Feb 08, 2012 12:02PM

Airmen provide dental care in Honduras

Members of the Joint Medical Readiness Training Exercise provided medical services to more than 730 La Bacadia community members here recently, including more than 85 patients seen by the dental team.

The Joint MEDRETE's dental members were responsible for dental assessment and tooth extraction during the event.

"Extracting decayed teeth is an efficient way of providing relief to our patients," said Lt. Col. Ray Williams, the medical element's dentist. "It allows us to get rid of the source of the infection as well as the pain."
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Feb 08, 2012 09:35AM

Super Bowl moment relative to Airmen today

At the risk of committing the journalistic sin of cliché in my commentary, I'll use the recentness of the Super Bowl to justify my use of a sports analogy to illustrate my point. Every year when I watch the big game, I remember my favorite play of all time and hope for a similar moment that would so greatly influence me that I would remember it decades later. It didn't come during New York's defeat of New England, but the game did give me cause to reflect on what I consider one of the greatest moments in Super Bowl history.
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Feb 08, 2012 07:16AM

Airmen halt nighttime training to aid victims

Combat-search-and-rescue Airmen from the 920th Rescue Wing here halted their nighttime training operations at a remote drop zone in Central Florida to transport accident victims to the hospital.

Four people were injured, one seriously, when their airboat flipped on the St. John's River, approximately 30 miles north of where the Airmen were rehearsing for war.

With the help of the 920th local Airmen piloting an HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopter, the Brevard County Sheriff's department launched a rescue mission dispatching airboats from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and Camp Holley Fish Camp, to assist in taking paramedics to the secluded accident site.
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Feb 08, 2012 06:28AM

AF announces test pilot school selections

Sixty-plus Airmen are primary or alternate Air Force and Navy test pilot school selectees, while one has been selected to attend the Epner Test Pilot School in France, and another will attend the Empire Test Pilot School in England, Air Force Personnel Center officials announced.

Selectees, identified during the August 2011 school selection board, will fill July 2012 and January 2013 classes. The board named pilots to fill requirements for fighter, multi-engine, helicopter and remotely piloted aircraft; combat and weapon systems officer requirements, and flight test engineer requirements, said Howard Peterson, AFPC pipeline and trainer assignments branch.
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Feb 08, 2012 05:54AM

Tuskegee Airman gives account of 'lucky' day

Famed Yankees pitcher "Lefty Gomez" once remarked "I'd rather be lucky than good," but for one Tuskegee Airman, luck and good combined to make him one of the most successful combat pilots of World War II.

During the summer of 1944, 2nd Lt. Clarence D. "Lucky" Lester was flying the P-51 Mustang over the skies of Italy's Po Valley providing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers with cover support on their way to attack airfields in southern Germany.

Lester was assigned to the 100th Fighter Squadron, a part of the 332nd Fighter Group, and had earned the nickname "Lucky" "because of all the tight situations from which I had escaped without a scratch or even a bullet hole in my aircraft."
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