51st Fighter Wing Annual Awards Banquet 2019

51^st Fighter Wing Annual Awards Banquet = BEST NIGHT EVER! So every year, there is a tradition to highlight the different ranks in the Air Force at an annual award banquet. This annual award is a big deal, dressing up in mess dress, having a banquet dinner (that you pay for), and getting a chance to highlight other people and the great work they did during the year. For me it was also a way to get to be with some amazing friends, and two of mine here are both MSgt Paul Livaudais, and MSgt Dustin Schwartz. Now, I secretly have a huge crush on Dustin's 20 year career of accomplishments as an A-10 maintainer, and he truly is the best gear head I have ever known. Planes, Mustangs, doesn't matter, he can fix it. So when I look at all his medals from a career of awesomeness all I can say to him was: "Dustin, I love your rack." Thats what they are called btw, so NO I am not being inappropriate (well maybe a little). Man crush on the medals for sure.

In my unit, there are a lot of amazing people, but being the only guy that does what you do is both a burden and a blessing. The burden comes down to always being asked questions, or having to take on cases that are not within your scope of practice, etc. But with doing all I did with my team, we would submit for recognition in different categories throughout the year, and this year was amazing. 

Here is my unit family, from left to right Lt Col Wonil Chong (my fellow flight commander), Lt Col David Dennison (Our operations officer), MSgt Deonna Johnson (SNCO of the year nominee), my commander Col Brian Min, and my group commander Col Casey Campbell. Every one of these people had a hand in blessing my life here.

This year was amazing because I had the opportunity to win at the group level Field Grade Officer (FGO) twice, I won PACAF clinical dentist of the year, and all this set me up for the annual award. The package was then submitted to my unit, consisted in a form that required 12 lines of performance in your primary duty, then 4 lines of performance in the “whole airman” concept, highlighting things that you are doing outside of the normal day in and day out profession. 

I worked for hours on the package that I submitted, and won my squadron’s FGO of the year, making me eligible for the group award. After a rewrite of my awards package by my commander, Col Min, and Senior Master Sergeant Otilio Blanco, I went up against the group and some of my best friends here (fellow physicians, fellow flight commanders, etc). I won there, which was honestly the most amazing thing in my eyes, and a reflection of my team. This is a huge win for an officer to win anything. This made me eligible to then compete at the 51^stFighter Wing, against four other FGO’s. 

The tricky part was the timing. The awards banquet where the winners would be announced would be a whopping two days after my challenge of my oral board in the United States. I wanted to go so bad, so I arranged my flight to leave the night of my oral board. I finished my oral board exam, got dropped off back at the hotel, changed in the bathroom, went to the airport, got on a plane, flew 14 hours back, rode on a bus three hours, got home, saw my family, slept for 3 hours, then got up and got all dolled up with my smoking hot bestest friend ever (Heather), and went to the awards banquet. 

I was so tired, but it was amazing. Heather and I got to be there with Dustin and Corianne, and as a nominee you get to walk in under a tunnel of swords, and then be escorted to your table of honor. Just to be there as a nominee would have been enough, especially with how stunning Heather looked. She had the most amazing dress picked out by her sister and nieces in Utah, altered by our friend here Tracy Andreason to make it just the right length, and with shoes that looked like Cinderella's that I bought for her in Dallas just two days before.

I had so many people come up and congratulate me, and the majority of them weren’t even from my unit. They were just people that I had worked with or operated on, just amazing all the way around.

Finally it came down to my category, and when my name was read as: “And the winner is, from the 51^st Medical Group", the room exploded! Commanders of different squadrons stood up and cheered, their spouses stood up and yelled so loud that you couldn’t even hear my name being read. I stood up just amazed, and made my walk to the stage. The group commander that presented me the award, Col Montovani, walked over to the microphone and re-read my name since no one could hear it, then came back over and presented me the award.

The best part of all of this was Heather: when I got the award handed to me she yelled at the top of her lungs, “THAT’S MY HUSBAND YA’LL!” That was a moment to remember, for this award was her award too!

Col Montovani looked in the eye and said, “Kevin, well done. This is a big deal!” It was a big deal, big night, big moment, right at the end of completing the biggest exam of my life!
-Kevin