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Col USAF Ret' Mark Race, a former speaker to the
Group, has been in touch with us via our website.
The edited text from his e-mail’s follows below:-
You've got a great web site, and I enjoyed my short association with the Group. As I remember on 2nd February 1984 Marshall Siler and I gave a talk to the Group, discussing the worthiness of flying C-5 Galaxys vs C-141 Starlifters. At the time I was the Director of the Airlift Command Center at
RAF Mildenhall and Marshall was one of my duty officers, I being the ex C-141 pilot, Marshall being the C-5 pilot. Later in 1984 I arranged some tours of the Mildenhall flightline for the Group.
I left Mildenhall to become the operations officer of the C-23 Sherpa unit at
Zweibrucken
AB
,
Germany
. Incidentally while I was there I had 50 2nd Lt pilots assigned. When we crew rested in Mildenhall we usually got the entire next day off, and I used to take them on a ‘mandatory’ expedition through the English countryside. I made sure that they stopped at a ‘real’ English pub, played darts, saw an abandoned WWII aerodrome and walked around an English village. Over half of the 50 2nd Lts are
now Captains or F/O's at major
US
airlines. After Zweibrucken I became the Commander of a C-22 (B-727) unit at Andrews AFB and then I went on to
Air
War
College
.
Subsequently I somehow found my way into Special Operations, and life became real interesting! I was at Ft Bragg,
North Carolina
from 1989-1993 as Commander of a Special Operations Air Command & Control unit. I was the Senior Air Commander Airborne, during the initial air assaults, for the Invasion of Panama and the Joint Special Operations Air Component Commander for Scud hunting operations in the Gulf War. In 1993-1996 I was the Deputy Commander for the Special Operations Command Europe (SOCEUR) headquartered
at
Stuttgart
,
Germany
. While there, I worked hand-in-hand with the 352nd SOG (MH-53s Pave Lows, and MC-130 Talon II's) at Mildenhall. I was at various times the Commander or Deputy Commander for Joint Special Operations Task Forces (JSOTFs) supporting
Bosnia
ops,
Northern Iraq
ops and Liberian and Ruwanda non-combatant evacuations. My last assignment was the Chief, Contingency Ops at HQ Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) at
Hurlburt Field
,
Florida
.
After retirement I continued to work for the government at Ft Bragg as a manager for some special operation programs one of them being the Remote Operations Video Enhanced Receiver (ROVER). The RAF is beginning to use the system. It permits the reception of real time video from Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles and Strike fighters to the soldiers on the ground. It has changed the way close air support is conducted. So the program allowed me to travel twice to
Iraq
, visiting all the hot spots, and also last year I visited
Afghanistan
. I worked a lot with Predators.
I retired for the second time last October, however I've been asked to consult for the Department of Defense, so I'm not fully out of work. My wife and I now live in
Asheville
,
North Carolina
in the mountainous western part of the state. I hope to get checked out in some light aircraft and do some flying soon.
Finally I would like to send my best wishes to all the members of the Group.
Mark Race
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