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NEWS | Nov. 7, 2016

History office captures today’s operations to inform tomorrow’s decisions

Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph Public Affairs

Air Force leaders have faced issues such as aging aircraft, bird strikes and encroachment for decades, relying on counsel from various sources to help guide them to the right decisions regarding these and other serious problems.

Sometimes a historical perspective is warranted.

History offices, found at major command and wing levels, provide commanders and other leaders with the historical data they can use to make those choices.

“The wing historian is focused on capturing performance of our operational mission in order to give commanders the information they need to improve combat capability,” said Lane Bourgeois, 12th Flying Training Wing historian. “We capture the operational history of the unit today – especially the important issues – so it’s here for tomorrow.”

Bourgeois, who has served as an Air Force historian for nearly 20 years, both on active duty and now as a civilian, said the relevant issues addressed by the history office are found in the wing’s annual history, a multifaceted document that informs leadership.

Although most histories cover one fiscal year, the most recently completed history spanned two fiscal years – from October 2013 to September 2015. The 187-page document contains 60,000 words, more than 300 supporting documents, 16 major topics and 16 appendices.

“Encroachment was a big part of this history,” Bourgeois said. “The history office has traced it since the 1970s, when it was a big issue. Now it’s become an important issue again.”

Because encroachment started gaining prominence again near the end of the 2014 fiscal year due to rapid growth in surrounding communities, Bourgeois said he received approval from Air Education and Training Command leadership to extend the history through the 2015 fiscal year to give encroachment a fuller treatment.

“Encroachment issues were just starting to ramp up again,” he said. “We would have had to stop the conversation. We would’ve had a big break in the topic.”

The fiscal 2014-fiscal 2015 history is divided into three chapters: Leadership, Mission and Organization, which addresses changes of command, the vision and mission of the wing and the changes resulting from joint basing; Operations and Production, including encroachment and its potential impact on the mission as well as changes in the remotely piloted aircraft program; and Mission Support, which discusses how the wing is mitigating the bird strike problem.

Bourgeois, who cross-trained into the history career field as an active-duty member, is now working on the 12th FTW’s fiscal 2016 history, which he said will be completed by April. Encroachment remains a big issue, along with topics such as the remotely piloted aircraft mission and the wing’s efforts to reduce the risks caused by bird strikes.

“These are things commanders need to know,” he said. “If you know where you’ve been and what you’ve done, you can chart a future.”

Bourgeois, who has also served as historian for the 71st FTW at Vance Air Force Base, Okla., Air Force Recruiting Service and the 31st Fighter Wing at Aviano Air Base, Italy, said he enjoys writing unit histories.

“It’s a lot of work, but doing it, you get a tremendous amount of satisfaction,” he said. “I do my best to bring structure to the document.”

Most wings have one historian, Bourgeois said, but the 12th FTW – which comprises the 12th Operations Group, the 306th Flying Training Group at the U.S. Air Force Academy, the 479th FTG at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., and the 12th Maintenance Directorate, which will soon receive group status – has two historians.

In addition to Bourgeois, who is assigned to 12th FTW headquarters at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, a historian at the 479th FTG headquarters is responsible for documenting the combat systems officer mission.

Bourgeois’ duties can be divided into four categories, he said. He handles administrative tasks, collects data for the unit’s history, writes the history and responds to queries from wing staff and squadron personnel as well as the general public.

“I usually average about 10 queries per month,” he said. Query topics range from unit lineage, honors and emblems to the issues faced by leadership.


Much of the data collected by the history office is preserved digitally, but Bourgeois said he can also rely on the wing’s history repository contained in a room adjacent to his office in building 200, especially when responding to queries.


The repository, a giant automated filing cabinet that rises more than 20 feet, includes photos, videos and many thousands of pages’ worth of documents, reports and other written material dating back more than 60 years.

The role of historians is proactive since they work as researchers and reporters, attending meetings, talking to subject-matter experts and collecting documents, photos and videos that chronicle the unit’s history, Bourgeois said.

“The biggest challenge for me is collecting documents – getting the kind of information I need to produce a good history for the unit,” he said.


It’s important to inform leaders of the historian’s role, Bourgeois said. It’s not just about the past.

“We’re interested in what units are doing now,” he said.