Maryland Air National

Harry H. Zimmerman, 74, salesman, bandleaderHarry Harris Zimmerman, a retired beer salesman and bandleader, died Saturday of cancer at his Rosedale home. He was 74.In 1990, he retired from Bond Distributing Co. Earlier, he had worked at several Baltimore breweries -- Gunther, American, Carling, National -- and sold beer for Budweiser and Schlitz.In the 1960s, he was state sales manager for Kessler Hunter Distilleries.During World War II, he worked at the Glenn L. Martin Co. aircraft plant in Middle River, and had been a machinist for R. J. Lock & Co., an auto parts company.

Baltimore was not under attack yesterday. Nor was it defending itself from one.But the sight of two A-10 "Warthog" jets roaring over the city unnerved more than a few people, sparked frantic calls to police and created a spectacle for those enjoying a warm afternoon outside."

Pilots from the Maryland Air National Guard -- endearingly referred to as "Warthog Warriors" -- left the friendly skies of their home state early yesterday for the more uncertain and dangerous environs over Iraq.Aviators and maintenance personnel from the 104th Fighter Squadron of the guard's 175th Wing, some with families waving goodbye before sunrise yesterday, departed from Martin State Airport in Middle River for a 90-day deployment to help enforce the United Nations "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq.

Pilots from the Maryland Air National Guard returned to their homes yesterday, ending their part in a monthlong overseas mission that included bombings of Iraqi ground forces.Members of the 104th Fighter Squadron of the Air Guard's 175th Wing saw combat at least three times during a month of patrolling the United Nations' "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq, said Capt. Drew Sullins, a Guard spokesman.Sullins said squadron members knocked out a radio station and a surface-to-air missile site during the deployment, which began in late January.

Capt. Scott Lageman of the Maryland Air National Guard pats the flank of his Maverick missile, checks the safety pins on his BDU-33 bombs and climbs into a titanium bathtub with a 30 mm Gatling gun protruding from its belly.After climbing into the cockpit of his A-10 "Warthog" tank-killing fighter-bomber, Lageman taxis down the runway and lifts the lumbering jet into a steel-gray sky piled with clouds.Lageman and 1,700 other members of the Guard's 175th Wing, based at Martin State Airport in Middle River, are training for the possibility that President Clinton will send them to the Balkans to bomb Yugoslav troops.

An angry crowd of Bowleys Quarters residents demanded last night an end to a popular air show in the wake of the crash of a stealth fighter jet in September."

When a single-engine airplane sputtered and stalled twice in the autumn sky over Martin State Airport recently, Tom and Rosemarie Lehner cringed below in their back yard.Nearby, members of the Bongiorno family feel their Bowleys Quarters home tremble when military jets and cargo planes take off from Martin. Across the street, John Hammen's horses and dogs get the jitters during takeoffs.Skittishness in eastern Baltimore County has intensified in the two months since an Air Force F-117A Stealth fighter jet crashed into Bowleys Quarters during an air show.

Air combat has come a long way since its birth in World War I, when pilots dueled in balletic dogfights over trenches and dropped bombs by hand.So has the Maryland Air National Guard, which has been around almost since that beginning. Its pilots have gone from weekend warriors flying fabric-covered biplanes in the 1920s to patrolling the skies over Bosnia in jet fighter-bombers and hauling cargo around the world.Formed less than three years after World War I, the Maryland Guard aviation unit was among the country's first and will celebrate its 75th anniversary at 11 a.m. today at Warfield Air National Guard Base at Martin State Airport in Baltimore County.

Michael Theisen is eager to return to those uncertain skies. Steve Burgess wondered if his teen-age children would understand. And Gary Wingo had a bittersweet touch of deja vu.They and other Maryland Air National Guard combat pilots carefully went through their final checklists -- personal and military -- as they prepared for today's departure from Martin State Airport in Middle River for a two-month tour over Bosnia-Herzegovina."

For pilot Jim Cobb of the Maryland Air National Guard, the choice was simple: The Warthog was simply the best plane available for the job of patrolling the skies over peacekeepers in Bosnia."

Maryland Air National Guard cargo crews are prepping for an expected deployment to Afghanistan next year, flying a critical mission of air-dropping supplies to U.S. troops fighting in remote locations. Delivering ammunition, rations and water by parachute from the Guard's C-130J cargo planes is increasingly necessary in Afghanistan, not just because troops are being scattered to small, local bases as part of a new strategy, but also because of the growing danger that ground convoys will be attacked by Taliban insurgents, senior U.S. officers said.

Joseph J. Maisch Jr., a retired Maryland Air National Guard officer and fighter pilot who flew numerous missions over the enemy in World War II, died of stroke complications Monday at the Lorien Bel Air nursing home. The Joppatowne resident was 86. Born in Baltimore and raised in the 900 block of Calvert St., he attended the Cathedral School on Mulberry Street and was a 1940 City College graduate. He attended the University of Baltimore. He worked briefly as a salesman for the Baltimore Stationery Co. before enlisting in the Army Air Forces as an aviation cadet in March 1942.

Allyson R. Solomon said she is humbled to become the first African-American and the first woman to lead the Maryland Air National Guard. But she has little time to reflect on that achievement. Solomon, a colonel who will be promoted to brigadier general today in a ceremony in Baltimore, said she faces the immediate challenge of finding a new mission for the Guard, which stands to lose eight airlift planes scheduled to be transferred to other states. "We have to find out what is our niche," Solomon said recently in her new office at the Fifth Regiment Armory in Baltimore.

Col. Richard T. Lynch, a decorated World War II fighter pilot who had subsequent careers in the Maryland Air National Guard and the Association of Maryland Pilots, died of congestive heart failure Jan. 8 in his Chester home. He was 87. Born in Baltimore and raised on St. George's Road in Roland Park, he was a 1938 graduate of Mount St. Joseph's High School and earned a bachelor's degree at the University of Virginia. In 1942, he became an Army Air Corps cadet pilot and later flew 25 missions during 110 combat hours over Germany.

TUZLA, Bosnia -- It begins with the translation of the doctor's introductory query: "How may I help you today?" What follows are the typical answers and explanations, and more questions. Not much different from a visit to the family physician - except the translator is a Serbian army officer, the patient is an elderly Muslim woman, and the doctor is an internist from Baltimore, a member of the Maryland Air National Guard who recognizes the patient's achy knees and back as the pain of arthritis.

Faced with a shortage of military chaplains, the Maryland National Guard is enlisting congregations from across the state to form a loose-knit support network for Reserve soldiers and their families, including those rejoining their communities after tours of duty. Partners in Care includes congregations spanning a range of denominations. The network is a community-level response to what many regard as insufficient domestic support for Reserve soldiers, who represent about half the troops in Iraq.

A formal homecoming celebration for members of the Maryland Air National Guard who served in Iraq was bittersweet yesterday at the Warfield Air National Guard Base in Middle River, where civilian jobs and military positions could be eliminated in a Defense Department restructuring. "We were preparing for this homecoming for six months," said Col. Guy M. Walsh, a commander with the state Air National Guard, speaking to the crowd of more than 300 military personnel, family and officials.

Paul Nahnibida, a retired civil engineer and construction company owner who flew fighter aircraft in the South Pacific during World War II and in the Maryland Air National Guard, died Sunday of complications from cancer and diabetes after a brief stay at Future Care Chesapeake in Arnold. He was 84 and lived in Glen Burnie and Queenstown. Mr. Nahnibida, who was born and raised in Curtis Bay, was the son of emigrants from Russia and Ukraine who settled in Baltimore. He graduated from Polytechnic Institute and in 1947 earned a degree in civil engineering from the University of Alabama.

Eight A-10 fighting jets and a C-17 transport of the Maryland Air National Guard returned home yesterday from duty in Afghanistan to a soggy welcome at Martin State Airport, skipping the traditional homecoming lap above the airfield because the Thunderbolts had to land in the rain. In all, 46 Maryland Air National Guard members in the 175th Wing returned from their assignments on Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, supporting the military mobilization for the war in Iraq. For the returning pilots and crews, Baltimore County was a glorious sight.

WASHINGTON - Many of his comrades were too busy with the burdens of war, but David Yarborough's 12-hour shift on the flight line had ended. So he stood alongside the main road that runs through the dusty Bagram Air Base in eastern Afghanistan and watched, frozen, as two dead American soldiers were carried past. He should have been home in Rosedale months ago, back with his wife and two children, back on the job as a carrier for FedEx. But midway through what he thought was a 30-day stint in Afghanistan, Staff Sergeant Yarborough and about 140 other members of the Maryland Air National Guard were ordered to stay.