Hickam officer wins honor

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

Air Force Lt. Col. Donald T.R. Derry had the same reaction that a lot of U.S. troops had when he learned he was being deployed to Kyrgyzstan.

Air Force Lt. Col. Donald T.R. Derry, left, who recently was awarded a Bronze Star for work in Kyrgyzstan, meets with Staff Sgt. Mark Lash at Ganci Air Base. Derry now heads the 15th Security Forces Squadron at Hickam Air Force Base. Air Force

Derry learned fast — not only where the former Soviet republic is located, but also how to get things done in a country in which 55 percent of the people live below the poverty line, illegal markets and bribery are a way of life, and Cold War resentment of the United States lingers.

Derry's 822nd Security Forces Squadron, a rapid response unit out of Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta, Ga., had the job of maintaining security for an eight-country coalition force that had grown from 100 people in February to 2,000 troops by the time he left in June.

Ganci Air Base, near the capital of Bishkek, played a key role as a base for fighter, tanker and cargo operations into Afghanistan.

"The people were coming in basically before we were ready to receive them," Derry said. "We would build a tent in 'tent city,' and as soon as the tent was built, 12 people would go in there immediately."

But the security forces commander, who is now head of the 15th Security Forces Squadron at Hickam Air Force Base, always stayed ahead of the curve.

And for that, Derry, 39, received the Bronze Star.

Achieving excellence

The citation, presented by Air Force Secretary James Roche during a recent visit to Hickam, notes that despite the challenges of a "bare base configuration" and sub-zero temperatures, Derry and his 200-person squadron "rapidly and effectively secured a highly complex location, sited at the nation's primary international airport, providing the war fighters a safe and secure environment to conduct combat sorties into Afghanistan."

The award also states that Derry's actions enabled the secure handling of more than 1,400 tons of cargo, 750 combat sorties, the refueling off-load of more than 5 million pounds of fuel, and the delivery of 46 laser-guided munitions during Operation Anaconda.

Derry also was singled out for 'developing the protection plan for base visitors including the secretary of defense, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Spain's Army and Air Force chiefs of staff, and defense chiefs from four countries.

"I didn't do anything," Derry said last week. "I just happened to be in charge of a bunch of good people that did a lot of right things and I was happy to be there in charge of them."

But he admits his job came with its share of headaches.

Getting past Cold War

For one, the Americans — and Derry in his role as liaison to local airport security personnel and police officials in the nearby capitol of Bishkek — had to overcome lingering Cold War doubts.

"(The people were) very skeptical of us at first. They heard the war stories, all the propaganda, especially the older folks, about how the ugly Americans were," Derry said. "It was very hard for us initially to break that paradigm ... (to let them know) we're actually very nice people, and we're all here to do a specific mission, and we're all against terrorism."

Taking part in the first U.S. mission of its kind in the former Soviet republic was not lost on Derry, either.

"I never would have thought when I joined the Air Force back in 1982 that I would be defending an air base in the former Soviet Union," Derry said.

Before the Soviet Union's collapse, Manas International Airport, which is 200 miles from the Chinese border, had been a fighter-bomber base for long-range "Bear" bombers. Within the airport is Ganci Air Base, which was named after New York City Fire Chief Peter J. Ganci Jr., who was killed when the second tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

One of Derry's successes was negotiating with the Kyrgyz government and through the American Embassy for rights to patrol five square kilometers around the air base.

"Every time an airplane took off or landed, based on the postulated threat at the time, we were concerned that those planes were going to be shot down with surface-to-air missiles," Derry said.

Marine Corps F/A-18 and French Mirage 2000 fighters were among those based at Ganci, and C-17, C-5 and C-130 planes crisscrossed the region. Between 15 and 25 sorties were being launched every day.

"So what we did was we actively patrolled through those 16 towns on a frequent basis, primarily with foot patrols — first of all to let our presence be known that if there were bad guys looking at us, we were occupying the area by force," Derry said.

The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a terrorist group linked by President Bush to the Taliban, has made incursions into Kyrgyzstan in recent years.

Derry said terrorists — some actually affiliated with al-Qaida, some merely sympathizers — were working in and around Ganci.

Information-gathering threats were identified, he said, but there were no attacks on Ganci forces.

Learning the system

Gaining the trust of the Kyrgyz people was key to maintaining that security, and that brought an education of its own for Derry.

That included the delicate art of refusing a toast of vodka when meeting.

"We don't sit down and talk; we sit down and have some vodka and toast our fathers and our father's father, and we break the ice," Derry said. "Well, we were not allowed to drink. They found that very odd, and you had to diplomatically get your way out of that situation."

In the former Soviet republic, Derry also found a country left dirt poor and struggling with democracy since the Soviet pullout in 1991.

Bishkek is a large metropolitan city, but in 16 villages around the airport, people lived in shanties of corrugated tin and wood, Derry said.

Derry also learned the ins and outs of Kyrgyzstan's bribery and kickback practices when it came to building new taxiways and ramps for fighters and transport aircraft.

"We hired every single dump truck in the country of Kyrgyzstan — 250 — to build an extension to our parking area and weapons storage area," Derry recalls.

But that bypassed the civilian airport security that made its living on kickbacks.

"So every time there was a refusal of somebody to pay a kickback, the whole operation, as far as construction, came to a screeching halt, and you would have 250 dump trucks in a row in a massive confrontation," Derry said.

Despite these challenges, Derry said "morale was as high as high could be."

"The reason was we were breaking new ground," he said. "It was the first time Americans had ever gone in (to Kyrgyzstan) and established an operation like that, so everyone had a lot of pride."

Derry said that early hard work has paid off for coalition troops that have followed.

"Once we established that relationship, everything was on an even keel," he said. "The relations we left were very good."

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.