History
Seymour Johnson Air Force Base occupies over 3,300 acres (13 km²) in the southeast section of Goldsboro. Seymour Johnson Field was opened in April 1942 as Headquarters, Technical School, Army Air Forces Technical Training Command. In June 1943, a secondary mission was added which included preparation of officers and men for overseas duty. The unit was known as the Provisional Overseas Replacement Training Center. Seymour Johnson Field received a third mission in September 1943: to provide basic military training for cadets preparing to become technical officers in the Army Air Corps. The 75th Training Wing was established to conduct the program through its Aviation Cadet Pre-Training School.
Interestingly, the namesake of the base, Seymour Johnson, was never part of the Air Force (or the Army, of which the Air Force was initially a branch). He was a local man who became a Navy test pilot and died in a plane crash in 1940, just before the US entered World War II. There is a historical plaque honoring him at the main gate entrance of the base.
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“Man watches his history on the screen with apathy and an occasional passing flicker of horror or indignation.”
—Conor Cruise O’Brien (b. 1917)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“The history of American politics is littered with bodies of people who took so pure a position that they had no clout at all.”
—Ben C. Bradlee (b. 1921)