Airmen at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, and Yokota Air Base, Japan, paid tribute to the eight Airmen who died in a CV-22 Osprey crash last month during Operation Christmas Drop, the Air Force’s famed annual humanitarian mission.
Among the hundreds of bundles containing food, toys, and supplies dropped from C-130Js over 57 islands in the western Pacific Ocean was a special box of gifts.
The bundles, which also contain clothes, medical supplies, school books, and fishing gear, are projected to reach more than 20,000 people across the Federated state of Micronesia and Palau. This year marks the 72nd edition of Operation Christmas Drop (OCD), but recent events gave the mission special significance. On Nov. 29, an Osprey assigned to the 21st Special Operations Squadron was flying a training mission out of Yokota when the tiltrotor aircraft caught fire and crashed, the deadliest Air Force aviation mishap since 2018.
The OCD 23 Airmen wanted to pay tribute to the tragedy and remember their fallen comrades, who flew under the callsign ‘Gundam 22.’
“One of the core tenets of the Operation Christmas Drop mission is bringing people together. Because of that, the crew of Gundam 22 has never left our minds since the OCD teams arrived,” Maj. Zach Overbey, OCD 23 mission commander and pilot, said in a press release. “To help ease the pain of uncertainty and loss, we wanted to pay tribute to their lives, their service, their families, and their communities during this heartbreaking time.”
Volunteers decorated a box full of toys with an image of an Osprey mid-flight, the date of the Gundam 22 crash, and a spiral with devil horns similar to the mascot of the 21st Special Operations Squadron. Some of the Airmen signed their names and wrote ‘Merry Christmas.’ The illustrations join earlier efforts by the OCD 23 crew to spruce up the brown cardboard boxes with Christmas trees, snowmen, and other symbols of holiday cheer.
The Gundam 22 bundle was loaded onto a C-130J from the 36th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron bound for the Palau island of Angaur, which about 100 people call home. A public affairs Airman from the 374th Airlift Wing, Staff Sgt. Spencer Tobler, shot a video of children diving into the bundle for the gifts within. The special tribute to Gundam 22 did not go unnoticed.
“We love Operation Christmas Drop, it really makes the students and the people on this island happy, it’s an event that we all look forward to every year,” Tiffany Kasiano, principal of Angaur Elementary School, said in the press release. “Before we opened the box, I told the students it was a tribute to servicemen and about the tragedy that happened. I feel honored to be a part of it.”
Overbey hopes the bundle full of gifts is also a small kind of gift to those who knew the fallen Airmen.
“While it’s a small degree of comfort, we hope that this box of aid, given to those who need it most, will bring some degree of solace to the family and friends of the crew members of Gundam 22,” he said. “As we continue to execute our Operation Christmas Drop mission, we’re thinking about y’all, we love you all, and know that you are always on our minds and in our hearts.”