Published: July 01, 2009 11:05 pm         

Hamm helps Enidites to celebrate freedom

America has been good to Harold Hamm, and he is grateful.

To help show his appreciation, Hamm sponsored a free hamburger lunch Wednesday in the third floor ballroom of Continental Tower North. As part of the Independence Day celebration, Hamm asked Garfield County Election Board Secretary Lue Ann Root and her staff to attend and help register those who are not registered.

“To remain a strong country and maintain the liberties and freedoms we have, we have to vote. There are many issues out there now, national issues and local ones, in Enid need better schools and to be involved in our schools,” he said, visibly choking up.

He said the meeting was to celebrate “the greatest nation ever conceived under God.”

Featured speaker was 71st Flying Training Wing Commander Col. Chris Nowland.

Nowland talked about what makes America great. As a command pilot with more than 3,300 hours flying F-15 fighters, he was a combat pilot in the first Gulf War and said in both the Air Force and Continental Resources people are the most important asset.

Nowland described how the modern Air Force functions as part of a team with other branches of the service, and how Vance Air Force Base graduates often play a part in it. He said new lieutenants are coming to the base this summer, and they know they will see combat.

Nowland told a story of how the combination of troops works in combat. The Air Force operates unmanned aircraft that watch what is happening on the ground and relay information to ground troops. The ground troops use that information to know where the bad guys are, he said. Air Force troops embedded with Army troops on the ground download the information from the unmanned aircraft overhead and plat where the troops should move. The pilots of those unmanned planes in the July 2, 2007, incident he described were at Creech Air Force Base near Las Vegas.

Army troops became involved in a fight inside a building in Iraq, and an Army sergeant received a severe head wound. Through electronic communication, Nowland said, an emergency medical helicopter took the man to a hospital at Balad Air Force Base in northern Iraq.

“If the wounded man can arrive at the hospital within an hour after the initial wound, there is a 96 percent chance the surgical team can save their lives,” he said.

Still, the sergeant needed further surgery, so an Air Force team prepared a C-17 transport plane. It was changed into a mobile hospital within a couple of hours and prepared for a flight to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. The flight was 6,000 miles long and there were two in-air refueling events planned, Nowland said. Due to the type of head injury the sergeant had, he said, the C-17 had to fly at 24,000 feet, making the trip slower and using more fuel.

“As the Air Force pilot crossed the international date line, the sun began to come up, and he realized it was the Fourth of July and he was bringing two soldiers from Iraq to America for surgery that would improve their lives,” Nowland said.

Recently, the wounded sergeant appeared on television, recovered and said he was returning to fight in Afghanistan.

“That’s what I mean about the type of people we have,” Nowland said.