Dyess mourns the loss of career aviator

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Carolyn Viss
  • 7th Bomb Wing Public Affairs
DYESS AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  A 29-year-old Dyess C-130 Hercules flight engineer died of natural causes Aug. 5 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, Germany. 

Tech. Sgt. Joey Link, 39th Airlift Squadron, was deployed to Southwest Asia at the time of his death. 

"This is a sad day for all of Dyess Air Force Base with the loss of Sergeant Link," said Col. Kevin Jackson, 317th Airlift Group commander. "Our deepest sympathies and prayers go to Sergeant Link's family and loved ones." 

Sergeant Link entered the Air Force in 1996. He served as a B-52 flying crew chief, a B-1 crew chief in the 7th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron at Dyess, and an Air Force recruiter before retraining as a flight engineer. 

"I've always loved flying, so this job is perfect for me," he said in November 2006.
Friends and coworkers agreed that Sergeant Link was an "outstanding" example as a noncommissioned officer. 

"He was the most incredibly sharp NCO," said Senior Airman Will Jackson, 39th AS loadmaster, who deployed with Sergeant Link during this last rotation and knew him for the last year during his station at Dyess. He and Sergeant Link became friends while they were deployed together, sharing meals, sleeping, flying 18-hour sorties, and playing ball at the gym together during any down time they could get. 

"As a young Airman, I looked up to him as a mentor. He talked about things in the squadron all the time ... and because I was always trying to learn about aircraft, I looked to him for the answers. He either knew the answers or told me where to find them," Airman Jackson said. 

He said the general reaction from the men and women of the 317th Airlift Group who learned of the young sergeant's death Aug. 5 was more or less disbelief. 

"Sergeant Link was physically fit," he said. "He was a hard-charger. A great family man. Even though the intensity of his job was magnified with a strenuous deployment operations tempo, he made it look easy." 

The tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed aviator always had a CLEP book in his room, took a lot of extracurricular classes, and encouraged the Airmen in his squadron to do the same, Airman Jackson said. 

"Disciplined, motivated, and even-tempered" were ways his coworkers described him. Active and full of life, Sergeant Link managed to test well enough to make E-6 in the 10 years he was enlisted, in spite of the "set backs" he may have faced as a result of cross-training. 

"Tech. Sgt. Link was an outstanding noncommissioned officer whose contributions to the 39th Airlift Squadron, 317th Airlift Group, Dyess Air Force Base, and the United States Air Force will be sorely missed," Colonel Jackson said. 

Funeral and memorial service arrangements have not yet been determined.