Moody Air Force Base

It's one of those awards that's kind of special, and I just want to get an explanation for those folks out there in the audience who don't know what it is and what it's about.

Yeah, so the history of the Jolly Greens, this is when I transitioned at this point in my career to the Pave Hawk helicopter and the 41st Rescue Squadron out there at Moody Air Force Base, and we were deployed, we'll just say, East Africa.

for this, and long story short there, I'd spent about 90 days doing nothing, and then all day on June 8th, 2018, you know, we're holding CASAVEC alert, if you will, for the, basically the 5th Special Forces Group, and some partner nation guys as well, and everything's going good, and on day seven, all hell breaks loose, and then You know, we had we got alerted to cast a back and there was basically we saw the best side of combat search and rescue that day, which, you know, we say five lives and we saw the worst side, which we there was an eagle lost an American from the Fort Bragg up there.

And, you know, that mission stays with me.

The shark teeth stayed with them.

The 23rd is still active today, based at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia, and its aircraft still wear the shark mouth.

There's a continuous visual lineage from a dirt strip in Burma in 1941 to a modern air base in Georgia in 2026, and it runs right through the paint on the nose.

Chennault was commissioned a brigadier general and commanded the China Air Task Force, which grew into the 14th Air Force.