♪♫ Memories... Like the Corners of My Mind... ♫♪

With apologies to Barbra.  I was reading thru the (other) usual source this morning and came upon this lil blurb...

A Beacon of BRAC: Air National Guardsmen from six states have potentially saved the Air Force some $31 million by stepping up to move a radar research tower from Rome, N.Y., to Springfield ANGB, Ohio. Mandated under BRAC 2005, the Air Force Research Lab set out to consolidate four radar towers near Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. With initial contract estimates as high as $35 million, AFRL sensors directorate officials turned to the New York Air National Guard's 213th Engineering Installation Squadron in 2007. Harnessing Air Guard manpower from across the nation, the squadron estimated that it could complete the project for just $4.2 million. In late May, the Air Guardsmen, supported by active duty airmen, completed the disassembly, move, and reassembly process at Springfield, all for $600,000 under the unit's cost projection. "The underlying theme behind BRAC is achieving savings for the taxpayers. This effort is one of our biggest success stories to date," said Frank Albanese, AFRL's BRAC director. (Springfield report by Derek Kaufman)

Hey!  I used to do that!  And apropos of sumthin' I said yesterday, one of my claims to fame in this life is I was part of a multi-functional USAF Engineering-Installations team that set a record for taking a bunch of big-ass boxes... and I mean a BUNCH, like about 100 semi-tractor trailers worth... and turning them into a fully-functioning aircraft control and warning (AC&W) radar ground control intercept site.  Me and about 100 of my closest friends from the E&I division of the 1956th Communications Group spent four months on Doi Inthanon (the tallest mountain in Thailand) putting that site together.  That was in the way, way-back... sometime in 1976.  I've posted about this before but always in passing, like this:

There are others, of course, most of which we have no photographic record. And most of those events are minor… mundane, even... such as the time my buds and I walked off the hill at Doi Inthanon, Thailand after a hard day of raising the search radar antenna at a long range radar site we (a USAF Engineering & Installations [E&I] team out of Yokota AB, Japan) were building for the Royal Thai Air Force. Raising that antenna was a milestone in a long and difficult installation… and we celebrated by unfurling a home-made banner on the radar antenna… a huge thing cobbled up out of bedsheets, emblazoned with our makeshift "Baker and Sons Radar Installations" logo, and visible throughout the radar station. That banner was a thing we spent the entire evening admiring, all while hoisting many Singhas in celebration… accompanied by team members from the various E&I disciplines deployed with us… radio, telephone, construction… among others. A victory of sorts, and one to be celebrated. Once again… we were heroes, just for one day.

I'm pretty sure I took my camera with me on that TDY, but any pictures I took of that adventure have gone missing over the years. I bitch and moan constantly about losing all my photos and this is yet another case of that.  There's always The Wiki, though... and here's what the RTAF station on Doi Inthanon looks like today:

DI was a LOT less civilized the last time I saw it and that microwave tower on the right wasn't there. But that golf ball behind the green water or fuel tank?  My buds and I built the radar antenna inside that and all the other radar stuff, too.  I've got the tee shirt.

Air Force News From New Mexico

From the (other) Usual Source:

Bye, Bye Black Sheep: Airmen at Holloman AFB, N.M., held an inactivation ceremony for the 8th Fighter Squadron. The "Black Sheep" are standing down after less than two years of operating F-22s due to the Air Force's Raptor fleet consolidation plan, which calls for Holloman to lose its two squadrons' worth of F-22s and take on two F-16 squadrons for training. "We flew 2,500 sorties and over 3,000 hours. That's more than 10 sorties a day, with less than nine F-22s," said Lt. Col. Craig Baker, 8th FS commander, in highlighting his unit's accomplishments during the inactivation ceremony. The inactivation takes effect on July 15. Some of the 8th FS' F-22s are going, for the time being, to Holloman's 7th FS, while others will bolster the ranks of F-22 units at JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; JB Langley-Eustis, Va.; and Nellis AFB, Nev. The 7th FS' F-22s will eventually shift to Tyndall AFB, Fla. This is the second time in the 8th FS' 61-year-history that the unit will go on inactive status. The first time was in April 2008 following the retirement of the F-117 Nighthawk. The Black Sheep have flown 15 airframes throughout their history, and they dropped the first bombs in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom when they flew F-117s. (Holloman release by A1C Siuta B. Ika) (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Eileen Payne/Released)

There's a short video at the "Holloman release" link, above.  I gave that vid a look and the first thing that struck me was "it's painful to watch a unit retire its colors."  I've never personally witnessed a unit inactivation, at least not any unit to which I was currently assigned when it ceased to exist.  I DO have the dubious honor of stating all four radar squadrons I served in have been deactivated (the 669th, the 750th, the 761st, and the 780th) and their physical locations have nearly deteriorated into nothingness.  It's a true fact you can never go home again, particularly when "home" doesn't exist any longer.  The 8FS may live again sometime in the future but it's a pretty safe bet there will never be another radar squadron, because time and technology marches on... relentlessly.

And I Was VERY Glad...

From today's AFA Daily Report:

Texas Tower Victims Honored: President Obama has sent letters of gratitude to the families of the 28 airmen and civilians who died on Jan. 15, 1961, when the offshore NORAD radar platform on which they were serving sank more than 80 miles off the coast of New York during a storm. The Boston Globe reported that the President's acknowledgment came on the 50th anniversary of the loss of "Texas Tower 4," one of several radar platforms sitting off the US East Coast in the 1950s and early 1960s to provide advanced warning of a Soviet bomber attack. Obama also sent letters to the families of four men who died in accidents on the other platforms, according to the newspaper. The Air Force closed the last tower in 1963. (For more on the Texas towers, see The Rise of Air Defense and More Guts Than Glory from Air Force Magazine's archives)

First of all:  Good On President Obama.  Acknowledging troops we lost during the Cold War, for whatever reason, is an admirable thing and something that doesn't happen all that often.

Now that we got THAT out of the way (and I was serious)... I highlighted that bit above (and titled this post as I did) because (a) 1963 was the year I entered the Air Force and (b) I could have VERY easily wound up on one of the Texas Towers, seeing as how I was that kind o' radar guy for the first 16 years of my career.  

And while both of the linked articles at the end of the Daily Report blurb are worth your time I especially recommend the "More Guts Than Glory" piece.  That one is interesting for a number of reasons... not the least of which is the fact it was written in 1958.  Times and styles... especially writing styles for the quasi-official House Organ... most certainly DO change.  I thought it was kinda cool to see archaic terms like A/2C and M/Sgt sprinkled throughout the article.  But then I would, wouldn't I?  Coz that was the way we were in Your Father's Air Force.