USAF Reunion
Nora & I spent last weekend in Kansas City, MO at the reunion of my USAF pilot traing classmates. There were about 18 of them there, most with a spouse. The class is identified as 52 A, since we were the first class to finish in1952. There were 262 men who graduated on 8 Feb 1952. They came from 4 different training bases: Reese AFB, Lubbock, TX (my alma mater) 119 grads, Vance AFB, Enid OK 124 grads, Williams AFB, Phoenix, AZ 9 American grads, many more from NATO, Craig AFB Geogia -I thinK 10 grads. About 100 of their names appear on the roster labled "Fallen Eagles" with cause of death noted if known. There are 88 names on the list of those whose whereabouts or possible demise is unknown. That leaves 74 for the roster of those still living with known addresses. Thus, the turnout was about 24% of the survivors. One who died just a couple months ago (lung cncer) was Bob Price, someone I had hoped to see 'cause we shared the same instructor. I did see George Schulstad, another of that instructor's students. Lt George M. Lake started with 4 students - add Jim Turpen (died about 5 yrs ago), not yet mentioned. All 4 of us graduated and went on to advanced, which is pretty remarkable considering that of the total of 17 in our section that started basic, a total of just 7 finished. And I believe that I was the only one of the four that done any flying prior to getting into the T6 airplane. Schulstad is one of just 2 of the 262 that became a general. He'd spent several years as an exchange pilot, - US Navy and Canadian AF- flying off a carrier during Viet Nam. I may have been the only one there who had not made his career either military, commercial or airline pilot.