Our first meeting is scheduled for Saturday, October 15 in the East Room, MountainView Country Club, 38759 S. MountainView Boulevard, Tucson, Arizona 85739; phone 818-1000. Lunch can be ordered starting at 11:30 a.m. The speaker will be former State Senator Albert Melvin (Captain U.S. Navy, retired). In the Arizona Senate he was Chairman, Senate Commerce, Energy and Military Committee and Vice Chairman of the Public Safety Committee. He graduated from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and worked aboard U.S. flag merchant ships. He also had a 30 year career in the U.S. Navy Reserve with assignments primarily in the Military Sealift Command and the U.S. Transportation Command.
Spouses are welcome and invited. Subsequent meetings will be held on the third Saturday of each month at the same time and location and will feature speakers from the local area discussing a wide variety of topics of interest to our members.
We have been fortunate to get many interesting speakers, including members of the state legislature such as Representative Vince Leach, Pinal County Sheriff Babeu, have talks about Tucson area attractions like the Titan II missile silo in Sahuarita and the Pima Air and Space Museum and several retired military officers talking about their experiences during their military careers.
As one example, the speaker from our last meeting, Brigadier General (U.S. Air Force, retired) David Patton spoke about the U-2 Dragon Lady, a High Altitude Reconnaissance program. He was a career U.S. Air Force pilot and flew the U-2 from 1966 to 1971 flying missions over both North and South Vietnam. Brigadier General Patton’s description of what it was like to fly the early U-2s was enlightening. The pressure suit was extremely confining and there was no two-seat version available for training until much later in the program. The first time a new pilot flew the Dragon Lady it was solo!
For additional information, contact Colonel Rett Benedict, President, 825-7424, at [email protected] or Colonel Tom Owens, MOAA Tucson President, 760-3476, [email protected]. Check website www.tucsonmoaa.com for information.
The Catalina Mountains satellite is part of the Tucson Chapter and encompasses northwest Tucson to include Catalina, Oracle, parts of Oro Valley and Marana, SaddleBrooke and Sun City.
The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) is a nonprofit veterans’ service association dedicated to maintaining a strong national defense and to preserve the earned entitlements of members of the uniformed services and their families and survivors.