|
|
| |||||||||||||||||
| There Was Something Very, Very Special About Reese By: James Clark Sunday is the 10-year anniversary when Air Force officials handed over security to local enforcement and said goodbye. We continue our weeklong series of special reports… 10 years since we said goodbye to Reese Air Force Base. It was 10 years ago this coming Sunday that orders were read out loud, speeches were given, the flags were lowered, and the base was ceremonially closed. News Radio 1420 has been looking for Air Force veterans and one of them we found is Dan Sanders. Currently he is the CEO of United Supermarkets. He served twice at Reese Air Force Base… once as a training pilot, and later as an instructor pilot. Sanders says, “Well, I was very, very disappointed for a lot of reasons. Obviously I had a fair amount of sweat equity in that base.” Beyond the purely emotional aspect there were practical reasons to be disappointed that BRAC decided to close Reese. He says, “From a more operational perspective it bothered me because Reese Air Force Base really put out some great pilots in part because as you probably know the runway configuration at Reese is north and south. And we have a prevailing westerly wind. And so, Reese pilots had to learn how to fly in crosswinds.” Sanders says there was something very, very special about Reese. It made the Reese the ‘gem’ of the Air Force training operations. “We had a host program where families in the community would take a student, sometimes two under their wings for a year or a year-and-a-half that they were stationed here going through training. And as a result of that there were life long friendships and relationships established.” Sanders retired from the Air Force in 1993 at the rank of Major. Some Personal Thoughts I was there personally for the base closing ceremony. It was one of those late fall mornings where it cool in the shade but scorching hot in the sun. I reported live from the base that day for KAMC 28. It just seemed to me that there was a tremendous sense of historic weight to the day. This was much more than the loss of jobs. The base was a source of intense pride and there were so many people who felt like the base was unfairly taken from Lubbock. Of course, you can take away the air base. You can’t take away the memories. Todd Reno with Reese Technology Center found some old photos and shared them with us. We’ll post them to our web site at NewsRadio1420.com. Reese Air Force Base… ending its tour of duty 10 years ago this week. Story Posted: Fri Sep 28 06:30:00 CDT 2007 Created: Fri Sep 28 06:27:21 CDT 2007 BACK TO HOME/NEWS Top Story • Lubbock tax bill going up Lubbock News & Lbk County • Tech fans face parking challenges • Seat belts required in school buses • Apartment fire injures one Weather • Thursday Forecast Business • AM Business Notebook Around Texas • Cornyn Comments On Obama's Iraq War Remarks • Fire Warning For Hunters As Dove Season Kicks Off • Boy Dies Of Rare Infection From Water • Austin Headlines • Dallas Headlines • Houston Headlines • San Antonio Headlines Swap Shop • Swap Shop Update This Day In History • Today Marks Formal End Of World War Two • Today In History Birthdays • Today's Birthdays Entertainment • Tonight's TV Off Beat News Of The Day • Middle School Student Arrested Over Facebook Threats Health Beat • New North American Lutheran Church Launched • New Study Doesn't Bode Well For Abbott Diet Drug Religion Today • New North American Lutheran Church Launched • Al-Qaeda Leader Calls For Killing Christians Sports • Sports Shorts |
| |||||||||||||||||
   |
|
All material displayed on this site is Copyright © Walker Communications 2005 unless otherwise indicated. Web site management system (server side scripts) Copyright © James Clark 2005-2008. |
RSS Feed