More than 50 airmen from eight career fields join forces over an eight-day period to perform periodic inspections of the KC-135 tankers at Grand Forks AFB, N.D., reports SrA. Paul Croxon. Every one of the old tankers goes through such inspection every 15 months or 1,500 flight hours. Many of the airmen are apprentices who are learning the specifics of their trades after picking up the basics at technical school. They also learn “where they fit into the bigger maintenance picture” by working with other career fields, says TSgt. Shane Bushta with the 319th Maintenance Squadron at Grand Forks.
Retired Col. Carlyle "Smitty" Harris, known for introducing the "tap code" by which American POWs in North Vietnam could surreptitiously communicate with one another, died July 6. Harris was brutalized by the North Vietnamese over almost eight years of captivity.