How many times have you heard the rumblings of a pair of A-10 combat aircraft fly over just about any part of Wells County? Sometimes they are fairly close together, but more often you will hear one and then listen for the inevitable second, not too far behind. Don’t know about you, but I always have a sense of pride and security watching and hearing them rumble by.
We know they are training flights out of Baer Field — oops, the Fort Wayne International Airport — where the 122nd Fighter Wing of the Indiana Air National Guard is located. I’ve always called them “Warthogs” but their official name is “A-10C Thunderbird II.”
And most of us know that Wells County’s own Mike Stohler has been the Wing Commander there and has often been in one of those jets. There have been a few times they seemed a little lower than normal and I’ve always figured it was Mike saying hello to some of his friends.
There was a Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago when I heard that familiar sound buzz overhead. And then the second. And then a third … and a fourth.
“Hmm, that seems unusual,” I thought. Turns out it was indeed.
With the exception of family and perhaps some of those friends, we did not know it but that was Col. Mike Stohler’s “fini-flight” — military jargon for a fighter pilot’s last sortie. With his promotion to the rank of brigadier general (as detailed in the May 14 News-Banner), he will no longer be doing what he’s been doing for 32 years. He will miss it, but … “I can honestly say as much as I will miss strapping on a fighter jet and soaring into the air, I will genuinely miss the people I worked for during my time as wing commander,” he told me last week. “They are professionals in every sense of the word. I respect all of them and their families for their sacrifice to our community, state, and nation. I consider my promotion to be as much the result of their dedication to the mission as mine.”
Spoken like a true leader, and if you’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting him in person, you will know that he exudes that sense of confidence and humility. His friend since high school, Greg Hiday, brought him to a Bluffton Rotary Club meeting several years ago, shortly after his return from what turned out to be his last combat deployment. It was a fascinating presentation, one I had hoped to share via some sort of story but due to the terrorist threats at the time, he felt it best to keep a low profile.
His promotion gives me a chance to do that now. So I asked: What has been your most memorable or rewarding experience in your career as a fighter pilot?
That would be “flying in combat,” he replied. “Combat aviation is where all of the skills and training are tested in real world events that take place in an environment of unknowns. You must draw on every bit of experience to do the mission accurately, hit the correct targets at the right time and return safely. It is an enormous responsibility that fighter pilots take.”
We also had an interesting discussion about the effectiveness of the A-10s, which I’ve always (correctly, it turns out) perceived to be a tremendous asset for our national defense. However, all weapons at some point reach a point in time and what the future holds for them is in flux, but he is looking forward to being part of the command structure to oversee all of that.
We speculated on the question of whether he might be the first Wells County native to achieve the rank of general. Maybe one of our local history buffs reading this will know whether there was perhaps one in the Civil War, which we both thought a possibility.
“But I think it’s safe to say I’m the first Norwell grad,” he said, chuckling, since the school has only been in existence for about 50 years and we figured we would have known if there was another one. As far as he knows, there have been only two fighter pilots come out of Norwell, both in the same class: he and Bob Hartman, Class of ’86.
By the way, the photo at the top of this column is not just any A-10 on just any day. That’s our Gen. Mike Stohler on that fini-flight, April 23, 2022.
Feel that pride? Indeed.
miller@news-banner.com
