Photo By Maj. David Bedard | Alaska Air National Guard Tech. Sgt. Zacharie Abair, an air transportation craftsman...... read more read more
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BETHEL, Alaska — The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta Region of Alaska is approximately the size of the state of Louisiana. Despite its size and population of about 25,000 residents scattered across 48 communities, there isn’t a paved network of highways connecting outlying villages to the hub city of Bethel, so logistics can be complex and require much planning. Bethel, located near the Kuskokwim River about 60 miles downriver from the seacoast, is home to the Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center and its adjoining helicopter hangar, both critical logistical hubs for the Alaska Organized Militia’s ongoing response to the devastating impact of Typhoon Halong on the region. Put plainly, military logistics is the art of getting the right stuff to the right place at the right time. Working logistics for the response are Alaska Air National Guard Captains Megan Isom and Jennifer Dieken, both of 168th Wing. When Halong made landfall in early October, inundating villages with storm surge and battering them with hurricane-force winds, dozens of Alaska Organized Militia service members volunteered to deploy to the region to help fellow Alaskans in partnership with state agencies, regional organizations, tribal leadership, and community governments.
Those AKOM members needed a place to stay, and the Readiness Center – more commonly called the Bethel Armory – immediately expanded its capacity with pallet loads of cots streaming in on Air National Guard C-17 Globemaster IIIs along with extreme cold weather uniforms and building supplies. Isom said J-4 contracted with a Bethel food vendor to provide three hot meals a day. Additionally, the United Service Organizations chipped in to enhance service member morale. “I coordinate support with the USO, so they bring us all of our nicety items – the snacks, candy, coffee, and all of those good items that make service members feel good,” Isom said. Though they have plenty of fresh food to eat while staging in Bethel, Isom said AKOM members deployed to affected villages with Meals, Ready to Eat field rations that have been used by the U.S. military since 1981. However, several members reported being treated to home-cooked meals, including traditional Yupik food. Though Army National Guard Soldiers are well outfitted for cold weather operations through the Army Guard Central Issue Facility, other AKOM members have a mix of uniforms that are often fielded for temperate winter conditions in the Anchorage area. J-4 worked to ensure winter safety by stockpiling new uniform items for issuance to arriving responders. “How it looks when we’re outfitting members to go out on missions is I now have a team that works in the armory warehouse,” Isom said. “We now have [organizational clothing and individual equipment], or military-grade cold weather gear that we issue them to be prepared to go into the field.” Cold weather uniforms must stay clean and dry to function well, and Isom said a volunteer service at an area hotel provided a 24-hour turnaround laundry service when there were more than 100 AKOM members working out of the armory. Personal-protective equipment was also critical as AKOM members worked to “muck out” previously flooded homes before removing soaked insulation to be dried off site and then reinstalled to keep the homes warm for the long Alaska winter. As a state-led effort, Isom said J-4 routed requests for supplies and equipment through the State Emergency Operations Center, where the material was staffed, procured, and mobilized forward to Bethel. Dieken said there is a similar process for requisitioning supplies necessary for the communities to rebuild. At least two AKOM members have been working at the AVCP warehouse in Bethel, keeping a tight inventory to ensure shortages are filled ahead of time and to prevent a glut of low-demand supplies. Dieken said a great challenge for AKOM is using material-handling equipment and trucks to move supplies and equipment from warehouses down the flightline at the Bethel Airport to get the packaged goods to a military or civilian aircraft bound for a community in need. Isom said the effort required a highly skilled and trained ground operations crew comprising experienced vehicle and material-handling equipment operators. “They get dispatched to whichever location the required supplies are and bring it to a staging location for airlift whether that was the time when we had both the [CH-47F] Chinook and the [UH-60L/HH-60M] Black Hawks,” Isom said. “Obviously, the Chinook was used quite a bit because it can carry more cargo, and also the [Cessna 208] Caravans, which are the small cargo airplanes. So, they have to be competent drivers, competent forklift operators, competent ground operations personnel who are telling people where to pick up the items, where to drop them off, securing cargo safely to the back of a flatbed, offloading it safely, and staging it in an organized location so when it is ready to be put on an aircraft, it’s where it needs to be.” Isom and Dieken worked closely with numerous organizations across the state, focusing TF Bethel efforts to translate timely logistics into the help the discipline provides. “Everyone has a role to play in this big picture of complexity,” Isom said. “It’s pretty impressive when you have joint military forces collaborating and learning to work together, and then you add in multiple civilian organizations, all with the end goal of helping these communities to rebuild and get people back into their homes.”
| Date Taken: | 11.26.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 11.26.2025 19:20 |
| Story ID: | 552530 |
| Location: | ALASKA, US |
| Hometown: | BETHEL, ALASKA, US |
| Web Views: | 59 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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