Mission complete

Published June 8, 2011
By Staff Sgt. Andrew Caya
914th Airlift Wing Public Affairs

NIAGARA FALLS AIR RESERVE STATION, N.Y. -- This past unit training assembly weekend, the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station bid farewell to a friend, mentor, warrior and leader.

A ceremony was held for 914th Airlift Wing Vice Commander Col. Mark P. Murphy as he is slated to retire from the United States Air Force on July 1, this year.

After spending 30 years of service in the United States Air Force Reserve, here at the Niagara Falls ARS, Col. Murphy leaves a legacy which is unparalleled in many aspects because of his positive and practical leadership style as well as the way he treated and took care of his troops, officer and enlisted.

"As his First Sergeant, it was a rollercoaster ride, it was awesome," said 914th Airlift Wing Command Chief Master Sgt. Scott Scharlau, speaking of his days when he was the 328th Airlift Squadron First Sergeant and Colonel Murphy was the commander.

"He was one of the best commanders I've ever met; his concern for the enlisted as well as the officers was just unbelievable," added Chief Scharlau. "Colonel Murphy always puts everybody before himself. He has a keen mind and he's always thinking... he's always thinking about how to improve the processes and improve the systems and make life better for everybody, not just for Airmen in his unit, but for the wing as a whole."

It was the Colonel's mentality of ensuring his troops were ready for anything and everything that inspired his men to more than willingly follow him into danger.

328th Airlift Squadron Tactics Officer Maj. Anthony Wilmot, deployed and flew C-130's multiple times with Col. Murphy during the Global War on Terror. Maj. Wilmot stated that during one deployment half of the squadron was granted the option of going back to the U.S. and Col. Murphy asked all of his Airmen if they wanted to go home or stay in the area of operation.

"Colonel Murphy asked me if I wanted to go home or stay," said Major Wilmot. "He said, 'I'm staying' and I said, 'then I'm staying.' "

Major Wilmot stated that Colonel Murphy is extremely proactive about everything he does. With Colonel Murphy, the mentality is never negative; the job will get done. The squadron was never comfortable being stagnate; the Airmen were always working to make things better.

Colonel Murphy always looked for a way to make deployed life better for his troops, whether they were acquiring supplies for a barbeque, setting up tents for incoming Airmen to the AOR or renovating the decrepit flying operations building.

Chief Scharlau stated on a past deployment during the holiday season, the Airmen walked into their work center and found that Colonel Murphy had decorated it so it looked like an American living room on Christmas day. Every single Airman had a stocking with a piece of candy or trinket the member liked, placed in there by a Santa-suited Colonel Murphy.

Stateside, Colonel Murphy did much more for the troops than these simple yet appreciated gestures.

"He has put the enlisted corps first and foremost, making sure we get the education we need, ensuring we are focused on our career and we are getting the mentoring we need," said Chief Scharlau. "He is probably the sole focus that started a very strong push on education. He single-handedly went out into the community and made arrangements with different colleges and universities and now we have Buffalo State College coming on base and teaching courses for our Airmen. He would like to see the entire enlisted corps earn their bachelors degree."

The Chief went on to say that Colonel Murphy took the welfare of his troops even a step further by setting up programs for employment.

"He's not just looking at the education of the enlisted corps and getting them their Community College of the Air Force degrees for their promotions; he came up with the idea and did a lot of legwork getting civilian and government employers to come on base and hold a career fair just for our reservists to try and get them employment," exclaimed Chief Scharlau

"Colonel Murphy has been here 30 years. As vice wing commander, he knows just about everyone on base and he's had a positive effect on their careers. He's going to be hard to replace and he's going to be missed," added the Chief.

"It doesn't matter what an Airman's AFSC or job was, he had a way of inspiring people to get them moving," said Major Wilmot.

When Colonel Murphy wasn't focused on his troops, he was working on and involved in other issues.

"If there was anything that was going on with the base, you would see Colonel Murphy out in front, leading the charge," said Chief Scharlau.

"Working with the people, the adventure of what we were doing and the opportunity to be part of something that was bigger than yourself... I had an opportunity here at Niagara to get involved in many things that gave outstanding work experience that helped me later to get promoted. I didn't do those jobs to get promoted, I do it because I was interested in being involved in the units," said Colonel Murphy.

The colonel has a very fierce pride of his enlisted Airmen. He has a very humble attitude despite being second in command of an entire wing.

"Working with the enlisted corps on this base is an honor. We have a very dedicated force I believe to be outstanding," said Col. Murphy. That's not just coming from me, Air Force Reserve Command also sees that our Airmen are outstanding and we've seen that through the inspections we've done and the individual awards and accolades that our members have earned over the years. I look at everyone on the base as a leader and an asset to our country in the defense of this nation.- It doesn't matter if you have no stripes on your shoulder or if you wear an eagle on your collar, I think they all have the same potential."

As he prepares to leave, Colonel Murphy stresses taking care of your troops and teaching your job to the Airman below you.

"We have a large number of people who are right out of high school and have no military experience and I looked at it as our responsibility to take care of them because we are a family," said Colonel Murphy. "It was our duty and responsibility to teach these young troops about the history and heritage of the 914th Airlift Wing and the Air Force in general and teach them the utility of learning their Air Force combat skills and becoming instructors, mentors and teachers to their unit around them so they can move up and become involved in other areas of the base that help broaden their military education and promotions."

The Colonel believes the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station is well situated for any BRAC determinations and will be a premier training center for the Air Force Reserve and New York State for years to come.

The association between the Air National Guard's 107th Airlift Wing and Air Force Reserve's 914th Airlift Wing is healthy and will continue to grow as the units build new facilities, combine like-squadrons together, increase efficiencies and save the government money. This base will continue to become a model for the rest of the nation to look at, he said.

With all the effort he put into the installation and the Airmen here, 30 years did not seem like a very long time, according to Colonel Murphy.

"It went by fast, like a blink of an eye. It really snuck up on me; it was over faster than I thought it would be. The past ten years have been very busy, and that time flew by", said Colonel Murphy. "We always had interesting things happening here at Niagara and that was a big reason why it was always fun to come to work here."

Colonel Murphy stated that this is not a forever good-bye and that the Airmen of Niagara have not seen the last of him.

"It's hard to walk away from anything you have been doing for a long period of time and this has been more than 30 years for me and no matter where the 914th goes or what the 914th does, they will always be in my heart and I'll stop by the base once in a while," he said with a smile.

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Mission complete!

Mission complete