Colonel Rothstein's address to Misawa

  • Published
  • By Col.Michael Rothstein
  • 35th Fighter Wing commander
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan --  Col. Michael Rothstein, 35th Fighter Wing commander, made a radio broadcast Mar.15 at the American Forces Network Studio. The transcript of the broadcast is below.

Well first of all I really want to thank everyone I have seen all across the base, active duty, dependents, Air Force, Navy, civilians, everyone is just pitching in to make things happen. It's been so impressive these last four days. It's hard to believe it's only four days ago that all this began, but what we've seen out of folks has been great. I'm so thankful for who we have and who are as Americans as Airmen and Sailors. So it's been a tough time, but also a time that's warmed my heart to see the spirit of the American people. As well as the Japanese people as well and of course our hearts go out to them, and they are having a very difficult time individually and as a nation.

A couple things I want to dispel a couple of rumors up front. I know there is a lot of anxiety about what's going on with the nuclear facility down south in Fukushima. I would tell you every study that I have looked at, American, Japanese, you name it, none of those studies put us in any danger in any of the scenarios that are imaginable. You know we are I think it's 240 miles away, don't quote me on the exact numbers, I don't have that right with me, but we're a long way away and, so but we are safe. And that's the bottom line. I know there are people talking rumors of evacuation, there are no, I'm not working any evacuation plans or anything like that, none of that is going on for the folks at Misawa and I don't foresee the need for that.

I have placed a travel restriction for U.S. Airmen going down basically within about 50 nautical miles of that plant which translates roughly to Sendai on the north side, so you know I really don't want our folks going down to Sendai, not only for what's going on with the nuclear reactor and that's a pretty, it's a very safe distance away from there, but there's also just a huge natural disaster going on down there, so unless we are involved in some sort of official rescue, we'll more likely be part of the problem than part of the solution. Unless we're working some specific efforts down there. And so staying away from there I have done that. I certainly very much encourage Sailors, dependents, civilians not to travel through there and through that area. It's a natural disaster area and we need to stay away. Not to mention there are as everyone's seeing, there are some more localized threats to the nuclear facilities on that.
And how we're doing up here if you're not getting the word yet, then please be thinking about conserving resources. We're getting life back to a little closer to normal, but I don't want anyone to think we're at normalcy and we're still working hard to get resources. We're running on about forty percent of our commercial power right now. And I don't suspect that's going to get much better for awhile. Tohoku Electric Company, who we work with closely to make all this happen is still working it.

There is a energy deficiency throughout the entire country. You may have heard about some rolling blackouts in southern Japan. I would not be surprised if some of those begin in Northern Japan. I don't have any specific information, but I know they can only provide us about forty percent of our commercial power. A lot of the other things you see are running around on generator power and we're putting fuel in to keep that stuff open. And we've taken our commercial power essentially and fed it through our base housing community to make sure they've got electricity and heat in the homes. And we're continuing to get better, we're getting some generators flowing in, we're slowly getting better, but it's gonna be a long time before we're back to normal. And if you're in your house, if you're at work, if you're not actively thinking about conserving energy, it's definitely a finite resource now and that which we can save some other facility we can bring up a little bit. So I need everyone really paying attention to that across the base please, on there.

Similarly, I will also share with you I am a little concerned about automobile fuel. We're not getting real good resupply right now. We are not out of gas, but we are lower than I'd like to be. And so I'm putting some restrictions in place. Basically, limiting the number of gallons you're getting there. And I'm only asking, well, I guess I'm doing a little more than asking. But we're only letting people fill up their tanks, or get gas, I shouldn't even say fill up, but get the requisite gallons when they're below a quarter tank. I know the lines have been long. We're gonna work to try to relieve that a little bit here over the next couple of days and hopefully people have gotten their gas and are conserving their gas and they won't need to go back to the pumps. So I'm hoping the next day or so the lines will go down a little bit. And we will work that but I need everyone to be mindful of using their automobile gas. You know, Northern Japan is not getting resupplied. A lot of logistics lines in Tokyo, because everything's going on they're not, are not flowing real well yet and we just don't know when they're gonna start flowing real well. So, if you can walk somewhere, if you can carpool somewhere, if you can combine trips somewhere... all those things, please start doing that as much as possible, don't use your car unless you need to. And again, don't plan on getting gas right now unless you're below a quarter of a tank and try to keep yourself above there as long as you can just to help everybody out on that.

I do want to talk a minute about some of the other things we've been doing. You know, we, a couple of days ago, two US search and rescue teams from the States; one from Los Angeles County, one from Fairfax County, landed here and shortly after that a team from the United Kingdom landed. And we did a great job of, mostly within our Logistics Readiness Squadron, but I know there were other people, you know other maintainers and folks pitching in to make that happen. I got those folks down to a place call Ofunato which is a little bit north of Sendai where they can launch their staging actions for doing search and recovery. It was a herculean effort to turn that overnight on short notice. I think we put together a 17 vehicle convoy, don't quote me on the exact numbers of the convoy, I think it was 17. We coordinated with the Japanese military to get some helicopter lifts and made all that happen. Get their cargo all loaded up. Our contracting folks were helping to source things they needed when they got here. Finance folks were figuring out how to break down barriers to make all that happen. And everyone did just a phenomenal job. Just this evening, that first convoy that went down there just returned. And they are doing things that are gonna save people's lives and just make a real huge difference in this tragedy.

Couple of other things going on. We had both Navy and Air Force folks down in Misawa Port, starting to help do the cleanup there with our local neighbors. So that was pretty neat. I know a lot of the Navy Chiefs took some initiative. Misawa City came to me and asked for some heavy equipment help, and we were able to do that. And they were hugely, hugely grateful for the folks who were doing that, both the people and the large equipment we gave them that will start the recovery efforts which will be important to this community for years and years to come. We're also working to get organized on other volunteer opportunities and there will be a lot of those in the days to come. I very much encourage people to do that. You can sign up at the Mokuteki, right up at the Red Cross table or right near it. I know they've done a little reshuffling this afternoon and I haven't been back there. But in the Mokuteki ballroom you can sign up. I encourage everybody on this base, over the next couple of weeks, to find the time to get outside the gate, to go help the Japanese people. And I'll give you a couple of reasons why. First and foremost it's just the right thing to do. And so, you can make a real difference in people's lives now in a time of need and Americans are historically famous for helping out their neighbors, and our neighbors are the Japanese. We ought not to pass on that opportunity. And I think it would make a real difference in your life. I would tell you that two, five, ten, fifty years from now when you think about your time back at Misawa, you will remember standing on the Misawa Port, or the Hachinohe Beach, or some other town after this earthquake and helping people. And you will remember that for the rest of your life. You will not remember playing Xbox on Saturday or doing another BX shelf check. And so it will be a memorable, meaningful event that you were there and you were part of the solution. So I really encourage everybody to make time out of their lives and do that. And we're trying to get organized so we can do that in a relatively orderly fashion.
 
For instance, I don't want to drive 50 cars to Hachinohe when we're trying to conserve gas. Let's take one diesel bus as we've got a little more diesel fuel than we have regular fuel and do that sort of thing smartly. So, I've asked some folks both on the military and civilian side, the Red Cross to organize themselves a little bit so we can unify that effort. But that doesn't have to be the only effort. But if we can coordinate and figure out where the best needs are that we can fit and do that sort of thing. And if we do that, it'll make our community stronger by working together, and it will really cement this great relationship we have with Japan. And they will remember that for years and years to come. Not only will each of us remember our involvement in it.

So, those are some of the things going on in Misawa, I just wanted to share that with folks. If I had two takeaways for you to remember... I'm gonna make it three actually. I would say, number one, we are not in danger of the nuclear plant, from the nuclear plant in Fukushima. We are not in danger here. Number two, I need you to work hard to conserve our resources, particularly on electricity and automobile fuel. And number three, as we settle down, as you find time in your life, make an opportunity to get outside the gate and volunteer and help the Japanese people. We will all be better for it.