Eat Out for a Cause - Dalesandro's

With Veterans Day upon us, our editorial staff pondered who in the ranks of the TCBA we could interview about their time in military service. Judge Sharon Holmes joined the U.S. Air Force in January 1982 after receiving her degree in German language and literature from Loyola University in New Orleans. One could say it began her career in service of the law. She became part of the police and security unit after receiving her first duty station at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. During her time at Malmstrom, she worked in both law enforcement and missile security on base. Malmstrom is home to the 341st Missile Wing, one of three U.S. Air Force bases that maintains and operates the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), and is part of Air Force Global Strike Command. Next, she would get to put her German language to use, as her duty station changed from stateside to Germany, arriving at Bitburg Air Base, in the Eifel Mountains of the Rhineland-Palatinate (RhinelandPfalz). Bitburg Air Base was built in 1952, and it became the home of the 36th Fighter Wing for over 40 years.1 Judge Holmes provided security for the armory and weapons depot before her final assignment.

1 The location of Bitburg Air Base had previously been a staging area during World War II for the Wehrmacht during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944. The United States Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRACC) recommended its closure, which returned it to the German government in 1994. Beginning in 1985, Judge Holmes provided base and weapons security at Rammstein Air Force Base, also located in located in the German state of RhinelandPalatinate. Ramstein is the largest American community outside of the United States. She honorably discharged in July 1988 after six and a half years of service with the U.S. Air Force. Asked for any fond memories of her time in the USAF, Holmes recalled “President Ronald Reagan arrived in 1985 while was stationed at Bitburg, and I served as the liaison for base security with his security team.” In checking the Reagan library information, this would have been in May 1985 following the G-11 Conference, after the President had given his speech at the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where he “declared we must not forget & we must pledge, ‘never again.’ ”2 Thanking her for her service, Judge Holmes responded, “it was my honor to serve”, echoing the same quiet humility she displayed when I previously interviewed her in February 2015.