History
On 24 May 1946, the United States Army Air Forces, in response to dramatic postwar military budget cuts imposed by President Harry S. Truman, allocated inactive unit designations to the National Guard Bureau for the formation of an Air Force National Guard. These unit designations were allotted and transferred to various State National Guard bureaus to provide them unit designations to re-establish them as Air National Guard units.
The South Dakota Air National Guard was founded by Medal of Honor recipient and former Governor Joseph J. Foss on 20 September 1946 at Sioux Falls, South Dakota with federal recognition of the 175th Fighter Squadron. The 175th Fighter Squadron was assigned to the 132d Fighter Wing, Des Moines, Iowa. The unit was equipped with the F-51D Mustang, and several types of support aircraft. 18 September 1947, however, is considered the South Dakota Air National Guard's official birth concurrent with the establishment of the United States Air Force as a separate branch of the United States military under the National Security Act.
Read more about this topic: South Dakota Air National Guard
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“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)
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)