Fourth Air Force
The Fourth Air Force (4 AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Reserve (AFRC). It is headquartered at March Air Reserve Base, California.
4 AF directs the activities and supervises the training of more than 24,200 Air Force Reservists. If called to active duty, most of 4 AF's ready reserve units would be assigned to Air Mobility Command. Forces would also be gained to Air Force Materiel Command, Air Education and Training Command, and Pacific Air Forces.
One of the four original pre–World War II numbered air forces, 4 AF was activated on 18 December 1940, at March Field, California with a mission of air defense of the Southwestern United States and Lower Midwest regions. During the war, its primary mission became the organization and training of combat units prior to their deployment to the overseas combat air forces.
4 AF is commanded by Maj Gen Mark A. Kyle.
Famous quotes containing the words fourth, air and/or force:
“July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea. If he tries to climb out into the air as inexperienced people endeavour to do, he drowns.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“In the capsule biography by which most of the people knew one another, I was understood to be an Air Force pilot whose family was wealthy and lived in the East, and I even added the detail that I had a broken marriage and drank to get over it.... I sometimes believed what I said and tried to take the cure in the very real sun of Desert D’Or with its cactus, its mountain, and the bright green foliage of its love and its money.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)