Congratulations Heather!

Making Them Feel Welcome: The US Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Port, N.Y., has established an annual logistics award designed to inspire those midshipmen desiring a career in Air Force logistics. The award, which recognizes outstanding USMMA graduates, is named after Lt. Col. Heather Buono, who led the 732nd Expeditionary Logistics Readiness Squadron from September 2004 to March 2005. She provided leadership to the first Air Force detachments that conducted convoy escort missions out of Joint Base Balad, Iraq, at a time when such convoy operations were still exceedingly dangerous. Currently executive officer to USAF's installations czar, Buono said she is "greatly humbled and honored" to have the award carry her name in recognition of the squadron's accomplishments. "The Air Force, and particularly the logistics career field, will benefit from the diversity of experience and background of a graduated merchant mariner," said she. (SAF/PA report by TSgt. Amaani Lyle) Click here for the full article.

Update from Bruce: I'm very proud of Heather's accomplishments (even without the added publicity). Her three deployments to the AOR since 9/11 have all been exciting and she has enjoyed doing the mission. The naming of the award for her units' work in Iraq adds to the pride in the mission they performed.
We come up on four years in the DC area this summer and will be moving in July. Right now we are scheduled to head to Travis AFB where Heather will be the Deputy Mission Support Group Commander. Last March we did our first tour through the Napa wine country and now it looks like we will live near there at least for as long as the AF wants. We have enjoyed our time living in VA where we have been able to see the sights and share them with visiting friends and family (many more visitors than we had while in Korea). We hope to share the CA sights with friends and family as we did here.

Heather and Bruce on a boat ride over Veteran's Day on the Potomac. It was a short cruise for vets of all services. There were about 50 vets on the cruise.