MAXWELL AIR FORCE BASE, Ala. --
Air University’s Leadership Development Course for Squadron Command hosted a valor workout Dec. 8, 2021, at the Maxwell Air Force Base fitness center.
This event paid tribute to the fallen service members of Rooster 73 and allowed LDC students to understand their responsibility to promote comprehensive airman fitness within their squadrons.
Rooster 73 was a CV-22B Osprey assigned to the 8th Special Operations Squadron, 1st Special Operations Wing, Hurlburt Field, Florida, which crashed near Qalat, Afghanistan on April 9, 2010, killing two crew members and two passengers.
“As these leaders go out and take command and are responsible for airmen, physical training is a part of the Air Force culture. There are roles and responsibilities, and this is a way to incorporate it into our course,” said Lt. Col. Derrick Iwanenko, the course director for LDC. “We choose to do this to honor fallen service members, in this case Rooster 73, to ensure that we are paying tribute in the form of our energy and our stress for those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.”
The people who passed away in the Rooster 73 crash were Maj. Randy D. Voas, the pilot of the CV-22B, Senior Master Sgt. James B. Lackey, the flight engineer, Cpl. Micheal Jankiewics, an Army Ranger, and translator Reeta Sadozi.
The workout consisted of four rounds, one for each life lost. The number of repetitions for each portion correlated with the callsign, such as participants performing a 73 second plank hold to represent the callsign Rooster 73 and 10 burpees to represent 2010, the year of the crash.
“There's a saying that a person dies twice, the first time that they actually die but, then there's the second time when people stop remembering them and stop saying their name out loud,” said Lt. Col. Ryan Mittelset, an instructor at LDC. “It's important for us to get together and commit our time and energy to recognize these people who have no more time and sacrificed everything.”