Community Correspondence - Letters from Concerned Citizens - 179th AW Mansfield OH Page: 5 of 15
This letter is part of the collection entitled: Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission and was provided to UNT Digital Library by the UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.
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6 June 2005
Kenneth Kmetz
2404 Millsboro Road
Ontario, OH 44906
BRAC Commission
2521 South Clark Street, Suite 600
Arlington, VA 22202
BRAC Commission.
As a citizen-airman of the 179th Airlift Wing and Mansfield, Ohio resident for 39 years, I
write this letter to encourage you to fight on behalf of the 179th members and the
community/communities that will be adversely impacted. It is my honest assessment that
it is in the best interest of the United States national defense to keep the 179th Airlift
Wing open. Please do everything in your power to get the 179th Airlift Wing off of the
BRAC list.
I am writing this letter as a concerned citizen and do not represent the 179th Airlift Wing
though I am a member. I enlisted in December of 1986 and have long since contributed a
great deal of time and energy to the unit and therefore the country it serves.
I encourage you to become familiar with the 179th Airlift Wing's record, its
deployments, accomplishments, community involvement, and its direct support with the
Global War on Terror (GWOT). I will only focus on my direct involvement with the
above mentioned.
I am a current state of Ohio employee and work in support of the wing as a lieutenant
firefighter at the base - I have been employed by the state in this capacity since
November of 1989. Our department was named best in the Air National Guard recently
and it supports a charity organization that has contributed over $11K to the local
community. The department is also a guard department made up of 24 traditional
guardsmen who are to be "realigned" to Toledo, Ohio. They recently returned from a
five-month tour in Iraq where they were continually under-fire and served their country
with great distinction. They joined the Mansfield unit to be in Mansfield and be a part of
something bigger (our national defense).
As a traditional guardsman, I have grown with the unit starting as an airman basic and
now I command the Security Forces Squadron (this unit deployed seven different squads
in support of GWOT). The opportunities afforded me in my career are not unlike many
others who join the Air National Guard. It creates opportunities for our community
members to get a college education, work experience, leadership opportunity, and much
more that they take back to the community for which they reside. Though each of us is
serving the nation and the community for which we live in, the community is alsobenefiting directly from the experiences of these citizen-airmen who go back to their
"civilian" lives when they are not serving or training with the Air National Guard.
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Community Correspondence - Letters from Concerned Citizens - 179th AW Mansfield OH, letter, July 28, 2005; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc18870/m1/5/?q=music&rotate=270: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.