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MDAA Alert: Alaska Missile Defender of the Year 2024

October 3, 2024
Alaska Missile Defender of The Year, Anchorage, Alaska, September 28, 2024

Dear Members and Friends,      

In honor and recognition of our Nation’s homeland missile defense keeping all 50 states defended against a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile, the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance held our 9th Alaska Missile Defender of the Year Award Ceremony in Anchorage, Alaska on Saturday, September 28, 2024. This recognition of our best of the best military operators in the ground-based missile defense system deployed in Alaska over the past year joined our momentous “Think Big Go Fast” campaign dedicated to the anniversary of 20 years of GMD operations for the defense of the United States of America which we celebrated at Fort Greely, Alaska on September 30, 2024. The event, our 77th Missile Defender of the Year honored our Nation’s best Missile Defense crews that operate and defend the 40 Ground Based Interceptors at Fort Greely, Alaska and operate the Upgraded Early Warning Radar at Clear Space Base, Alaska.   

In today’s world and what happened this week to Israel, it is of assurance and comfort for our nation and to the world that the United States of America is defended from nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, our 2024 Alaska Missile Defenders:

Echo Crew, Fire Direction Center

First Lieutenant Trent Bishop 49th Missile Defense Battalion

SSG Van A. Lugo Vazquez 49th Missile Defense Battalion

First Lieutenant Austyn Haider 49th Missile Defense Battalion

Major Gilberto Ortiz 49th Missile Defense Battalion

Sergeant Nickolas K. Goolsby 49th Missile Defense Battalion

GBI Security Company

Sergeant Carlos A. Regalado 49th Missile Defense Battalion

Sergeant First Class Colton Spradlin 49th Missile Defense Battalion

Mission Support Element Crew

Technical Sergeant Richard R. Seeger III 213th Space Warning Squadron

Technical Sergeant Gabriel Ramirez 213th Space Warning Squadron

Captain Anthony Austin Deppe 213th Space Warning Squadron

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Mission Statement

MDAA’s mission is to make the world safer by advocating for the development and deployment of missile defense systems to defend the United States, its armed forces and its allies against missile threats.

MDAA is the only organization in existence whose primary mission is to educate the American public about missile defense issues and to recruit, organize, and mobilize proponents to advocate for the critical need of missile defense. We are a non-partisan membership-based and membership-funded organization that does not advocate on behalf of any specific system, technology, architecture or entity.

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