AFSOC History Office wins 2021 Air Force Excellence in Command History Program Award

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Brandon Esau
  • Air Force Special Operations Command Public Affairs

The Air Force Special Operations Command History and Heritage Office received the Department of the Air Force’s Excellence in Command History Program Management Award for 2021 from Lt. Gen. Jim Slife, AFSOC commander, Jan. 4, at Hurlburt Field.

The award recognizes the best primary or field command history office for outstanding history and heritage programs leadership that provided exemplary historical services to improve organizational effectiveness, esprit de corps, and combat capability.

“The command’s team of outstanding historians prepared a comprehensive, well-written, and thoroughly documented history,” said Walter A. Grudzinskas, director of Air Force History and Museums. “Their team displayed unwavering professionalism and commitment to preserving our history, inspiring special operations Airmen, and improving Air Force combat capability.”

The primary roles of a history office is gathering and submitting annual histories, which detail the significant events of the unit. The AFSOC History Office also documents the actions of air commandos of the past, focusing on the insight of their operations to reinvest important information into the command’s decision-making process.

The history office’s contributions included creating and publishing a 30th AFSOC anniversary pamphlet, developing heritage displays that illustrate current operations and humanitarian assistance provided by the command, and arranged an oral history collection on the development of a special operations forces following the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.

“I’m extremely proud of the team and all of the hard work they put in every single day,” said Mr. Eric Witt, deputy command historian of AFSOC. “With our multi-faceted approach to documenting the history and the command’s constant churn of events, our team is always pulled in different directions to make sure we get everything right. And this award is evidence that we always hit our mark.”