On May 31, Lieutenant Colonel David C. Gorman relinquished command of the United States Cooperative Security Location (CSL) on Curaçao to Lieutenant Colonel Russel M. Webb. The Change of Command is a time-honored military tradition which symbolizes the continuation of leadership and unit identity despite the change in individual authority. Passing the ceremonial flag from the old commander to the new commander physically represents this transfer.
Present at the ceremony were U.S. Consul General Margy Bond, Colonel Eric Mewes, the Deputy Commander of Netherlands Forces in the Caribbean, Colonel Matthew G. McKinney, Commander of the 612th Theater Operations Group and 474th Air Expeditionary Group, Headquarters Twelfth Air Force (Air Forces Southern), Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona, Colonel Matthew Vollkommer, Commander of the 612th Air Operations Center, and other invited guests.
During his time in command, Lieutenant Colonel Gorman led the CSL in the support of 746 counter-narcotics sorties totaling over 4,000 flight hours, a 10-year record high. These missions enabled the seizure of 540 metric tons of narcotics valued at over 2.2 billion dollars, nearly twice the amount seized during the previous year. Working with NATO C-17 aircraft, the CSL also supported the deployment Royal Netherlands Air Force’s MQ-9 mission from Curacao to Romania. Finally, Lieutenant Colonel Gorman acted to strengthen partnerships with Netherlands, French, and United Kingdom forces in the Caribbean and built ties with Curacao Airport Partners to improve mutual support in airfield management.
His successor, Lieutenant Colonel Russel Webb, spent the previous year as Director of Operations at CSL Curacao and Lieutenant Colonel Gorman’s second in command. Because assignments to CSL Curacao are typically for one year, his assignment for a second year as the unit commander is a historic first in the unit’s 25-year history.
The US CSL on Curacao and the 429th Expeditionary Operations Squadron support multinational aircraft operations that conduct detection, monitoring, and tracking missions that play an important role in counter-drug efforts in the region. CSL Curaçao was established because of a multilateral agreement between the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the United States whereby aircraft and crews deploy to the CSL on a temporary basis to conduct counter-drug operations.
