"SteveM8597" wrote in message
...
From the 80th Fighter Squadron Assocation organization head Col Jay
Riedel,
USAF Ret, on a project to recognize the Enlisted that have kept our
squadron
going from WWII in the Pacific in P-38s to the present with F-16s.

"Thanks for the contact--good to hear from you. No, we don't have a
specific
Enlisted Heritage of the 80th; however, I wholeheartedly agree with
you--it is
a very important part of our Squadron History, and needs to be assembled.
At
each reunion banquet, I recognize all of our Squadron Aces in the audience
(getting to be a very short list), then all the past Sq Commanders,
general
officers, and the spouses that keep things running smooth at home. Then,
last
but not least, all the Enlisted men/women in the audience--as I point out
that
even our Aces couldn't get off the ground, if it were not for all of our
ground
personnel that maintain the birds, fix and load the weapons, keep our
personal
equipment working perfectly, and all our Squadron records up to date and
accurate. "Not one of these groups of Squadron people could do the
mission on
their own--it takes ALL of these parts working together to make the fine
honed
whole of what our Squadron is, and always has been--a symbol of excellence
in
the Fighter Community."

I wonder if Art has bothered to read and absorb this...the good Colonel is
obviously qualified to lecture him in this regard.

Brooks