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JBSA News
NEWS | Dec. 7, 2009

Congressional Medal of Honor kiosks due at Randolph

By Robert Goetz 12th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs

One of the highlights of the 2010 Air Education and Training Command Symposium planned for Jan. 14-15 will be the presence of five Airmen who have received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Members of the Randolph community now have an opportunity to learn about these American heroes and the more than 3,000 others who have earned the nation's highest award for valor in wartime.

Two kiosks - one containing a database of all 3,446 Medal of Honor recipients, the other with more than 100 five- to eight-minute multimedia vignettes featuring some of the award winners - are scheduled for placement at two on-base locations this week.

"We have five living Medal of Honor recipients who will be guests at the symposium," said Lt. Col. Andrew Huisentruit, AETC Symposium action officer. "As part of that, we obtained two kiosks on loan from the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. One will be placed at the fitness center and one at the billeting office; then they'll be taken to the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center for the symposium. This will give people a chance to learn more about our military heritage and the people who have served before us."

James Sturch, AETC Symposium event director, said the kiosks will provide the base community with an introduction to the symposium and to the Medal of Honor recipients.

"These kiosks will offer Randolph Air Force Base personnel an incredible preface to the AETC Symposium and our efforts to formally recognize the five Air Force Medal of Honor recipients and their incredible stories," he said.

The Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation provides the kiosks for installation in select museums across the country for educational purposes - the first in March 2007 to the Museum of Flight in Seattle - and now loans them to various institutions.

The kiosk with the Medal of Honor database contains information on all recipients since President Abraham Lincoln signed legislation establishing a Medal of Honor for the Navy in 1861; it also includes an educational quiz. The other kiosk features the videotaped stories of award recipients from World War II, Korea and Vietnam, complemented with file footage, graphics, music and narration.

Colonel Huisentruit said he hopes the kiosks will also draw the attention of the base community to the five Medal of Honor recipients who will participate in a panel discussion during the symposium. The annual event will include more than 70 lecture seminars, two keynote speaker luncheons, an exposition of military and civilian vendors and a formal ball with keynote speaker Gen. Norton A. Schwartz, Air Force Chief of Staff.

The Medal of Honor recipients attending the symposium, who were honored for valor during the Vietnam War, are retired Colonels Bud Day, Bernard Fisher, Jim Fleming, Joe Jackson and Leo Thorsness. Two of them, Cols. Day and Thorsness, are Freedom Flyers, the Air Force combat pilots who survived North Vietnamese prisoner-of-war camps and were requalified as pilots and given their "fini flights" by Randolph's 560th Flying Training Squadron following the Vietnam War.