Iowa Wing News Online
Monday, December 27, 2004
SPC James Adams
Dear Friends: With all the news coverage of the recent bombing in Mosul, I figured some of you might be worried, so I'm writing this to let you all know that I'm okay. I apologize for not writing sooner but our mission tempo has recently been increased. I know in my last e-mail I said we were running about three missions a week and now I'm running about six, on the road pretty much every night. I was actually sleeping when the bomb went off (I sleep through breakfast and lunch). Also, the computers, phones, gym, and PX were on security lockdown, so that prevented communication as well. But anyway, Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a great time being with friends and family. Despite the insurgents’ best attempts to steal Christmas, we're all just going to go ahead with it anyway.
God Bless, Jim.
-- Editor’s Note: Jim Adams is one of seven cadets who earned Mitchell Awards at East Iowa Cadet Squadron during 2004. He also served as a cadet staff officer, a ground team member and as a member of the 2004 Iowa Wing Color Guard prior to leaving last summer for active duty with the U.S. Army in Iraq. Thanks to Capt Bruce Tiemann for passing on this note.
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
By Capt Bruce Tiemann
In an unusual turn of events, Civil Air Patrol volunteers successfully carried out double duty overnight on 15 & 16 December in support of two Emergency Services missions in eastern Iowa. The first sortie involved the search for a missing hunter on a farm belonging to 1st Lt Shannon Juhl’s family about four miles east of Cedar Rapids. The Linn County Sheriff’s Department requested CAP’s assistance late on 15 December, and an 11-person team was quickly assembled and mobilized. Civil Air Patrol personnel worked with local volunteer firefighters and friends and relatives of the missing 64-year-old man. The search lasted approximately four hours and ended when searchers discovered the missing hunter’s body just after midnight on 16 December. Authorities determined the victim died of natural causes sometime earlier in the day.
Meanwhile, as Civil Air Patrol personnel were still debriefing from the first mission, the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Langley Air Force Base authorized a second CAP mission triggered by the activation of an aircraft’s Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) beacon signal in the northeastern part of the state.
Immediately upon securing from the missing person search at 0119 hours on 16 December, a team comprised of members from the 78th Cadet Squadron launched on the second sortie in a coordinated search with Capflight 1396 manned by members of Cedar Rapids Senior Squadron. The air and ground teams successfully tracked the beacon signal to a locked hangar at the George L. Scott Memorial Airport in West Union, Iowa, at 0340 hours. With the assistance of the Fayette County Sheriff’s Department and the West Union Police Department, the owner of the aircraft was located and the ELT was successfully deactivated at 0454 hours.
“Officers and cadets from our squadron supported a total of eight missions during 2004, and while we try to anticipate that phone call in the middle of the night, it’s still a challenge to launch two different sorties in the span of a few hours,” said Capt Bruce Tiemann, Commander of the 78th Cadet Squadron. “This is a testament to the readiness and dedication of the Civil Air Patrol volunteers who helped successfully conduct these missions under challenging cold-weather field conditions on a weeknight, and they are to be commended.”
