KC-135 crew celebrates Asian-Pacific American Heritage month

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st ARG Public Affairs
June was just around the corner and so was the end of Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month. But Lt. Col. Tsuyoshi "T" Tung, a Reserve KC-135 Stratotanker pilot, had made celebrating his heritage his mission. And he was determined to make it happen.

So he sent his aircrew an email: "I believe you are all flying tomorrow night," it read. "I have declared this flight an Asian-Pacific Heritage Awareness Sortie."

A little more than 24 hours later, on May 27, Colonel Tung was treating his fellow 18th Air Refueling Squadron flyers to all the Asian-Pacific cuisine and culture they could digest. Fortunately, he said, the sortie's preflight went smooth and freed up built-in extra time for the theme of the night.

Activities included an East Asia culture presentation, a question-and-answer session about Asian contributions to America, a discussion about Lt. Col. Ellison Onizuka (one of the astronauts in the Challenger shuttle disaster), and origami paper-folding.

"We made two dozen cranes and handed them out as gifts to people we interacted with during our mission planning and preflight activities," Colonel Tung said, "as is customary in Japan."

Colonel Tung moved to the United States with his parents when he was 5 years old. He was born in Japan. He considers himself half-Japanese by his mother, half Taiwanese by his father, and an "Issei," a Japanese term for a first-generation Japanese immigrant to the U.S.

The food the lieutenant colonel offered to his crew and ground personnel included traditional Chinese dishes and his own "Colonel Tung's Chicken" (formerly known as "Major Tung's Chicken").

The chicken "was pretty good," said Tech. Sgt. Jim Yokom, a KC-135 boom operator assigned to the mission, "a little different, but good."

Lt. Col. Brad Anderson, a pilot who also enjoyed the Asian-Pacific buffet set up on a KC-135 galley, said the "very educational" heritage sortie will likely add to his preparation for an upcoming deployment to Guam.

"It was fun making the origami," said Capt. Jon Murphy, another pilot assigned to the mission. He learned several origami designs and said teaching them to his daughter will be a new family activity.

"I've always been interested in military history, particularly Japanese samurai warriors and the Russo-Japanese War," Sergeant Yokom said. "So this just added to everything."

May was chosen as the month to recognize Asian-Pacific American history to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. Most of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants.

There are 15.2 million people in the United States who claim an Asian heritage, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is about 5 percent of the country's total population.