Roy Blunt: “it is a good day for Major Courtland to be here because another thing I want to talk about today is the Air Force itself…”

“it is a good day for Major Courtland to be here because another thing I want to talk about today is the Air Force itself and to pay tribute to those in the Air Force. This is the anniversary of the 67 years of service and sacrifice for our Nation-- clearly the greatest air power in the history of the world, the first place we turn when we want to make an immediate difference in a chaotic situation in the world. We are talking this week, again, about how the Air Force can make a difference, whether it is those based at Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri or those based all over the world. The Air Force continues, in so many ways, to project our strength and our commitment to a more peaceful world by using the power that we do have in a way that ensures that in some cases the playing field is more fair because we keep people on the ground rather than let despotic governments get their weapons in the air. In some places we are able to intervene, as we did recently in conjunction with the Peshmerga, to allow the recapture of the dam in Iraq that is essential, and even beyond that, could have itself been used as a great weapon if that dam would have been allowed to be breached and then the flood that would have occurred because of that. The Air Force was created in 1947 under President Harry Truman's leadership. Prior to that it was called the U.S. Army Air Corps.…”