The retirement of Niagara Falls 328th Air Refueling Squadron’s Lt. Col. Bill Schunk marks a passing of the torch to his son, Senior Airman Bill Schunk who is a Boom Operator with the 328th ARS. Both men followed in the footsteps of Lt. Col. William Leon Schunk who retired from the unit in the 80s. For over six decades there has been a Schunk family member flying with the 328th and for the first time ever and the last time in uniform Lt. Col Schunk got the chance to fly with his son.
Transcript
Yeah, I’ve never had a chance to fly with my son before, so he’s going to be an official crew member performing duties today, and I’m to be just an additional crew member early. You get an opportunity to share what he’s doing together, and I’ve been doing it for so long. I’ll be at a different airplane, but now we’re both wearing essentially the same clothes for the first time and get to go on an airplane together and kind of passed the torch. You know, I did it for 34 years. Now it’s his turn. My dad did it before me, and that’s kind of what’s all about today. So, my dad was. He was an enlisted Air Force guy, and he missed it right out of high school, which had been like in 1948 he flew B 20 sixes in Japan, got off active duty, came to Niagara Falls back to his hometown in 56 and then in 1958 when the art program started, he became an art. He’s out here from then until the mid-eighties, a couple years after high school, I was just kind of jumped him in the car and said, Hey, what if I join the unit trying to get an interview ? This that And he said, Yeah, but I mean, you know, if you’re going to join, you, gotta you gotta fly. That’s the only way for me. It’s just a great way to end of it. You know, I’m retiring in 16 days. It’s just a great great cap on the community. It’s a great, great end at all. Go out and you’re not a nice flight today and have some fun with that. That’s all day. It means the world. To me. It’s a you know, every time I put the flight, Sudan, they made something, and there’s a lot of people that came before me that allowed me to be around that. So, it means a lot. Uh huh. All right, get separation. Moving after is well clear by someone terminated versus separation