An official website of the United States government
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Global Strike Heritage: a father-daughter remembrance

  • Published
  • By Megan Meyer
  • Air Force Global Strike Command Public Affairs
BARKSDALE AIR FORCE BASE, La. --  When then-Lt. Col. Patricia "Pat" Fornes received her command assignment to the 740th Missile Squadron, she knew she could handle the sub-zero weather of Minot Air Force Base, N.D., because in a way, she was coming home.

Colonel (ret) Fornes was a junior in high school in 1969 when her father, Lt. Col. (ret) Glenn Fornes, moved to Minot to command the same squadron.

"It was really one of my goals throughout my career to eventually command, and I wanted to command my father's squadron at Minot," said Ms. Fornes, who now serves as a contractor at U.S. Strategic Command.

When Ms. Fornes took command in 1993, the Thursday before Father's Day, her father attended the change of command ceremony.

The kinship of commanding the same squadron her father had commanded 25 years before was especially felt the first time when she went into a missile alert facility at Minot, she said.

"When we lived on Minot, families of missileers were able to take a 'tour' of sorts to go 'down in the hole' and see where their family member worked," she explained. "Going down the stairs into the missile alert facility for the first time as the squadron commander took me back to when I was 16 years old and had first ventured down into one."

Ms. Fornes' Air Force family ties don't end with her father. Her sister, Lt. Col. Mary "Marty" Walsh, is currently serving as the 87th Medical Operations Squadron Commander at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.

Colonel Walsh said Ms. Fornes' being able to request command of the squadron their father had commanded speaks volumes about the Air Force. "She and my dad carried the Air Force message farther than any one of us could have," she said.

Ms. Fornes' career is an impressive list of firsts. She joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps at University of Northern Colorado, her mother's alma mater, one year after it opened its doors to women. She was also first in line when the missile career field began accepting female officers, leading her to become the first woman officer to serve on a combat missile crew. And when she took command of the 740th, she was the first woman ever to command a missile squadron.

"I felt pretty lucky," Ms. Fornes said. "In each assignment, I was probably the first woman to have that job. To be able to come in and open doors for other women was pretty amazing."

Colonel Walsh said her sister would have never been chosen for command if she didn't deserve it. "It just speaks to the caliber of officer she was and the person she still is. She excelled in everything she did in the Air Force."

Ms. Fornes and Colonel Walsh are the 3rd and 4th siblings in a family of five. The eldest two, Tim and Katie, both served in the Army during the Vietnam era. Their youngest sister, Shannon, retired as a teacher in North Dakota.