314th AW Historian earns contingency award

  • Published
  • By Chris Hunkel
  • 19th Airlift Wing Public Affairs
LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE, Ark. --  Christopher Rumley, the 314th Airlift Wing's historian, earned the Air Force-level Excellence in Contingency History award during his last deployment as a historian for the 379th Air Expeditionary Wing in Southwest Asia.

Deployments to the area of operations in either Operation Iraqi Freedom or Enduring Freedom are common place for military members assigned to Team Little Rock.

However, it's a little known fact that some Department of Defense civilian employees also deploy to the same area of responsibilities without all the monetary benefits authorized for their military counterparts with whom they serve alongside.

"I was honored to learn of the award. It's a challenge to write a good history when you're over there. I take a lot of pride in my work, so to be recognized like this is really gratifying. Most military people are surprised to see DoD civilians working alongside them in deployed regions and wonder what we are doing over there. Our job affords us the opportunity to get an insider's look at the war effort and to put our stamp on how these war years will be remembered. Deploying as a civilian was a fascinating experience. We go through the same pre-deployment training as the active duty Airmen, we wear the same uniform, and we work the same long hours and weeks while deployed," said Mr. Rumley. "It takes a lot of effort to gather the information to write a noteworthy history that does the unit justice all while making a product that is readable and interesting from a historical perspective."

The reason for civilian historians deploying is because the Air Force began a three-year transition from an enlisted Air Force Specialty Code to a civil service job series starting in fiscal year 2005 in order to meet an end strength requirement of active-duty personnel. Air Force civilian historians are positioned in an emergency essential status, requiring them to deploy in both exercise and real-world contingency operations.

"Like the enlisted historians did, we deploy to capture the accomplishments and activities during a certain time frame. We capture history as it happens. I think a lot of people, when they think of Air Force historians, think about 'what happened on D-Day'. While championing the Air Force story is a big part of what we do, we also write real-time classified histories that won't get published publicly, but are stored with the Air Force Historical Research Agency," Mr. Rumley added. "From there, Air Force researchers and senior leadership can study the lessons learned of what went right or not so well in a past operation or contingency and learn from the past to better prepare for success with an upcoming or current operation."

Mr. Rumley went on to explain that, "Everything these days is in electronic files and part of the historian's job is to capture and preserve these files before they are eventually deleted. With these documents we write a daily chronology listing the significant events of the unit as well as narrative of the entire month's activities. All the official documentation and the histories of deployed units will then be saved for all posterity."

Mr. Rumley is a combat veteran who spent two years in Afghanistan as an active-duty Soldier with 10th Mountain Division, earning, among other decorations, two Bronze Stars for his service there. He joined the Air Force History and Museum Program in January 2008.