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Lieutenant Colonel Robert "Bob" l. Hite died on March 29, 2015. The last two surviving Raiders on that date were Lt. Col. (ret) Richard Cole and Staff Sgt. David Thatcher. Cole was the co-pilot on Crew 1 (Doolittle's plane). Thatcher was the engineer-gunner on Crew 7. To honor the Raiders, and because we are class sponsors for the Class of 2015, our class sponsored a B-25 flyby at 2015's graduation parade. The B-25 flyby for the 2015 graduation was approved by the CSAF.  Full size photo HERE (thanks to Bill Estelle!).
Bentley's debrief: Last Friday, the 22 May, 2015, was the last time the entire Class of 2015 was going to meet together. It was their big briefing on the upcoming graduation week and all the activities that were going to take place. A number of us were able to make a presentation at the end of their meeting in front of the entire class and present the B-25 flyby as a tribute to their class from their Legacy Class of 1975. To mark the occasion, we presented the class president with the model of the B-25. Attached is a picture of the Class leadership (the three cadet wing commander for the year and the class president) and our '75 reps. From left to right, Mark Wells, Jim Eken, Scott Hente, Larry Bryant and me. Bill Estelle took the picture. The cadet holding the B-25 model was their class president, a former JTAC enlisted man, Andrew Dane: one of the few cadets I'm sure to ever wear the Purple Heart. We took a second picture in the hallway so we could get Bill in it. The Class of 2015 seemed genuinely enthusiastic about our gesture. We told them that when the B-25 flew over, they needed to remember that it was our personal recognition to their class from ours and comes with all our best wishes for their service as Air Force officers. We grabbed the model back from them and told them we'd take care of getting it on display. We talked briefly about what we might do with the model. Scott Hente and I are happy to take care of it, but there was some consensus to have a base of some kind constructed so that we can mount an appropriate inscription memorializing the event and then display it somewhere at the Academy (the AOG? Arnold Hall? Somewhere else?) and then let the Class of '15 know what we did. If anybody else has some good ideas - send them our way! We have had a lot of rain for the last 10+ days and the weather has been anything but Colorado-standard. But, this morning was a beautiful one with blue skies and some scattered clouds. The B-25 flew over just after the Wing formed up on the parade field. Probably the best picture was taken by Larry Bryant. The announcer talked about the significance of the B-25 and the connection to the Doolittle Raiders and made a very nice mention of the connection between the Class of '75 and the Class of 2015 and the fact that they flyby was sponsored by our class. There was a very nice reaction from the crowd. All in all, I think it was a great show by our class. We're the first class to accomplish a flyby for a graduation event.  |
