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This week's photo highlights feature Airmen around the globe involved in activities supporting expeditionary operations and defending America. This weekly feature showcases the men and women of the Air Force.

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Resiliency. Interesting word. Although I'm familiar with the meaning, I can't recall having ever actually used the word in conversation.

Resiliency can be defined as the ability to grow and thrive in the face of challenges and to bounce back from adversity. A less formal expression of the concept might be something like "having enough gas in your tank to get to where you're going."

Since resilience is both a personal and an organizational characteristic, how can we make sure that we, and our wing, are good to go? I'd offer three suggestions that could apply to the person in the mirror or to an entire wing.
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On Dec. 31, 1948,  Allied aircraft logged the 100,000th flight of the Berlin airlift.  The airlift began after World War II when Germany was occupied territory and Berlin was surrounded by the Soviet zone. The city itself was divided into four sectors controlled by Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union. 

The Soviets tried to dissuade a West German government in the city by gradually escalating harassment of  Western traffic to and from Berlin, which culminated in the Berlin blockade, imposed June 24, 1948. 
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Most bases don't get the luxury of having a landscape architect. In fact, some might wonder why a military installation would really need one. But according to Janice Ellis, the landscape architect here and just one of six in the Air Force, the benefits of having one are important to the morale and mission of the base.

"A military installation has a high degree of stress," Ms. Ellis said. "Studies have shown that landscaping reduces the amount of stress that people feel. Health and safety is a landscape architect's number one priority. People think it's (planting) trees, and it's really not; it's the health and safety of people," she said.
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With defense leaders emphasizing the importance of language and cultural training to support military operations worldwide, Defense Language Institute officials have established a new detachment in Germany to provide follow-on sustainment training for military linguists based in Europe.

Staff members at the language training detachment, at Patch Barracks in Stuttgart, Germany, will provide "substantive and direct support" to linguists assigned to both U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command and their subordinate elements, said Dan Rugelbrugge, who oversees the effort.
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"High Flight" has become an aviator's anthem, and an epitaph. Its author, Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee Jr., was an American serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Battle of Britain in 1941, when he reached out "and touched the face of God."

Magee was born in Shanghai, China, in 1922, the son of missionary parents. His father was an American and his mother was originally a British citizen. He came to the United States in 1939 and earned a scholarship to Yale, but in September 1940 he enlisted in the RCAF. He was only 18. He entered flight training and within a year was sent to England and posted to the newly formed No. 412 Fighter Squadron, RCAF at Digby, England. He was qualified on and flew the Supermarine Spitfire Mk1 fighter.
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This month, the C-17 Globemaster III celebrated its two millionth flight hour.

As a testament to the C-17 mission tempo, the aircraft passed its two millionth flight hour just four years after passing its first million-hour mark, and the first million hours took 16 years to reach.

Although Air Mobility Command officials estimate the international C-17 fleet passed the milestone on Dec. 14, the achievement was commemorated on a Dec. 10 airdrop mission out of Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan.
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"Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier." - Mother Teresa

And just like that, one Airman's life was changed forever.

The story begins with a little girl named Ratna, which means "gem" in Hindi, who was born into an Indian family with a high social status, but she was different - she had a cleft lip and palate and was born with a twin. So, they gave her away because, in her culture, she was seen as a blemish to the family's name and prestige.
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It's four in the afternoon, and the children at Hurlburt Field are ready to play. Like many children, they have many options for their free time.

Rather than watch others compete in sports on TV or emulate it through a virtual world, they're outside playing with friends amidst the shaded trees, wood structures and dirt pathways at the Hurlburt Field Youth Center outdoor classroom.

Throughout 2010, the children of Air Force Special Operations Command Airmen have branded this location as their destination for imagination and discovery. And months after the youth center became the 29th Arbor Day Foundation and Dimensions Educational Research Foundation-certified Nature Explore classroom in the country, the base library and child development center rooms also gained certification.
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The words "Heart Link" may evoke a mental image of animated cartoon hearts holding hands or perhaps the infamous paper heart chain that has become a staple around school rooms during Valentine's Day.

Sometimes spouses may feel like that flimsy chain of paper hearts, vulnerable and alone.

Heart Link is a program meant to help new military spouses develop a support network and become more comfortable in a new and often strange setting of the military environment.

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