MCENTIRE JOINT NATIONAL GUARD BASE, S.C. --
We had about 50
folks to show for our March Luncheon. We had Lt. Col. Wade Rivers come by and
talk to us primarily about the May Air Expo coming up. He was whetting our appetite
to attend this event. As always a great group of people showed up for this
Luncheon. We were in the Excalibur Room, which is my favorite place in the NCO
Club. It is nicely decorated. There is a lot of light in that room, and just a
wonderful setting for our Luncheon.
McEntire History: We
are coming close to the end of the Korean War Call-Up folks, perhaps three more
months of honoring our predecessors. This month we have some folks who were
assigned to Detachment B, 216th Air Services Group. They are as follows:
Private First Class (PFC) Ansel Kelly, John W. Kelly, Chesley W. Lovell,
Marshall E. McCain, Carl M. Miller, William A. Moye, Everett M. Oswald, Frank
K. Prewitt, William N. Reese, William C. Scott, John C. Shealey, Gene C.
Tinman, Jack Tinman, Carlyle Tyler, Wallace E. Walker, Robert B. White, and Charles
T. Young. There were three Tinman
Brothers on this Call-Up, and I believe Charles T. Young was Buddy Young’s dad.
April Deployments: In
April 2001, the 169th sent about 225 folks to Prince Sultan AB, Saudi Arabia,
the old Al Kharj, for OPERATION SOUTHERN WATCH; still messing around with
Saddam Hussein 10 years after DESERT STORM. The 169th FW flew 160 sorties with
not one sortie lost due to maintenance cancellation under the severe desert/hot
conditions. One nice thing about this deployment there were no tents. I know
the Desert Storm folks were disappointed? 120 day deployment.
April 2012,
this was an OEF (OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM), another 120 day deployment with
18 F-16’s and around 400 folks. Quite a large deployment, some were going for two
months, while some stayed the whole 120 days. The unit provided 2,194 combat
sorties, flying a total of 9192.8 combat hours, which means to me that every
pilot averaged about 4.2 hours each sortie. The jets and pilots also provided
246 show of force, dropping 207 bombs, and expended 7,303 20mm rounds. Pretty
good record keeping.
As always,
every April, I must mention the 240th, my old unit. It was formed up
April 18, 1952, and alas, it had to stand down effective March 31, 2008, almost
56 years of operating. It saw a lot and did a lot during its years of
operation. Speaking of the 240th, in 1977 for summer camps, the 240th ATCF went
back to their favorite haunt, Phelps-Collins CBTC in Alpena, MI. While the
240th CCF convoyed to Seymour Johnson AFB in North Carolina.
Our next
Luncheon will be April 4th at the Fort Jackson NCO Club, we always begin around
noon time, come one, come all.