Two airmen at Hurlburt Field have received the Air Force’s highest leadership award.
Lt. Col. Nathan Green and Senior Master Sgt. Davide Keaton last month received the annual Lance P. Sijan award for their service from July 2011 to June 2012.
Only four of the awards are given out annually to mark airmen’s exceptional leadership both professionally and in their personal lives.
For Keaton, a pararescueman who has been in the Air Force for more than 26 years, accepting the award was bittersweet.
His wife, a corporate pilot, was killed in a plane crash in March 2011.
Shortly after, Keaton relocated to Hurlburt Field and took over as superintendent of operations of the 720th Support Squadron for the 24th Special Operations Wing, a special tactics division.
“You can go two ways when something like that happens,” he said. “Chaotic and destructive, or you can do the things you have to do and go on, and here I am two years later talking about winning an award I couldn’t have imagined winning.”
He said his wing commanders were incredibly supportive of him and encouraged his success, despite the personal loss he was experiencing.
As superintendent of the squadron, Keaton made sure a 900-man special tactics force was prepared for combat.
On his 10th deployment, he established a Personnel Recovery Coordination Cell, a sort of emergency operations center in a combat zone, for the first-ever Combined Special Operations Task Force, a cooperation of both U.S. military services and those of other ally countries.
Keaton, who was born in Italy to an Air Force family, enlisted at age 18. Shortly after, he became a pararescueman, a career he loves that involves jumping out of helicopters to rescue people injured in the field.
“When bad things happen overseas we go to where they are hurt, treat them and being them back so surgeons and doctors can hopefully keep them alive and they can come home,” he said.
The award also recognized Keaton for jumping into a lake to save a woman trapped in a sinking car in North Carolina in December 2011.
The woman had a medical problem while driving, hit another vehicle, careened into a wooden fence and then crashed into the middle of a lake.
Keaton pulled over, jumped out of his car and dove into the water in his uniform. He and another man were able to break the glass window, pull the woman free and swim her to shore.
Although not mentioned in the award, he and some other runners stopped in the middle of the Leadville 100-mile mountain trail race to help a woman having a medical problem. They forfeited the race to carry the woman out and get her medical attention.
“That’s just who I am,” Keaton said. “There were people running past this lady, but sometimes you need to sacrifice, to put the needs of others over yourself. I could have been in first place and I would have stopped. It’s the right thing to do.”
He credits his mother, who still lives in Italy, for instilling in him that care and concern for other people and his late wife, Marcia, who was a leader in her own life.
“Behind every great guy is an even more incredible woman,” he said. “I really wish she could have been here to see this.”
Lt. Col. Nathan Green was recognized for his work commanding the 318th Special Operations Squadron at Cannon Air Force Base and then the 4th Special Operations Squadron at Hurlburt.
In both positions, the Air Force pilot was called in to replace a commander that had been fired and to try to get the squadrons back on track.
He was successful at Cannon, so he was recruited for the mission at Hurlburt.
“They put me in there to get back to the basics: not picking or choosing the rules to follow, being professional and making sure our world revolves around taking care of that special operations team on the ground to make sure they don’t get killed,” he said.
In his position at Hurlburt he oversaw C-130 gunships, the Air Force Special Operations Command’s largest manned flying squadron. They provide air support for special operations troops on the ground and are heavily deployed.
The planes stay in Afghanistan and rotate out crews every 90 days.
While in Afghanistan, he flew a C-145 to drop supplies at combat outposts. They could fly slow enough and low enough to actually place packages inside the compound walls so troops didn’t have to go outside, putting them at risk for enemy attack.
On one of those flights, enemy troops on the ground fired and hit the belly and wheel of Green’s plane.
The crew continued on to drop the supplies and then flew back up to assess the plane’s damage.
They were eventually able to land safely, a testament to the plane’s reliability and the crew’s ability, he said.
It was the first time he was hit, but certainly not the last.
“There are great Americans out there willing to go in with water and beans and bullets knowing they are going to get shot at,” he said.
Green credited his wife, Traci, with being a tireless source of support for him.
“She’s my right hand, my chief of staff, my speech writer,” he said.
She also works hard to care for families while their loved ones are deployed.
Both men were humble about receiving the awards and said they couldn’t have done it without the support of the men and women they work with.
Green said the commanders he has had have taught him the leadership and professionalism he needs and that in turn he will be able to pass that on to the next generation.
“I’ve been lucky to have good commanders above me and great men and woman under me,” Green said.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Lauren Sage Reinlie at 850-315-4443 or lreinlie@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @LaurenRnwfdn.