Beach and started collecting do-nations,” he said. “Then I talked with Mark Shaw, the owner there, and we decided to get some hats to sell.”

The rest, as they say, is history.With Shaw’s support, Simms

set up a table inside the restau-rant, which he manned every day for several years. The effort raised enough money to help buy the VA van, as well as a couple of golf carts to help transport disabled veterans from the parking lot of the new facility at Eglin Air Force Base.

While he has cut back to just Saturdays and Sundays, Simms and his distinctive hats have be-

come something of an institution at the restaurant on Mary Esther Cut-Off.

“I wouldn’t be here without Mark and the folks at Golden Cor-ral,” Simms said. “They have been great to let me do this all these years.”

William Trent of Shalimar greeted Simms with a hearty handshake when he stopped by for his traditional Saturday morning breakfast last week.

“Where were you last week-end?” Trent asked. “I had my granddaughter with me, and she was looking for you!”

Simms was not feeling well that weekend and stayed home, which disappointed Trent’s granddaugh-

ter, who already owns seven of Simms’ hats.

Over the years, Simms’ hat sales have sup-ported the Disabled American Veterans’ memorial in Wash-ington, D.C., and continue

to assist with the coffee fund for patients at the Eglin VA facility. A disabled veteran himself, he is always eager to lend a hand to a veteran-related cause.

His current project is the Vet-erans Tribute Tower planned for Beal Memorial Cemetery. Over the past several months he has raised approximately $30,000 for the effort.

“He’s a bit gray on top, a bit slower getting around in that wheel chair, but he hasn’t laid down that sense of service for one second,” said Tom Rice, the chairman of the Veterans Tribute Tower project. “He is the kind of role model who stands the tallest in any crowd.”

A veteran’s veteranSince 2007, Tom Simms and Golden Corral have partnered to raise funds for veterans’ causes

Tommy Simms, left, shakes hands with William Trent (below) while selling veteran themed hats on Mary Esther Cut-Off.

NICK.TOMECEK.| Daily News

Tommy Simms has been selling veteran themed hats at Golden Coral since 2007. Simms uses the money he makes to donate to veteran causes, like the Veterans Tribute Tower.

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By.DAVID.VERGUN

Army News Service

SEWARD,.Alaska.— The Army Special Op-erations Recruiting Battalion Team finished

strong in the 378-mile Expedition Alaska Adventure Race, July 5.

The team crossed the finish in fourth place out of 20 teams in Seward, after seven days of ocean and flatwater kayaking, pack-raft-ing raging rivers, mountain biking and traversing multiple glaciers and high-mountain snowfields of the Kenai Peninsula - using just map and compass to guide them.

Completing the race were Maj. JD Eskelson, training of-ficer, 76th Operational Response Command, Salt Lake City; Capt. Amanda Rankin, group assistant intelligence officer, 7th Special Forces Group (A), Eglin Air Force Base; Sgt. 1st Class Josh Cowin, small-group leader for the Civil Affairs, Senior Leader Course, Fort Bragg, North Carolina; 1st Sgt. Ron Flick, first sergeant for the Special Forces Senior Leader Course at the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, Fort Bragg.

“The most important goal of Expedition Alaska isn’t just winning. It’s finishing together as a team,” said Flick, the team organizer. The goal is to “go into it as teammates and come out of it still as friends. That’s what we have definitely done here.”

“So that’s a big win regard-less of what the podium looks tomorrow afternoon,” said the self-described “avid adventure racer,” July 4, a day before the race ended.

Another important goal, he said, was to “show Expedition Alaska that Soldiers are mentally and physically tough and can en-dure it.”

Although it’s summer, the

team experienced brutal cold and gale-force winds crossing glaciers and mountain ridgelines, Flick said. They had to press on in these conditions at night in total darkness to try and stay ahead of the other teams.

At times, Rankin said she felt she might die, particularly when climbing the glaciers and falling. “Josh has caught me. I’ve caught Josh. JD has grabbed onto me multiple times,” she said, describ-ing how she and her teammates relied on each other not just to finish the race but to keep each other alive.

“Josh fell into a crevasse,” Flick said. “JD and Amanda stopped him from falling to his death with their rope.” That was in the middle of the night, after 20 hours of traversing the treacher-ous terrain of the Eklutna Glacier with no sleep.

“We still kept our wits about us, and that wasn’t the most har-rowing moment either,” he added, not discussing the worst.

It’s the same way in Iraq and Afghanistan, Flick said. When you’re out in remote areas, there’s no one there to help you out except for your teammates.

You have to have a really strong bond to do that.

When one person is suffer-ing, it’s the other teammate’s job to “build that person up and get them to the finish,” Flick said.

Everyone has their own par-ticular struggles and challenges, he continued. Some fear heights, others raging rivers, some may be weak on the biking portion. Then “you have physical highs and lows and you have mental highs and lows in this kind of race. You overcome all those through teamwork.”

Rankin said she realized she had a fear of heights when looking down a 60-degree slope she was free climbing without ropes and not seeing the bot-tom. She also admitted to never traversing a glacier and never scrambling across category five mountain ridgelines. Glaciers tra-

versed were the Eagle, Milk and Eklutna.

“At times we were free-climb-ing and gripping rocks only with our fingertips,” she said. “There was no room for failure and that was stressful. You had to be will-ing to unconditionally trust your teammates to keep you safe.”

The Army team came to the race at a distinct disadvantage. Flick said that they only put to-gether the final team roster a month before the race and a lot of their equipment was mailed to them just days prior.

“It’s rare for a rookie team to finish an expedition adventure race in this extreme environ-ment because the odds of that happening are not very high and stacked against them right from the start,” Eskelson said. “How-ever, to officially finish in fourth place is unheard of.”

Eskelson has been adventure racing for more than 13 years and said he is really proud of his new teammates and their “ability to persevere through all the highs and lows… all the way to the fin-ish line.” He noted that expedi-tion-length racing is considered any race taking longer than five days.

Flick summed up the personal challenge: “You learn a lot about yourself out there. When you hit your low points, you do a lot of self-reflecting.”

The pride of the team’s ac-complishments in this race is the same type of pride they feel as being part of the Army team.

The team was proud to an-nounce that at least one Soldier assigned to Joint Base Elmen-dorf-Richardson, who also par-ticipated in the race on a different team, spoke with them about their

experiences in special operations and said he is now committed to

attending Special Forces Assess-ment and Selection.

Soldiers finish strong in grueling Expedition Alaska Adventure Race

ARMY.SPECIAL.OPERATIONS.RECRUITING.BATTALION.TEAM

The Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion Team takes on a glacier.

ARMY.SPECIAL.OPERATIONS.RECRUITING.BATTALION.TEAM

The Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion Team passes a baby calved glacier.

DAVID.VERGUN.| Army News Service

The Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion Team gets fourth-place medals at the Seward Military Resort Pavilion, July 5, 2015. The Army-run resort also hosted a lunch for competitors from all teams.

ARMY.SPECIAL.OPERATIONS.RECRUITING.BATTALION.TEAM

The team crosses a stream.

ARMY.SPECIAL.OPERATIONS.RECRUITING.BATTALION.TEAM

The Army Special Operations Recruiting Battalion Team crosses one of many treacherous rivers.

what we needed to do to ensure we had a ready medical force, which means practitioners that could go as enablers in harm’s way for whatever operation was around the corner.”

Woodson noted military physicians must do some training not required of ci-vilians, which accounts for some the disparity in pro-cedures performed. Also, he said some base hospitals have low patient volumes but must be maintained, for example to support dangerous training at the Fort Irwin National Train-ing Center in the Mojave Desert where no other care is nearby.

“Those hospitals are always going to be needed and we’re going to have to send experienced practitio-ners there,” Woodson said. The challenge, he said, is not to keep physicians there so long that their skills erode.

“The small [military treatment facilities] and the ones with low volumes are not expected to, and will never be…allowed to do complicated procedures

like cardiac surgery or transplantation. But they do need to exist for routine care of the troops and mak-ing sure we have a medi-cally fit force.”

In some instances pre-serving medical readiness “means devising plans to redistribute personnel to [hospitals] where they are busier and importantly can recapture care, and the complexity of care, that will ensure their readiness,” Woodson said.

He said the draft plan to convert smaller hospitals to outpatient clinics is not driven solely by a need to preserve skills but also the changing nature of health care, which has been mi-grating to more outpatient care.

“Understand that the exact decisions require deeper analysis and input from the services and line” on “which hospitals are necessary for provid-ing care to troops who are training or in austere envi-ronments versus hospitals considered medical force readiness platform,” Wood-son said.

Why carry the overhead of anesthesia, respira-tory and x-ray support at base facilities that largely provide ambulatory care, he asked. Regarding the facility downsizing list now blocked by Congress, he said, “the whole idea was to ask the question again: Was there a readiness case issue for maintaining an in-patient facility and…a busi-ness case for doing it.”

The study of workload comparisons provided in-formation that needs to be combined with the latest force structure plans and “other line-driven priorities to define what is the right solution for military treat-ment facilities.”

Another factor weighed, said Woodson, is that some base health facilities were established 40 or 50 years before communities off base grew to provide enough medical capability

to support troops and their families.

“So all of these things are going into the analysis to decide how and where

to right size the MTFs,” Woodson said.

Next week: The sur-geons general react to the inpatient caseload data and

to commission recommen-dations for improving medi-cal readiness. And more too on the base hospitals eyed for downsizing.

The number of surger-ies and other inpatient procedures done on base by military physicians trails the inpatient workloads of private sector peers by wide margins, according to data comparisons run in support of a Defense Department study on mod-ernizing the military health system.

The inpatient workload at many bases is a readi-ness concern, which the surgeons general of Army, Navy and Air Force are try-ing to address with a vari-ety of initiatives to broaden the experience of active duty physicians.

The workload compari-son data helped to shape a Pentagon plan in spring 2014 to downsize at least eight and possibly 16 base hospitals to outpatient

clinics and move many doctors billets to larger base hospitals and medi-cal centers where they might recapture more chal-

lenging cases.Congress, however,

has put a hold on that shift until the MHS Moderniza-tion Study is complete, so lawmakers can review that workload data and other factors that drove the call to rebalance inpatient care.

Data highlighting the very low volume of inpa-tient care on base with pro-ductivity of civilian peers also was shared with the Military Compensation and

Retirement Modernization Commission, and influ-enced its recommendations to improve medical readi-ness including establishing a new four-star medical readiness command, which the surgeons general oppose.

As the commission learned, the department two-and-a half years ago began to measure work-loads at military treatment facilities including number of inpatient procedures done by each provider. Re-sults were compared to da-ta from the Medical Group Management Association, which tracks the median of inpatient procedures performed by providers nationwide.

For example, military emergency medicine physi-cians in the busy National

Capitol Region performed only 31 percent of the me-dian number of procedures done by civilian emergency medicine doctors. Another way to express that is these emergency docs carried caseloads at the 15.5 per-centile of civilian peers (31 percent of 50 percent), commissioners found.

Overall, the workload comparisons show mili-tary providers exceeding only one percent of civil-ian providers on inpatient procedures performed. For commissioners, the issue raised wasn’t physician efficiency but whether doc-tors are getting the cases needed to prepare for war-time missions.

Commissioners, in their visits to scores of military bases, reportedly heard from many doctors who

said they had to moonlight in civilian facilities just to maintain their skills. They learned too that the services increasingly as-signed physicians to some city shock trauma units for the same reason, or to land just-in-time critical training before wartime deployment.

That reinforced the commission’s view that many military treatment fa-cilities might be inadequate training platforms, as con-figured today.

In an interview Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assis-tant secretary of defense for health affairs, said the precise numbers shared here on inpatient workload procedures didn’t sound familiar to him. But he ac-knowledged workload com-parisons did show military

physicians, particularly in surgical specialties, below civilian caseload averages. He also agreed it’s desir-able to have them do more procedures and of greater complexity.

“So what we’re doing is refining the model. And what we are getting an-swers to is what level [of cases] do you need to really remain skilled and com-petent and current. And it’s going to be different if you’re fresh out of a resi-dency program or you’ve been in practice for 30 years and have done a lot of these procedures.”

He described the case-load comparisons that raised alarms with the commission as an “attempt at self analysis, to define

Page 6 | THE RED 7 | Friday, July 10, 2015 Friday, July 10, 2015 | THE RED 7 | Page 7

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By.BRYAN.THARPE

SFL TSM

Have you ever contem-plated attending a Job Fair, but thought, “Why bother; it’s only a waste of my time”? Well, you are not alone. Most job seekers rarely spend time attending job fairs for fear that there will be little or no return on their invest-ment. However, if you take time to properly prepare for Job Fairs, they can be very beneficial to your overall job search strategy.

Before attending the Job Fair, you should get a list of all employers attending. Most Job Fair promoters will make this list available 2 to 3 weeks prior to the event, depending upon the number of participants. From this list, you should research the com-panies to gain a thorough un-derstanding of their products and services. Once you are familiar with the participants, choose the employers that in-terest you the most and make a checklist to use at the job fair. By researching the com-panies and creating a “defi-

nitely visit” list, you reduce your idle time at the Job Fair.

Make sure you have your “Job Fair” resume in order and plan to take many cop-ies. The number of copies you should take may vary, depending upon the number of employers attending the fair. You need a copy for each employer on your “definitely visit” list and several extra. In addition, you may want to complete an application and take it with you. It is much quicker to simply copy the in-formation than to spend time trying to remember phone numbers and addresses. Also, take several blue and black ink pens. Employers may require that you com-plete applications in a par-ticular color.

Finally, make sure you are dressed appropriately. Dress as if you were going on an interview. Wear a suit, groom yourself and take a portfolio with your information neatly organized. It is appropriate to wear your military uniform if the job fair is being held on a military installation. Do not dress casually; this may send

the message that you are not a serious job seeker.

Not all Job Fairs are alike. There are several types of Job Fairs including Technical; Professional; General; and Industry Specific. Depending upon the type of career you are seeking, you will need to target the appropriate type of Job Fair. In addition, many Job Fairs offer free or very low cost admission to job seekers.

If you are an active Job Fair participant you should come away with very valu-able information, even if you do not “land” a job. You should leave the Job Fair with a good knowledge of company policies, hiring practices, and products. Furthermore, you should have a better under-standing of job requirements and industry standards.

Job Fairs can expose you to many potential employers in a short amount of time. They can provide you with additional access to the “hid-den job market,” and they can help you refine your networking skills – if you are prepared!

Make job fairs pay off