SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (USTCNS) --- The commander and long-time member of the Air Force Reserve Element of U. S. Transportation Command’s Joint Transportation Reserve Unit, leaves the command to take his new position as Individual Mobilization Augmentee to the commander of the 341st Space Wing, at Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.
Col. Steven A. Heuer, a Belleville, Ill., native, has been with the JTRU the first Department of Defense-authorized “joint” reserve unit, since it was created in the wake of the Persian Gulf War.
“At first thought it a joke,” Heuer said when he was contacted a decade ago about joining the JTRU. “I had been inactive for nearly two years when out of the blue, Col. Douglas Ohlde, the first JTRU Air Force Element Commander contacted me.”
“I met with the colonel and he gave me the standard pitch to which I responded that it wasn't extra money or merely wearing the uniform which would interest me. If he could promise me that we would have meaningful work to do, I would give it a shot. Certainly, I wasn't disappointed.”
That meaningful work has included positions as staff briefing officer, senior duty officer, and most recently, commander of the 945th Reserve Support Flight (the Air Force’s designation for the JTRU Air Force Element). Heuer recently completed a six-month tour of active duty at U.S. Central Command, MacDill AFB, Fl, in support of Operation Enduring Freedom.
“If you would have suggested that I would one day be the commander before I left,” Heuer reflected, “I would have scoffed at the notion. Interesting how it has all turned out.”
Heuer’s new unit, the 341st Space Wing, is an active duty Wing composed of Strategic Missile assets and includes 200 Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
“Reservists participating in the nuclear ICBM world are exceedingly rare.” Said Heuer, whose active duty career gave him extensive ICBM experience, including time as a missile combat crew commander. “As the reserve counterpart to the 341st Space Wing Commander, this position offers a junior colonel an uncommon opportunity to once again prove the value of reserve forces in unexplored territory.”
USTRANSCOM, the JTRU’s higher command, provides air, land, and sea transportation for the Department of Defense, both in time of peace and time of war. The JTRU provides USTRANSCOM with the highly skilled personnel it needs from the reserve components of all the services.
