Q&A: Col. Maitre 'saddened to have to depart'

CLOVIS — “Cannon's an island; there's just no water around. But I definitely include Clovis and Portales as part of that island when it comes to family and community,” said Col. Ben Maitre, reflecting on his time as the outgoing commander of the Air Force base’s 27th Special Operations Wing.

Maitre came to Cannon AFB in February 2015, on a short notice reassignment from his position as commander of the 353rd Special Operations Group at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. An elaborately decorated sword and helmet from his time there are prominently displayed in his office, across from a digital display of the current time in cities across the world.

On Thursday, Clovis Mayor David Lansford presented Maitre with a key to the city to honor his time in the area. Two members of his wing staff, Col. Douglas Gilpin and Lt. Col. Diane Sullivan, were also recognized in advance of their departure on reassignment.

“I'm definitely looking forward to the opportunities of my next assignment but I’m saddened to have to depart this job and the community and the airmen, most importantly, on this base,” said Maitre, who will depart Cannon AFB this summer to become a senior analyst at the Pentagon working programs and assessments.

The job will be very different from his current position, but Maitre said he intends to remember that all of the policies, programs, and decisions to emerge from his work there are “going to affect the airmen that are working the line day to day.”

“All of that has a very real impact directly on the airmen that ultimately have to do those tasks, and that’s something I can’t afford to forget,” said Maitre.

In an interview Friday afternoon, the outgoing commander noted Cannon’s special role in the U.S. military as well as the “close-knit” character of the surrounding community. He reflected on positive changes to the base and spoke optimistically for its future

What is something unique to this area and this base that you appreciate here?

Cannon Air Force Base has a little bit of an overseas type feel to it. I’ve had three overseas assignments; I could almost count this as a fourth in terms of how focused the airmen, their families, and I think also the surrounding community in both Clovis and Portales are in understanding the significance of the mission that goes on here.

When for instance I talk to newcomers and airmen that are here on their first assignment or first time in Air Force Special Operations Command, I tell them, “Hey, there's two reasons for why Cannon is where it is and why it's a Special Operations Base.” One is you go outside and look up at that bright, blue, albeit sometimes windy sky. That's our airspace. We own it. We actually do the approach control for Clovis Municipal (airport) out of our tower. But that's where we can apply our specialized airpower in as realistic a training environment as possible. The other half of that equation is Melrose Air Force Range where you stand in the middle of that 70,000-acre complex and it looks eerily similar, perhaps, to some of the places we deploy to, in terms of being high and hot during the summertime, cold in the winter, and an arid environment. So, again, that we can train as realistically as possible before we have to go do it for real.

What improvements have you seen during your time here as Wing Commander, and how is Cannon a better base overall?

This year is the 10th anniversary of Air Force Special Operations Command being at Cannon. We spent the first, I would say, eight of those years really focusing on bringing in the operational mission. This was a fighter wing, a fighter base beforehand. Now we have seven different types of airplanes stationed here that do different types of missions. They needed new facilities and new hangars to do that mission. Where I see and what I've done during my time here is focusing a little more on really taking those operational gains and sustaining them for the long term. This was a fighter base for 50 years before Special Operations came here. What I’ve been looking at is making it a Special Operations base for another 50 years ... Now we can in a very real sense fill in those gaps and seams between our new bright, shiny facilities and make them a place that our airmen are proud to come to work in.

What kind of future do you envision for Cannon — are there any significant changes, improvements or expansions likely for this base in the near future?

It's not the position of the command that Cannon is either going to significantly grow or get smaller. We’re at about 6,000 personnel and I expect that to be about the same. We'll have some missions that kind of move between here and predominantly the panhandle of Florida because that's where our other main AFSOC base ... but the overall mission will stay here.

Melrose is the only other Air Force range that Air Force Special Operations Command owns, and it's also the only range that United States Special Operations Command owns so it's a premier location for Navy Seals and Army Green Berets to come train, and working together with them is something I expect will continue in the future.

Can you elaborate on some of those training opportunities?

Really the reason Navy Seals and other joint units from other services come here is because they then inherently get access not just to the range but also about 100 airplanes that we have based out of here that they otherwise may not get a chance to work with, like AC-130 gunships, MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft, and U-28 airdrop opportunities where we take people and throw them out of the back of perfectly good airplanes. All of that comes here in terms of a one-stop-shop as, again, a training venue to do it as accurately as possible before we do it overseas in combat.

Have investigators determined a cause of the March crash that killed three Cannon AFB airmen outside Clovis Municipal Airport?

The investigation process for that is still in progress. Obviously the most important thing any time you have a tragedy like that is to do the diligence in the investigation to make sure we don't leave any proverbial stone unturned in terms of what might have been the cause.

Until then, have any changes been put into effect to reduce the chance of an incident like this happening again?

We’ve continued to prepare those air crews and the aircraft they fly for combat, so they’re still on their regular rotation schedule, so they’ll go back to doing what they’ve been doing before. But again, I won't comment about any specific changes we've made, because that infers in reverse whether there was a cause or something that would change. That has to be publicly releasable first.

Any final comments?

First off, speaking about community I would say that in my 12 assignments the local community here has been the most supportive I’ve encountered to date. Quite literally from day one all the way through the support of the community during our mishap when the outreach was frankly almost overwhelming in terms of both its sincerity and requests to help. That's been a huge benefit for me during my time here.