Photo By Master Sgt. Paul Rider | Col. Jeremy Horn, incoming commander of the Washington Air National Guard, salutes...... read more read more
Brig. Gen. John Tuohy turned over command of the Washington Air National Guard to Col. Jeremy Horn during a ceremony at the Pierce County Readiness Center here on August 13. Tuohy completed nearly four years of service as Assistant Adjutant General for Air of the Washington National Guard and commander of the Washington Air Guard, and Horn moves into command after a few months serving as director of the Joint Staff at the Washington National Guard’s Joint Force Headquarters. Horn was previously commander of the Washington Air Guard’s 194th Wing.
With the conclusion of Tuohy’s command, the Washington Air National Guard is “at the top of its game,” said Maj. Gen. Bret Daugherty, Adjutant General of the Washington National Guard.
During his command, Tuohy led Air Guard responses to the Highway 530 mudslide near Oso, Washington in 2014 and massive wildfires in north central Washington in 2014 and 2015. He oversaw Air Guard involvement in the 2016 Cascadia Rising exercise to prepare for a catastrophic Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. And he drove the expansion of the Washington Air Guard’s involvement in cyberspace operations.
Daugherty charged incoming commander Horn with “sustaining and improving mission readiness for domestic and overseas missions.”
Commissioned upon graduation from the Air Force Academy in 1989, Horn was an A-10 attack pilot, forward air controller, and test pilot. He was also a T-38 instructor pilot. Horn entered the Washington Air Guard in 2009 to serve as deputy commander of the 194th Air Support Operations Group, deploying to Afghanistan as a Joint Terminal Attack Controller and rising in 2013 to command the Group. He took command of the 194th Wing in 2015.
Horn pledged to serve the people of the Air Guard, who he commended for their dedication. He spoke of his four children who “grew up in a tumultuous time, and if one thing has given them comfort it is being surrounded by a group of people in uniform who are totally committed to preserving peace.”
Horn credited his predecessor with creating an Air Guard culture in which airmen find solutions to challenging problems. Retired Brig. Gen. Craig Blankenstein, a former vice commander of the Washington Air National Guard who presided over Tuohy’s retirement ceremony following the change of command, said that Tuohy was “true to his values, and I have never worked with a man with higher integrity.”
Tuohy’s retirement marked exactly 39 years since he was commissioned as a second lieutenant. It was August 13, 1978 when Tuohy was sworn in at the Air Force ROTC Detachment at Florida State University. He went on to six years of active duty service as an Electronic Warfare Officer in the Air Force, followed by 33 years in the Washington Air National Guard. He held administrative posts at the state Air Guard headquarters and spent the 1990s in air support roles at the 111th Air Support Operations Center Squadron, rising to become squadron commander. Tuohy moved back to state headquarters to serve as a Human Resource Officer and Chief of Staff at the Joint Force Headquarters before becoming the first commander of the newly-formed 194th Regional Support Wing in June 2005. From 2008 to 2013, Tuohy was the United States Property and Fiscal Officer at Camp Murray.
In remarks at his retirement ceremony, Tuohy cited advice his father gave just before he passed away in 2006. “It’s not about the stuff you desire or even acquire,” his father said. “It about whether you make good memories.” Moving into retirement, Tuohy can look back on a career full of “great memories,” he said.
| Date Taken: | 08.13.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 08.13.2017 21:24 |
| Story ID: | 244713 |
| Location: | CAMP MURRAY, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 757 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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