Charles Everett Bullard, now 87, was a C-47 maintainer back in World War II with the 440th Troop Carrier Group that operated from Pope Army Air Field, N.C. Sixty-five years later, Bullard has taken a ride on a C-130 transport flown by the airmen of Air Force Reserve Command’s 440th Airlift Wing, the current incarnation of his old unit at Pope, now an Air Force base. Bullard got this opportunity as part of a visit sponsored by the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve initiative that gives employers and business leaders who employ USAF reservists an up-close look at the units in which their employees serve. Bullard was honored as a 440th AW honorary command chief for his July flight. (Pope report by Jerry Green)
Air Force leaders hail recent strike missions like Midnight Hammer as a shining example of operational readiness, but Airmen who played a role in the bombing raid on Iran worry that the service is ill-prepared to mount an extended campaign of long-range strikes against a peer adversary.
