Trent Franks: “nearly 100 years ago the Department of War made a contract with two all-American men who would revolutionize human life…”

“nearly 100 years ago the Department of War made a contract with two all-American men who would revolutionize human life as we know it. Those Ohio-born Wright brothers had a starry-eyed vision, tenacity, and brilliance that transformed their vision from theory to reality when they contracted with the United States Army to build a flying machine for the use of the United States Armed Forces. Since then the United States Air Force has proven that mortals can break the sound barrier many times over in heavier-than-air, high-powered aircraft defying, it seems, the very forces of gravity and transcending the previously incontrovertible dimensions of human capacity. Even at this very moment, the Air Force is working to defend our assets in a new frontier of national security: space itself. Mr. Speaker, this year marks the 60th anniversary of the year in which the United States Air Force became an official separate military service within the Department of Defense. Since then, the ability to protect the forces of freedom all over the world through flight in air, space, and cyberspace has transformed warfare in a way that perhaps only can be truly appreciated by the enemies of liberty. Air power was born through the courage and resilience with which our noble men and women in the Air Force overcame in the crucibles of World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.”