The Enid News and Eagle, Enid, OK

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October 24, 2009

General returns to Enid, Vance AFB for a visit

By Jeff Mullin, Commentary

For someone in the military, home generally is wherever you are assigned to serve.

Thus is the case for Gen. Roger Brady, commander of U.S. Air Forces in Europe. His current home is Ramstein Air Base, Germany.

But Brady will be visiting one of his boyhood homes when he returns to Enid Nov. 2.

Brady, who spent part of his youth in Enid, will visit Vance Air Force Base and will speak to the Enid Air Force Association Chapter 214 Community Partners Dinner at 6 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Cherokee Strip Conference Center.

Tickets are $25 per person. Reservations are required no later than Thursday. For information and reservations, call Jay Jacobs at (580) 366-2884 or e-mail him at afa@jjj okla.com. Dress is business casual.

Brady attended Enid High in the 1960s, and his father served as assistant football coach for one of the Plainsmen’s three state championship football teams in mid-decade. He went on to graduate from Midwest City High School and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Oklahoma in 1968. At OU he was part of the ROTC program, which led to him being commissioned as an Air Force officer in 1969.

The four-star general’s visit to Vance is a homecoming of sorts, as well, as he graduated from undergraduate pilot training at the Enid base in October 1973.

As commander of USAFE, Brady is responsible for Air Force activities in an area spanning three continents, 92 countries and territories.

“He’s got over 20 million square miles of terrain under his command,” said Jacobs, a former state AFA president. “To get him here is a big deal.”

Brady was first approached about visiting Enid at the AFA national convention in Washington. Oklahoma is the only state whose congressional delegation puts on a breakfast for its AFA chapter, hosted by Sen. Jim Inhofe. Mike Cooper, military liaison for the city of Enid, brought Brady to the breakfast, where the invitation to visit Enid was extended.

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