SECURITY DEPARTMENT

With 2022 coming to a close, we all have much to be grateful. Naval Air Station Sigonella Security Department has performed exceptionally well. This year we saw an increase in protest activity likely due to the COVID pandemic winding down. Our team showed its professionalism in dealing with multiple responses to unexploded ordinance, natural disasters such as fire and flooding, as well as the many calls for service that we deal with on a day-to-day basis.

In 2022, our team showed their true colors achieving a well above standard score of 93% in the Command Assessment for Readiness and Training (CART). This major inspection immediately followed the NAS Sigonella change of command and the command’s hosting of the annual AFRICOM Conference. CART was a culmination of countless hours of administrative preparation and training resulting in accolades from the Commander, Navy Installation Command team who had conducted its last round of inspections before officially passing the responsibility onto Regional Commanders. Additionally, in August we successfully passed an Explosives Safety Inspection. During the same week we hosted the Regional Inspector General Command Inspection Program and our Regional Commanders visit. Following this in November, we supported Defense Threat Reduction Agency and Chief of Naval Operations Staff with their Mission Assurance assessment assisting our team with advocating protection for this growing operational base. This all shows an uncanny ability of the NAS Sigonella team’s ability here to multi-task.

We were also proud to have supported the mission in Camp Lemonier, Djibouti with four of our outstanding Military Working Dog teams led by Master-At-Arms 1st Class Hudson, Master-At-Arms 2nd Class Whitfield, Master-At-Arms 2nd Class Thirsty, and Master-At-Arms 3rd Class Busby. We sent two of our hard chargers, Master-At-Arms 2nd Class Parks and Master-At-Arms 2nd Class Glazik to support a high profile Courts Martial Case in Belgium. We also sent Senior Chief Master-At-Arms Walter, Chief Master-At-Arms Williams, Chief Cryptologic Technician (Technical) Small, Fire Controlman 1st Class Hendricks, and Operations Specialist 2nd Mallory to support Counter Unmanned Aerial System and other support missions in both Romania and Poland. NASSIG Security is a team of team players!

Our antiterrorism division completed 27 special event antiterrorism plans, 33 on/off base event and base threat assessments, critically assessments, and vulnerability assessments. They also created and facilitated nearly 200 joint service, installation, and divisional level ex ercises throughout the year.

NAS Sigonella Security has the watch! We remain ready to answer the call. This team worked extremely hard this year. I am proud of the accomplishments we made this year and look forward to the opportunities that 2023 brings.