Steve is the brother-in-law of Rotarian Don Gerard. He and his family are on their way to an assignment in South Korea and all were visiting our club at our June 20 meeting. Soon to be a full Colonel in the Air Force he will have a very important job in South Korea. Steve was one of the first to fly stealth bomber missions out of Missouri over Kosovo. The audience was enthralled hearing how he was one of the pilots who got to see first hand if the computer simulations of their undetectability actually worked. It did.
Steve recently completed a year at the War College in Carlisle, PA and he gave us his candid insight into the modern military. He talked about the need of the military to communicate more effectively and more often with the American public by doing the very thing he was doing with our club. Club member Col. Jim Allen taught at the War College and while there pondered with other military leaders if the American public has the stomach to fight a protracted ground war anymore. It tears our collective hearts out to watch the nightly network news interview the families of fallen soldiers and to see the moment by moment carnage of war. We forget that there once were two very impressive sky scrapers in Lower Manhattan whose collapse cost the lives of many innocent men and women. At the time we were outraged about that too. I think one way to overcome the sensationalism of the mass media is to have military people like Steve take their message directly to the people.
Thank you for your service and your comments Col. Basham.
