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The Wall to the North

May 20, 2019
Winners and presenters at the 2019 Alaska Missile Defender of the Year Award Ceremony in Anchorage, Alaska on May 18, 2019.

Dear Members and Friends,

The vast area of Alaska and its defenders is our wall of defense against the threats that come over the top of the Arctic to shape, influence, and strike at our democracy in North American to include the 48 United States to the south. The wall is made up of sensors facing the Arctic from Eareckson Air Station on Shemya in the Aleutian Island chain in the far west to Clear Air Force Station at the base of Mt. McKinley. The wall is further hardened by 40 ground-based interceptors at Fort Greely behind the Alaska Range. These armaments of the wall are operated, defended, and maintained at 97 percent reliability and readiness 24/7, 365 days a year by the National Guardsman of Alaska and the active components of the United States Army and Air Force. They are the night’s watch for North America.

We honored them in recognition of their devout duty and excellence of leadership of this past year in defending the United States against North Korean missiles on Saturday in Anchorage, Alaska. Paving the way for the excellence of leadership in missile defense in Alaska is the Senator Ted Stevens Memorial recipient and the first female to earn this award is Sergeant First Class Caroline Domenech. The 2019 Alaska Missile Defenders of the Year are:

Clear AFS Base Defenders

Staff Sergeant Joshua Marugg

Technical Sergeant David Davis

COBRA DANE Awardee

Technical Sergeant Justin Hart

Clear AFS Top Crew

Master Sergeant Chad Petrie

Captain Michael Harvey

Captain Micah Hanauer

Fort Greely Base Defenders

Specialist Sychelle Gonsalves

Staff Sergeant Elvin Martes

Fort Greely Top Crew (Bravo Crew)

Sergeant Angel Perez

Staff Sergeant John Sorrells

Staff Sergeant Austin McNamee

First Lieutenant Ryan Hairston

First Lieutenant Justus Neumann

Captain Kurtiss Clark

Ted Stevens Memorial Awardee

Sergeant First Class Caroline Domenech

 

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system is the bright shiny object, that is the light high on the top of the world to defend and protect democracy from totalitarianism and dictatorships.

Honor is to those that are on the wall to the north. In attendance to bring honor to these awardees was Lieutenant General Thomas Bussiere, Commander of Alaska Region of NORAD, Alaskan Command of U.S. NORTHCOM, and 11th Air Force; Brigadier General Torrence Saxe, Adjutant General of Alaska National Guard; and Brigadier General Charles Knowles, Assistant Adjutant General of Alaska National Guard.

“I am the watcher on the walls. I am the shield that guards the realms of men.”

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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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