Security forces boat named in honor of Pensacola airman

“He called them both ‘bops,’ ” Sartain’s mother, Janice, said.

Sartain, a Pensacola native, was killed on Oct. 2, 2015, when a C-130J Super Hercules he was aboard crashed shortly after takeoff from Jalalabad Airfield in Afghanistan. On Friday, members of the 96th Mission Support Group, which oversees Eglin Air Force Base's security forces, saluted Sartain with a fitting tribute by naming a 20-foot power boat in his honor.

The Sartain-20 will be the first shallow-water vessel assigned to the 96th Security Forces Squadron. The boat will be used to patrol the 153 miles of shoreline that surrounds the base, and will help the 96th SFS respond to potential threats.

Sartain was not stationed at Eglin; he was a member of the 66th Security Forces Squadron attached to Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts at the time of his last deployment. Still, his brothers and sisters in arms in the 96th SFS wanted to honor the man whose nickname was “Old Man.”

“Northwest Florida has really honored Nathan,” said Sartain’s father, Philip. “It means a lot to our family that on a daily basis there’s going to be something out here that’s working in service to our country that has his name on it. I know it would have meant a lot to Nathan as well.”

After breaking a bottle of champagne across the boat’s bow, Janice Sartain said she could feel her son’s presence at the christening ceremony.

“Nathan would have thought this was so cool,” she said with a laugh. She added that the sight of hundreds of fellow Air Force security forces airmen, most of whom had never met her son, turning out to honor him was tremendously comforting.

“This is so touching,” she said. “Nathan’s been gone for 16 months, but in some ways it just seems like one long day.”

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Security forces boat named in honor of Pensacola airman