My name is Doug Delpha. I come from a large military family where my father and all of my siblings (besides my youngest) having served on Active Duty at some point in their lives. I grew up at Fort Drum NY where I attended Carthage High School with some fellow Norwich students Alex Gordon, and Evan Pelaqiun. I Joined the Air Force immediately after high school and spent 4 ½ years on Active Duty. I Deployed to Afghanistan in the fall of 2009 where I was attached to the 455 Civil Engineers. I spent the last 1 ½ as a Contingency Skills instructor for the Air Force at Fort Dix NJ where our mission statement was as follows
The 421st Combat Training Squadron (421 CTS) "Scorpions" are dedicated to educating, training and exercising expeditionary combat support personnel in deployed operations. The 421st CTS is responsible for developing and conducting Combat Airman Skills Training, Security Forces pre-deployment training, facilitating the Air Force exercise Eagle Flag which focuses on the integration of all expeditionary combat support skills. The 421st CTS is responsible for training all of Air Mobility Commands Anti-Terrorism Level II officers. Additionally, the squadron is responsible for the execution of several Security Forces-specific training programs through its Phoenix Raven, Phoenix Warrior Base Security Operations, Military Working Dog pre-deployment training and Tactical Security Element courses. Overall, the 421st CTS offers seven expeditionary combat support courses. On average, the 421st CTS trains over 5,000 Airmen every fiscal year.

I requested an early termination of my Active Duty contract if I was able to attend one of the Senior Military Colleges. Norwich was the first to accept me so I was out the door. I now currently am assigned to the 158th Air National Guard out of Burlington Vermont.
My summer consisted of moving everything I owned up to Northfield and settling in. My next blog post will contain all of my advice for any prior service individuals who will be attending Norwich as the process to get enrolled receive your VA benefits and get all the paperwork in order took me over 2 months.

V/R

SSgt Delpha