By John Andrew Prime
[email protected]The commander of the 917th Wing, a combined B-52 bomber and A-10 fighter unit at Barksdale Air Force Base, has been nominated by President George W. Bush for promotion to brigadier general.
Col. Robert O. Tarter, a Lake Charles native who assumed command of the 917th Wing in April, is one of 15 colonels Bush nominated for a first star in selections announced Nov. 22. He was one of six Air Force Reserve Command wing commanders tagged for promotion.
Tarter entered Air Force service in 1976 after commissioning through the ROTC program at Baylor University, where he was designated a distinguished graduate. He entered active service in early 1977 and had operational assignments flying the A-10, as well as headquarters staff positions at headquarters, U.S. Air Forces in Europe, Ramstein Air Base in Germany, 10th Air Force, at the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, and at Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon.
Unusual for a wing commander and brigadier general-select, he is a traditional reservist, with a civilian job as a captain for Delta Air Lines.
Rated as a command pilot, Tarter has some 3,600 military and 6,000 civilian flight hours in the T-37 and T-38 trainers, the A-10 fighter, the McDonnell Douglas MD-88 and MD-90, and Boeing 737, 757 and 767 jets.
Nine brigadier generals were named for elevation to two-star rank as well, and among that number was former Shreveport attorney James Graves, who served in the 917th Wing as its vice commander from October 1997 to April 2000.
Prior to that, he was commander of the 47th Fighter Squadron and commander of the 917th Operations Support Squadron, both at Barksdale. He was an A-10 pilot, weapons officer, instructor and flight examiner, flight commander and assistant operations officer with the 47th from November 1981 to November 1994.
Since leaving Barksdale, Graves has served as mobilization assistant to the director of plans and programs at Headquarters Air Combat Command, at Langley Air Force Base, Va., and as mobilization assistant to the commander at the Air University, Air Education and Training Command, Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. Since April, he has served as mobilization assistant to the commander of Pacific Air Forces at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii.
Graves is also rated as a command pilot, with 4,000 military flying hours and 2,000 civilian hours. Graves' hours are in the T-37 and T-38 trainer and the RF-4, A-37, A-10 and B-52 combat aircraft. His military hours include combat missions in Bosnia.
Both promotions are subject to confirmation by the Senate and by the direction of the chief of Air Force Reserve.
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