782 TRG Dining Out: Heritage to Horizon

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Arthur Susac
  • 782nd Training Group
SHEPPARD AIR FORCE BASE, Texas --  As the Air Force celebrates its upcoming 60th birthday, the 782nd Training Group is joining in on the festivities. 

The group will celebrate the anniversary with a dining out Aug. 18 at 6 p.m. at the Sheppard Club. 

Brig. Gen. Everett Thomas, vice commander of the Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis AFB, Nev. The featured guest speaker will be The Fort Sill Quintet will provide the entertainment. 

The Air Force dining out custom began in the early 1930s with Gen. Henry "Hap" Arnold's "wing-dings." The close bonds enjoyed by Air Corps officers and their British colleagues of the Royal Air Force during World War II surely added to the American involvement in the dining out custom. 

The dining in/out represent the most formal aspects of Air Force social life. The dining in is the traditional formal dinner for military members only. The dining out is a relatively new version of this tradition which includes spouses and guests. 

The dining in/out has served the Air Force well as an occasion for military members to meet socially at a formal military function. It enhances the esprit de corps of units, lightens the load of demanding day-to-day work, gives the commander an opportunity to meet socially with their subordinates and enables military members of all ranks to create bonds of friendship and better working relations through an atmosphere of good will and fellowship. 

The 782nd TRG is the most diversified group in Air Education and Training Command. The group jointly trains U.S. military, international military and civilian Department of Defense personnel in seven distinct career fields. 

This event will bring together traditions of the past as each respective branch continues to build camaraderie between them as one total force to fight the war on terrorism. This opportunity will afford each member of the group to realize that as a team, we can train together, play together, and now dine together in meeting AETC's mission of developing America's Airmen today... for tomorrow. 

Reservations are limited. For more information, please contact Master Sgt. Arthur Susac at arthur.susac@sheppard.af.mil or 676-2369.