Mr. SIGIS and I are headed to Steak Night on the deck at Barksdale AFB, home of the B52s. I so love sitting on the deck, watching the sun set on a spring or summer evening, surrounded by brave military members dedicated to preserving our freedom and listening to the B52s on the nearby air strip. I love how you don't even hear this plane until it's on top of you. Glorious!
Glorious, indeed!
ReplyDeleteOh lordy yes, I grew up in Strategic Air Command. I love the BUFFs. After the B-17, the best bomber the USAF ever flew. Taking off at 40-second intervals, injecting water, alternating left right and center to stay out of each other's wake...
ReplyDeleteAnd the best slogan ever to grace an engine of war, "Peace Is Our Profession."
Oh, and by the way, every one of those airplanes is not only older than its pilot, it is probably older than its pilot's father. Those BUFFs are TOUGH.
ReplyDeleteMy first introduction to the BUFF happened in the late sixties/early seventies. There was an exercise where BUFFs "attacked" major American cities. I was used to seeing the new 747s flying into Philly International a few miles away, but one day I was surprised when a BUFF flew over Philly at (probably significantly) less than a thousand feet and heading towards Center City. I remember standing with my jaw on the ground as one of those bad boys flew right over me.
ReplyDeleteEventually, I became a BUFF navigator. Very satisfying.
Jayhawk....I loved SAC's emblem, the gauntlet with the thunder bolts coming through it.
ReplyDeleteBack in 93 I was at Davis-Mathan (SP?) AFB outside Tucson for a few months and as I was driving on the highway I saw a BUFF landing and it hit me, that was the end of the line for that bird. D-M is the graveyard for old planes and I took a tour of the place once. It struck me on how many thousands of birds and history were out there. Sobering.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteFrom November 1977 to July 1979 I was stationed at Barksdale and assigned to an air refueling squadron which was under the Strategic Air Command (SAC). I remember the bottom of our letterhead paper was the motto, "Peace Is Our Profession." Our little joke was "Peace is our profession, War is just a hobby."
We would also say, "SAC Sucks, but it Sucks with Pride."
I remember seeing various of the SAC emblem. One was with the iron fist holding a stringer of fish, but my favorite one was that of a scrotum hanging under the iron fist and Strategic Air Command was changed to "Snatch 'em And Crunch 'em!)
I loved the Air Force and proud to be have been a veteran of it. I still wonder how in the hell I ended up in the Army, which I too proudly served.
MikeAT, my father had a burial service in Tucson with detachment of pallbearers provided from Davis-Monthan before he was flown to Arlington for his final rest.
ReplyDeleteWant to know the final fate of that BUFF? It had its wings cut off and its fuselage sliced into three segments. Then it was left sitting in the field for a week so that Russian satellites could see and count it as destroyed, and finally it was cut up for salvage.
Sad fate for a noble bird, but I saw it happening many times during the eight years that I lived there.
And yet we not only still have them, they still fly missions. D-M has the A-10 Warthogs, too, which the Air Force thought was past its prime until Gulf War 1. That plane will probably outlast us all, too.
The B52 - part of the great arsenal of democracy.
ReplyDeleteI am interested in trying to find a baseball cap with the SAC fist holding scrotum as mentioned as a surprise gift for my significant other since we was stationed there
ReplyDeleteif you know of any resources, I havent found any yet
Thanks in advance
Teri