Airman of the Year 2022 - Staff Sgt. Duncan Copley
Staff Sgt. Duncan Copley knows the risks he runs each time he heads out on a C-17 transport mission. But virtually nothing could have prepared him for the message that came across his headset in August 2021:
“We have credible intel that there could be a bomb on board.”
Copley’s calm under pressure as a loadmaster during Operation Allies Refuge, the frantic effort to evacuate more than 124,000 people from Afghanistan last summer, earned him Military Times’ 2022 Airman of the Year award.
