Squadron 56 recently had its Squadron Banquet. At the Squadron Banquet Capt. Henninger gave out awards, promotions, and spoke about the highlights of the past year in the Squadron. Some of the squadron accomplishments for the past year have been our summer FTX, night SAREX, tour of the San Diego Air and Space Museum, JPL open house tour, and increased recruiting and retention of cadets.
The Senior Members that received promotions were 2d Lt Andrew Hong and FO Jeffery Blomgren.
The very numerous cadet promotions were:
• C/1st Lt Samuel Philp
• C/SMSgt Payton Swanson
• C/MSgt Joel Gamboa
• C/TSgt Matthew Rupprecht
• C/A1C Justin Araujo
• C/A1C Owen Dirks
• C/A1C Everett Montano
• C/A1C Luigi Priore
• C/A1C Ryan Duran
• C/Amn Joshua Kim
• C/Amn Michael Byon
• C/Amn Philip De Castro
• C/Amn Harold Lee
Two of our cadets received their Billy Mitchell Awards: C/2d Lt Dave J Truong and C/2d Lt Ronald S Cervantes.
Three of our cadets received their red service ribbons:
•C/2d Lt Dave Truong
•C/SMSgt Nicholas Iacovelli
•C/SSgt Geoffrey Mathews
Several of our senior members received certificates of appreciation:
• Chap (LtCol) Chuck Ingram
• Maj Shelley Holbrook
• Maj Chris Storey
• Maj Chris Taylor
• Maj Daniel Gwaltney
• 1st Lt Darryl Gamboa
• Randy Holbrook
Two cadets received a Cadet Recruiter Ribbon:
•C/1st Lt Micah Gamboa
•C/2nd Lt Dave Truong
The NCO of the year is C/SMSgt Payton Swanson. The Officer of the year is C/1st Lt Micah Gamboa. The Senior member of the year is Maj Daniel Gwaltney.
This next year we, as a squadron, would like to train and develop our Cadet Program Officers, increase the number of activities, and increase the number of junior NCOs in our squadron.