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New Mustang Center to improve resiliency for Team Osan

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Amber Grimm
  • 51st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
OSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  This is the sixth article of a series focusing on the 12 key tasks found here. This week we explore the 10th key task, the Mustang Resiliency center. In the coming weeks we will conclude this series will be a wrap-up article showing the comprehensive spectrum of how Team Osan works on the key tasks.

As a member of the most forward deployed wing in the world, being stationed in a foreign country so far from home is bound to increase the stress levels of what is already considered one of the highest stress inducing careers. To combat this and improve the resiliency of their Airman, the 51st Fighter Wing is in the process of transforming the Mustang Club into the Mustang Resiliency Center.

The building was previously associated with a night club atmosphere. With features like full bars, dance floors and even rooms filled with slot machines.

"We're really turning the page on what this place is used for," said Anthony Dalton, 51st Force Support Squadron Fitness Center director. "This was a club, and you'd when we came in on Monday there would be an alcohol-related incident. We're starting to overcome that by changing the tone here. This is a resiliency center now, when you come here it's all about tapping into one of those four pillars of resiliency."

Those four pillars being mental, physical, spiritual and social health, each of which will be addressed through different programs offered in the new Mustang Resiliency Center. Planned renovations include putting in a sound-proof fitness/aerobics room for yoga, various martial arts and other fitness classes. Creating a technical equipment room and offering classes to utilize the newly installed equipment. There will be an office available for speaking with the chaplain, and a brand new Rickenbacker's coffee shop that will be a place for Airman to relax, study and basically congregate.

"This is going to be a place where someone can come learn; come expand their knowledge, that type of stuff." says Dalton, "So I just think the whole concept of changing it over from a club, into a resiliency center, that's kind of showing where we're going with the Air Force."

Squadrons from across the 51st FW, Pacific Air Force and Army contracting as well as the Airmen and Family Readiness Center have banded together, offering up funds and support to create a place that will care for all members of Team Osan. The newly remodeled Rickenbacker's will be the first renovation to be finished in the new Mustang Resiliency Center; it is scheduled to open this fall as "the best coffee shop in the Air Force."