A new commander of LI National Guard rescue unit
October 4, 2009 By KEITH HERBERT
[email protected]
Photo credit: Audrey C. Tiernan | Brigadier General Jams W. Kwiatkowski, Commander, NY Air National Guard presents Colonel Thomas J. Owens II the 106th flag to formally signify during the change of command at the Air National Guard 106th rescue wing. (Oct. 4, 2009)
An Iraq war veteran and F-16 fighter pilot took command of the 1,000-person New York Air National Guard 106th Rescue Wing based in Westhampton Beach Sunday.
Col. Thomas J. Owens II is now the top officer of the 106th Rescue Wing, which is based at Francis S. Gabreski Airport. The wing rescues allied forces behind enemy lines.
Owens, 48, took control following a change-of-command ceremony at the airport. The outgoing commander is Col. Michael F. Canders, whose next assignment will be commander of the 447th Air Expeditionary Group at Sather Air Base outside Baghdad, Iraq.
Canders, who in 2005 led the rescue wing to Louisiana where it rescued 161 people during Hurricane Katrina, had served as the 106th Rescue Wing commander since 2002.
"This is an extremely exciting day," Owens said after the ceremony, which involved the passing of the wing's flag from the outgoing commander to the incoming one. "To be a wing commander in today's Air Force is an absolute honor."
The ceremony was held in an airplane hangar at the airport, with a HC-130 transport plane and a HH-60 Pavehawk rescue helicopter providing a backdrop.
Owens, a graduate of Cornell University, has served as second in command of the 174th Fighter Wing based in Syracuse since 2007. He and his wife, Karen Hays Owens, will be relocating to Long Island.
Owens took over the National Guard unit on a deadly weekend for U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. In one of the fiercest battles of the Afghan war, hundreds of militant fighters from an Afghan village attacked remote outposts and eight U.S. soldiers were killed. As many as seven Afghan forces were also killed.
If needed, Owens said the 106th Rescue Wing would be ready for deployment. "We're always ready," Owens said. "I'm confident our senior leaders, our military leaders and especially the president, are going to be able to make the right decisions for what's best for the country and what's best for the whole world."
Brig. Gen. James W. Kwiatkowski, commander of the New York Air National Guard, praised Owens and his predecessor as "two outstanding officers passing the torch of leadership."
