Remembering the greats of the past--Major Rauol Lufbery.

General T. Michael Moseley, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff

Remarks at the Lafayette Escadrille dedication and the presentation of the Purple Heart to Major Rauol Lufbery's family, New England Air Museum, Windsor Locks, Conn., May 1, 2004

Let me first say thank you for the opportunity to spend a wonderful Saturday in a place like this with good friends and airplanes and aviators and memories of aviators, couldn't think of a better place to be--plus, it's not in Washington.

As I had a chance to walk through the museum a bit this morning, it just makes this memory even stronger for me to be able to see the magnificent displays and to think what this particular dedication will mean for countless visitors as they come through the museum and to rekindle that fire that began with a young boy in Texas that began to fly when he was 14 years old. I've been flying steady since I was 14 years old because of opportunities to visit museums and to look at airplanes and to look at engines and to talk to people that fly. So sir, thank you for what you do for this community and want you do for our country, because it matters.

As an Air Force officer, as an aviator, and as an American it is an honor to be a part of this historic event also. This ribbon cutting will open a fitting tribute here in New England to the heroes that volunteered to serve a greater calling and epitomized the American fighting spirit.

Just as the unit's namesake, Lafayette stood with Washington from Valley Forge to Yorktown, the men of the Escadrille stood by the French from their inception through the horrors of the Great War from Verdun to St Mihiel. This display mirrors the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial established after the war just outside Paris at Marnes-la-Coquette. There you can see the 209 names of men that fought in and in many cases died for France. These names represent all layers of American society as it was represented in 1916, 1917, and 1918.

From the East Coast gentry to hometown kids, from urban settings to rural settings, with a common desire to defend civilization against a black abyss and against a threat, and it is our, to enter a fight across the Atlantic from which they, when they began, didn't know much about, quite honestly. But like good American fighter pilots, fell into this naturally.

As the commander of coalition air forces in America's past two conflicts I fully understand the value of international efforts on the battlefield and in the skies overhead. The men of the Screaming Sioux Warriors represented that force for the French--flying over 3,000 sorties, serving in every sector of the Western Front in World War I for a grueling 23 months, beginning in the most deadly time of the war.

Their 40 kills made a difference. Their sacrifices made both military and political statements about American involvement on the side of freedom.

As an aviator I can look at these individuals as men that have set the standard and that still set the standard for us--the true foundation of American combat aviation, and certainly the foundation of the U. S. Air Force. Serving alongside their French counterparts and under command of French officers they personified the Air Force legacy of flying and fighting. Whether it is in today's F/A-22 Raptor or their Nieuport, the tactics, techniques and the application of these aircraft against an enemy is no different today.

Greats like Raoul Lufbery, America's first ace, made it clear over the Western Front just as the coalition air forces have made it clear over Iraq and Afghanistan, that air dominance is an indispensable aspect of warfare.

So whether it was 1917, 1918, or the year 2004, air dominance and air superiority is a predicate and prerequisite to everything that occurs on the surface.

Every one of the allies shared in this pain of World War I. For the band of brothers that were the French and American aviators the pain would form a bond that for us here today we can still be proud of.

Whether we're talking about the Great War, World War II, Desert Storm, Allied Force, Deliberate Force, or the skies over Afghanistan today, the bonds and integration of American and French aviators are no different today.

We can look at pictures of Prince and Thenault or we can look at pictures of my dear friends, Generals Gaviard, Solarz or Raceau as we served in Southwest Asia off and on for the last 12 years. The 3ictures would tell the same story.

In Afghanistan we often count on these new heroes of France to stand up bases, to gain and maintain air superiority, deliver precision munitions in combat, collect intelligence, and perform exactly the same missions that were asked of them and the men of the Lafayette Escadrille 88 years ago.

A vignette for you, on Dec. 16, 2001 we sent a team of U.S. Air Force and French Air Force officers to a place by the name of Bishkek, Kyrgystan to look at the opportunity to stand up an air base. On Dec. 16 when they got off the airplane snow was about four or five feet deep and ice was about two or three inches deep on that airfield. We decided that that looked okay to us so we began to stand up an airfield there, which is still there, by the way. At Manas in Bishkek, Kyrgystan, and it's still manned by American and French officers, in fact the first commander of that base was an American one star and the vice commander of that base was a French colonel. Seventy-six days after Dec. 16 the French delivered the first bomb off that airfield carried by a Mirage 2000 over the Hindukush Mountains into targets around Kabul and Kandahar.

So for 88 years the American and French Air Force have stood shoulder to shoulder and I'm proud to say that it is a pleasure and an honor to serve with my brothers from France, and I look forward to serving with my brothers from France for a long time.

Although we can never repay these great men from the Great War for what they have done for us this memorial, the memorial outside of Paris and this site here at the Northeast Air Museum are great steps forward.

In the past few years our Congress has appropriated over $2 million to help rebuild and to put the memorial at Marnes-la-Coquette back into acceptable shape. I've had the pleasure of several visits back to that particularly special place and I'm always moved every time I go there as to what this really means. Those men that are buried in that memorial, those truly are the fathers of American combat aviation and certainly the fathers of the United States Air Force.

On this side of the ocean this museum and the hard work of the gentlemen we've heard from today are key elements in remembering these greats of the past and tying Americans to their distinguished past and historical alliances. Today is but another step in making this right. Recognizing these men who paved the way in Nieuports and Spads, and who gave so much. Men who left families behind and who left children behind as well as wives and parents and communities and paved the way for combat aviation.

It is my distinct honor and privilege to pay a special tribute today to one such gentleman who paid the ultimate price and who the Air Force owes a great deal of gratitude. That individual is Major Raoul Lufbery.

I've taken some notes. For those of you that know of Major Lufbery, humor me for a moment because I'm sure there are others that cannot pass an essay test on Major Lufbery, but let me share some thoughts with you.

He was born on March 21, 1885 in France. As a young man he worked in a chocolate factory because his dad was a chemist, and he worked in several chocolate factories until he got old enough to be able to travel on his own. He worked in North Africa and Turkey and the Balkans and in Germany and here in Waterford, Conn. He left for Cuba after awhile; and he worked in New Orleans and San Francisco for awhile. He joined the Army. He served a tour in the Philippines, became a U.S. citizen, and was mustered out after his discharge. Then he decided to tour the Far East for awhile and he spent time in Japan and China and India where he worked in a train station in Bombay taking tickets.

He moved to Egypt where he fell in with an aviator and began a life-long relationship with this fellow that began to think about flying machines. Lufbery became an expert mechanic and could fix anything on the airplane and soon became interested in flying. So when World War I began he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion and he learned to fly, receiving his wings or certification on July 29, 1915.

Now think what was happening in 1915. From the summer of 1915 to the fall of 1918--think how many aviation accidents there were just because of reliability of the machines or reliability of the engines or struts or wires or tires or control rods, push rods, hinges, and so for him to survive from the summer of 1915 until 1918 in these early machines is a tribute to his skill and to his mechanics' ability because it's widely known in the Lafayette Escadrille that his airplane was the most expertly maintained. Every single round that went into the 30-caliber gun he checked for perfection. So every round that went into the drum magazine of the 30-caliber gun, he had hand-checked. The engine was hand-tuned. The machines, the struts, were the way he liked them.

On the Jan. 10, 1918 he became a major in the United States Army.

From there he served in leadership roles in the U.S. Army Air business, as early as that was, and as a mentor to a couple of other guys one of which you'll remember is a fellow named Eddie Rickenbacker who was a first lieutenant in the 94th Squadron, flies on the wing of Major Lufbery several times, and learns the ropes.

Captain Rickenbacker goes on to be America's leading ace in World War I and then has a distinguished career in aviation after that.

As a Lafayette Escadrille individual, Raoul Lufbery was a huge part of the overall team. He was the first of the American aces with 16 or 17 kills, depending on how you count, until he was tragically killed in May of 1918.

For that sacrifice, his incredible displays of airmanship and his dedication to the fight for liberty and freedom, we're able today to bring something to his family which I think will be very special. After we had done some research on Major Lufbery we found that he had never been awarded the Purple Heart, so with some minor work on our part we were able to move some of the administrative barriers in the United States Army--we do have some friends in the United States Army--and we were able to get a Purple Heart so we can present it to the family today.

If you'll notice, this says Department of the Army because of course Major Lufbery was in the Army, not in the United States Air Force, so that's why we had some of our issues of going through bureaucracy, but here we are. Had he been in the United States Air Force, this would have been a whole lot easier.

Italic The Citation reads: "The President of the United States of America has awarded the Purple Heart, established by General George Washington August 7, 1782, to Raoul Lufbery, then a major in the Army of the U.S., 94th Aero Squadron, 1st Pursuit Group, American Expeditionary Forces, France, for wounds received in action on 19 May 1918 in Maron, France, a small town north of Nancy.

The Purple Heart, I'm sure you all know, is our nation's oldest award and decoration designed by General Washington which is one of the reasons we treasure it so much today. It represents today something much more than that, though, because it is awarded for wounds received in combat.

So sir, it is a distinct pleasure and an honor to give you this on behalf of one of the United States Air Force's founding fathers.

On behalf of the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of the Air Force, the Chief of Staff and myself, thank you.