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HOWGOZIT #5
16 April
2007
MEMORANDUM FROM
THE PRESIDENT
This is a fifth
howgozit for all ANA Wing Commanders, ANA Squadron Commanding
Officers and Membership-At-Large. It would be much appreciated
were you to pass this on to all your members, friends and
acquaintances. We need you to help us spread the word.
Our “new” ANA continues to show progress,
all a direct reflection of membership’s desire to see the
Association succeed, and membership’s continued participation in
the Association. As you know, we started with an empty
treasury, great uncertainty and membership rolls were in
decline. The good news is that renewals are now approaching
70%, and we have added 43 new members. Clearly, we need to do
better and your active participation in recruiting and retention
is greatly needed! “Every member get a member!”
Essential to growing membership are
energetic squadrons and worldwide many are showing renewed
vigor. Look to read in a forthcoming Bullhorn about who
they are and what they’re doing. Congratulations to all those
who are working so hard to rejuvenate those units!
Memberships, of course, both individual and
corporate will help us become more solvent too. I point that
out because cash on hand and cash flow continue to be worrisome
issues, even though we’re currently in the black. We don’t
anticipate any sort of capital campaign but the ANA is a
non-profit organization able to accept tax deductible
contributions. Please don’t hesitate.
We do have one immediate need for an
infusion of cash. Between the time the old ANA was
disestablished and the new ANA was formed, our mold for the ANA
logo disappeared. This is becoming a pressing need in that in
the course of a year ANA is committed to awarding a total of
eleven prizes to active duty personnel for outstanding service
in various categories. Thus, we need to very soon
commit to a contract in the amount of $3000
to procure a replacement logo mold
and 50 plaques (at $50/plaque). Should one of you, or several,
or a whole squadron, care to participate in defraying this cost
it would not only be most helpful, but also tax deductible.
When it comes to raising needed dollars, we
all owe special thanks to Admiral Jim Holloway for getting the
new ANA launched in a solvent status; most of you recall last
December’s solicitation over his signature. Now, he’s done it
again. He’s written a book, soon to be released by the Naval
Institute and available in bookstores next month, entitled
Aircraft Carriers at War. To help out he has offered to
provide a free autographed copy to anyone who donates $100 or
more to ANA. It’s a superb book and a great read for any
citizen and, especially for anyone connected with Naval
Aviation. In it he reviews his experiences as a fighter pilot
in Korea, as commanding officer of the first nuclear carrier
striking deep into North Vietnam, fighting for CVN-68 in the
Pentagon, as a task force commander in the Mediterranean facing
down the Soviet Med Fleet, as Commander Seventh Fleet involving
a harrowing close-in surface action just at the end of the
Vietnam War and gives an eyewitness account of a hands-on
participant inside the JCS Tank in the Pentagon and the NSC
Situation Room in the White House. With Admiral Holloway’s
signature it will be a collector’s item, indeed, and a good read
and a help to your ANA besides.
As the new ANA grows you will find your
leadership involved in an increasing number of Navy events and
we hope to meet many of you there. Coming up shortly will be
the annual Naval Aviation Museum Foundation Symposium May 9-11
in Pensacola. Next will be the annual Battle of Midway
observances around the country, including a banquet co-sponsored
by ANA at the Army-Navy Country Club on June 3. (We hope as
many of you as can will arrange for your own local celebrations
of that magnificent 1942 victory in the Pacific). Then, of
course, the annual Tailhook Convention in Reno September 6-9.
Finally, in the long-range, we must begin thinking about and
planning for the 100th Anniversary of Naval Aviation
to be celebrated in 2011…just four years off! Stay tuned for
more on this.
Meanwhile, as you read this,
rest assured the men and women of Naval Aviation continue to
perform magnificently. We only have ten aircraft carriers now,
and our VP, helo and logistics units are stretched very thin.
Carrier aircraft and Marine Aviation are in the thick of it,
every day, despite near intolerable environmental conditions,
let alone the enemy. Indeed, Naval Aviation is doing its share
in the Global War on Terror and more. Unfortunately, there’s a
tremendous price to pay for all of this. Consider that the bill
for replacing the used up rolling stock of the Army and Marines
is going to be astronomical. For example, it was reported
recently that in the past four years, the U.S. military has
shipped to Iraq and Afghanistan more than 9 million tons of
equipment—from tanks and bulldozers to toilets and silverware.
If you were to load all that gear on tractor-trailers and line
them up end to end, the convoy would extend from San Francisco
to Miami! Very little of that equipment will ever come back to
the United States, and if it did the repair bill would be out of
sight. So, it will have to be replaced. Since the defense
budget is only so big, bureaucrats and legislators will ask that
the Air Force and the Navy help pay.
In one sense, it’s a moral
dilemma; we do need a well equipped Army and Marine Corps. On
the other hand, there will remain a threat posed by terrorist
organizations operating in failed states or with the support of
rogue regimes. The Navy, Marines and Coast Guard may well be
called upon to conduct interventions in remote regions and, to
quote a recent Los Angeles Times editorial, “Natural disasters
may well become more frequent if the pessimists about climate
change are right. Piracy is on the increase. Meanwhile, China's
rise as a sea superpower is gathering pace. Without
state-of-the-art maritime capabilities we shall have no way of
responding to such challenges, save an increasingly
anachronistic nuclear deterrent.”
That, fellow ANAers, is the
picture we must paint for our fellow citizens: Seapower,
seapower with its integral airpower, Naval Aviation, is as
important, perhaps more important today than it ever was. Let’s
get that message out.
Robert F. Dunn, VADM, USN
(Ret) |
