History
The 302d was one of four African-American fighter squadrons to enter combat during World War II. It saw combat in the European Theater of Operations and Mediterranean Theater of Operations from 17 February 1944 – 20 February 1945.
The squadron trained in the Reserve for and performed search and rescue (SAR), in addition to some medical air evacuation missions, mainly in the southwestern United States, from 1956-1974.
In 1974, its mission changed to training for a combat SAR role, while continuing to perform some search and rescue. The squadron's mission changed again, in 1987, to a fighter role and trained for counterair, interdiction, and close air support missions. (The unit that had been the 302d was reflagged as the 71st Special Operations Squadron and physically relocated to Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ. Concurrently, a new AFRES fighter squadron was raised at Luke AFB and took over the 302d lineage.) It deployed several times since late 1992 to Turkey to help enforce the no-fly zone over Iraq and to Italy to support UN air operations in the Balkans.
Read more about this topic: 302d Fighter Squadron
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)