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The retirement dinner was held out at Copper River
for me, Sean and Danny. There was an excellent
turnout and we all had a grand time. I just about didn't
make it, though. Late the night before my 104 degree
fever broke. I was feeling kind of miserable. But by
party time I was ready to rumble :) Joan Yelton
(mom), Carol Yelton, Ron Yelton, Tom Westbrook,
Steve Jennings, Ron Schrieber, Bob Yelton
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I like this one. My uncle Bob who flew with the 194th,
Me and my dad, Jim Yelton. I was always bummed the Bob
retired just a few months before I got back from
F-106 school
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JAD doing some introductions. I think he treated us
to one of his insightful and funny poems
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Jack "Lightning" Bolt, sometimes known as "VERN"
was always entertaining
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Put Lightning and Mork together and you're
guaranteed to have your stomach hurt from laughing
so hard!
Lightning and Mork give a typical Squadron send-off to Chili
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Bill "Curly" Gore giving Danny Cerna his retirement
pistol. Supervising the transaction is Larry "Cal,
Achmed the Arms Dealer" McKoane. Who knew
he had so many callsigns/aliases? :)
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Sean "Sparky" Bautista giving his farewell speech
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Here's me getting a picture that was signed signed by
all of my squadronmates. Bill Gore and I went way
back to F-106 school and some really fun cross-
countries in the T-bird. I got a cool retirement pistol,
too. Nice to have just in case on all those lonely
commutes back and forth to SJC in the middle of the
night for AAL
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I guess I had to give farewell speech as well. I told
the story about going out to Otis AFB looking for a job
in the F-106 after F-4 school at Homestead AFB.
Those guys were absolutely miserable out there and I
realized how much fun I was having at Fresno.
Sunday drills was like going to see standup comedy,
flying any fighter with this bunch of guys was
awesome, and the Christmas Parties are still being
talked about today. Mork and Lightning doing skits,
singing our modified songs with Pee Wee, J.T., and
Stilly Sprague was an absolute blast. I'm proud to say
that I was present for the very first appearance of The
Fresno Rappin' Raisins. I loved every minute of being
a member of the best fighter unit in the world, and I'll
be forever grateful for the opportunities that my
association with all you guys has given me. Thanks to
Carol for all the support over the years during
deployments and Alert over holidays, birthdays and a
myriad of other special occasions!!!
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Danny "Two Dogs" Cerna giving his speech. Danny
had his whole clan in attendance. That was fun! They
were all so excited to be there with him. The
excitement was contagious. Just ask Danny where
"Two Dogs" came from
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Carol Yelton, Ron Yelton, Tom Westbrook, Ron
Schrieber.
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O.K., so this one is a bit out of order. Jack Bolt
extorting money from the guests at the door before all
the ties came off
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Looks like everyone was having a good time.
I worked for Bob Hervatine in STAN-EVAL for 18
months after stepping out of the cockpit. It was really
hard to hang around as the guys shared their new
experiences in the C-model. Going from being in the
inner circle to hanging out in the outer circle is really
tough. You realize that you're not really one of the
guys anymore. The retirement dinner just made it
official. Now it's important to keep in touch with all the
other retired guys. We'll all always be part of the unit
but us retired guys now have our own inner circle group. :)
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Carol and I sitting with Steve Jennings and my mom,
Joan. After 20 yrs of her son being a fighter pilot, my
mom finally learned how to talk with her hands. That's
an excellent Immelmann entry!
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