LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
The 480th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing received the Air Force Citation of Honor by Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz.
The award, given annually, recognizes outstanding Air Force units that make unsurpassed contributions to national defense.
The wing earned the recognition while providing worldwide strategic and contingency intelligence operations.
"Winning this award means a tremendous amount to the men and women of this wing and the partnerships we've cemented with other services, Air National Guard, and the greater intelligence community," said Col. Daniel R. Johnson, commander of the 480th ISR Wing. "It only validates our vision of being a learning organization that values continuous improvement every day."
Some of the unit's contributions to warfighters include providing more than 6,000 intelligence products to provide protection to the troops, analyzing data that led to the capture of more than 100 insurgents, identifying pending attacks on convoys in theater, foiling attacks on bases and discovering weapons caches.
"I can't tell you how impressed I am with the Airmen of this wing," said Colonel Johnson. "I am reminded each day of ISR operators working contingency operations around the globe with not much fanfare but a whole lot of impact on operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Korea along with support to theater engagement activities--our Airmen truly understand their nation's call and continue to meet the demands of 24/7, 365 day distributed ISR ops."
In the midst of its support to combat operations, the 480th ISR Wing Airmen have seen growth and change in the wing.
In 2008, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates called for more ISR assets in theater, which produces more data to analyze.
In addition to providing warfighter support, the wing assists with search and rescue for civil operations and nation-building efforts in the Middle East.
The Citation of Honor award is one of several awards for excellence recently earned by the 480th ISR wing.
The wing received the 2009 Gen. George C. Kenney Award for lessons learned for its Sentinel Focus event, which occurs every six months with the goal of continually improving the weapon system to better support the warfighter.