Native Texan to Italian local: Granbury airman recognized as Service Member of the Year

Air Force Master Sgt. Kyle Heathington has only been stationed in Italy for three years now but is already making a name for himself in The Bel Paese (beautiful country).

Heathington — a 2004 Granbury High School graduate and sixth-generation Hood County native — was recently recognized as the JFC (Allied Joint Force Command) Naples Outstanding Service Member of the Year.

To be considered for the yearly award, military members must be nominated by their chain of command. The advisory board committee then looks for nominees with exceptional service or achievements, according to servicemembersoftheyear.org.

“Once you have been submitted by your chain of command, they put together all of the things you did throughout the year and you go and stand before a board of senior enlisted leaders,” Heathington explained. “You answer questions and they kind of judge your uniform along with the packages submitted from your chain of command. All of that is compiled into an overall holistic picture of what you've done throughout the year, and then the winner is selected from the members of the board on a rating system. For last year, I ended up winning for our joint force command in our headquarters.”

Although this was Heathington’s first time receiving the Service Member of the Year award, it wasn’t his first time to be nominated.

He was also up for the same award when he was stationed at the Delaware Air Force Base from 2014 to 2020.

Heathington also received the Senior Noncommissioned Officer of the Year award last year.

“I’m very proud of him,” said Gary Heathington, Kyle’s father. “He was in Junior ROTC for three years in high school, and he wanted to go in the Marines at 17. I said ‘No, I'm not gonna send you over there as a Marine. You can go in the Navy, or Air Force, but I prefer the Coast Guard.’ Luckily, Air Force was the first one to contact him, and now he's a master sergeant.”

Kyle has now been in the Air Force for a total of 19 years and has traveled all over the world.

“The only two continents he hasn’t been to are Antarctica and South America,” Gary said.

Throughout his several deployments, Kyle had a couple of different duties as an airman. He prepared aerial deliveries in Okinawa, Japan, for four years and now acts as a middleman between NATO and the Air Force as a logistician specialist.

“Anything that gets onto airplanes, I help put it there, like passengers or cargo or anything of that nature, like that's what I do,” Kyle explained. “My current duty station is the Joint Force Command Naples, which is a NATO ally joint command — one of only three under NATO."

For now, Kyle will be stationed in Italy until 2026, but he said he is still unsure of what the future holds. However, he said he thoroughly enjoys the community of Naples, and hopes to stay there for both the near — and distant — future.

"We will see what happens next,” he said. “I don't have any concrete plan. Where I'm at, we have a good community, and we have a fantastic church we're a part of. That support is needed, not only throughout the service members, but also for our family. It's really important to have a sense of community, and the community that we have found here, it's really special, which has made us not really want to leave."

Kyle is married to his high school sweetheart, Nicole, and together they have two children: Mason, 13, and Madalyn, 3.

He added that it was a great honor to receive the Service Member of the Year award, but his squadron also deserves equal recognition.

"For me, it's a testament to the things that not only I do, but the team that I'm a part of that we do,” Kyle said. “Nothing that we do is by ourselves. We have to rely on our people, and they have to be able to rely on you. One of the biggest takeaways for me is, ‘Yeah, it's an individual award, but it’s because of my team that this was even in consideration.’"