🚦 Traffic delays and long commutes are now directly impacting rapid-deployment missions at Hurlburt Field.
🏠 Rising housing costs and limited childcare are straining young families across the 1st Special Operations Wing.
🧠 Mental-health access — especially for spouses and children — remains one of the wing’s most urgent support gaps.
SHALIMAR — Col. Mark L. Hamilton, a career special operations aviator and the new commander of the 1st Special Operations Wing at Hurlburt Field, warned Okaloosa County Commissioners on Tuesday that worsening traffic, soaring housing costs, childcare shortages and limited mental-health access are now directly affecting the wing’s ability to launch global missions within minutes.
Hamilton, who took command of the wing Oct. 6, oversees 67 manned and remotely piloted aircraft, including the AC-130J, MC-130J, and MQ-9, and leads 21 squadrons with more than 1,300 Air Commandos trained for worldwide special operations missions such as high-value targeting, unconventional warfare, and personnel recovery.
As installation commander, he is also responsible for base support to 22,000 personnel and more than 40 tenant units at Hurlburt Field.
“Our primary mission is to be ready anytime, anyplace,” Hamilton told commissioners. “The 1st Special Operations Wing has to be ready in minutes. When we measure our success in minutes, traffic becomes a threat to national security.”
Hamilton said U.S. Highway 98 and other choke points have become more than a quality-of-life issue. Because many missions launch with almost no notice, even short delays can jeopardize a deployment.
He pointed to a recent example: Maj. Teddy Reichs, an airman, was playing with his daughter at a park when he received a call ordering him to deploy to Haiti in 2024.
“Within 90 minutes, he was at Hurlburt Field — and gone for four months,” Hamilton said. “He kissed his daughter, handed her to his sister, and did not come back for four months.”
“That’s the level of precision and excellence we demand,” he added, noting the wing often deploys on orders from the President or U.S. Special Operations Command.
Hamilton said soaring housing prices near the base are forcing service members to live in places like Crestview and Milton, sending long-distance commuters onto a limited set of access roads.
“That now feeds folks to central locations where they have to get to the installation on key roads, and that just increases traffic,” he said.
He thanked the county for approving a $4 million traffic study to identify “relief valves” for western Okaloosa County.
He said the base is also exploring “creative ideas” for affordable on-base housing and relies heavily on community partnerships for additional options.
Hamilton said many of the wing’s airmen are starting families while also performing demanding operational schedules.
“When you combine that with the mission that we do, the hours that we operate, access to childcare is difficult,” he said.
The wing is developing proposals for an additional child development center and hopes to partner with the county to expand capacity off base.
Hamilton said the wing’s mission tempo, including long deployments and high-stress operations, makes family mental-health support essential.
“We do a hard mission,” he said. “The mental-health resources are really for our families and our children. Scheduling for our family members to have access to mental health is a challenge.”
Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel, an honorary commander assigned to the 1st Special Operations Wing and a licensed clinical social worker, said TRICARE reimbursement limits remain a barrier for civilian mental-health providers.
“I will try to help in every way I can,” she told the colonel.
Hamilton received his commission through the ROTC program at the Virginia Military Institute in 2004 and earned his wings at Fort Rucker.
A command pilot with more than 2,200 flight hours in the MH-53M and CV-22B, he has deployed extensively in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom, Odyssey Dawn, Inherent Resolve, and Octave Quartz.
Before assuming command at Hurlburt, he served as Chief of Staff to the Vice Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command in Washington, D.C.
He told commissioners that military service is “a family business.” His father served in the Marine Corps; his grandfather in the Coast Guard; his brother in the Air Force; and his great-uncle flew as a bombardier-navigator in World War II.
He has been married for 16 years and has two children.
Hurlburt Field, he added, was his first duty station, and, after more than a dozen moves, feels like home again.
“When you serve at Hurlburt Field, you don’t just serve in the military. You don’t just serve your country,” Hamilton said. “You are welcomed with open arms by this community.”
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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