The Silicon Valley Guard

Space Shuttle over Golden Gate Bridge

The next time you are in San Francisco know there is an Air National Guard unit located down at the southern end of the bay quietly doing its job; rescuing people and saving lives. 

Located in between Sunnyvale and Mountain View, it is the heart of the infamous "Silicon Valley".

Last September the Space Shuttle did a fly-by over the SF Bay including Moffett Airfield on its way to its permanent home in LA.  It was pretty incredible to see!

An Air Rescue over SF Bay (129th Air Rescue Wing)

See the photo to the left, a rescue being performed just in front of the Golden Gate bridge in the chilly waters of the SF Bay!

Since 2005, the unit has logged over 900 rescues!

The unit's motto is "These things we do that others may live".

I have to admit, it is a pretty cool mission.  


Moffett Field began as a Navy base back in the 1930s.  This was when the surrounding area, Santa Clara valley was still mostly orchards.  The mission was for lighter than air aircraft.  Blimps!

Moffett from the sky, notice the three oblong blimp hangars

The base has three oblong and very strange looking hangars, blimp hangars!  If you look closely at the photo to the right you will see them. 

The  active duty Navy left in the 1990s and  Moffett is now mainly "owned" by NASA.   The NASA Ames Research Center is also located at Moffett and has had a big part in Silicon Valley.  

Moffett has been and continues to be a big part of the activity here.  In fact, Moffett probably helped create Silicon Valley.  As businesses began to pop up all around it and research breakthroughs were made with the transistor and later the integrated circuit, military contracts were big business.

Google, in Mountain View, CA

Google is just outside of Moffett on one side and Microsoft the other.   Yahoo is just a few blocks away.  Hewlett Packard is across the street.   And within very close proximity is Apple, eBay, Intel, Facebook, and a miriad of other electronics, computer and internet based businesses.   Stanford University is just a few miles up the way in Palo Alto.

Street names such as "Innovation" and "Enterprise" well describe the culture of Silicon Valley.

My military assignments have taken me so many places. Moffett is one of them.

Eons ago when I was flying to basic training, to Lackland AFB, I had no idea I would be in the military this many years.  That I would go to all these places....meet and work with so many incredible people...learn and experience so many things...

Yesterday as I took my physical fitness test and speed walked down the road that is next to one of those oblong hangars and with Hewlett Packard right outside the base fence, I could not help but contemplate how wonderful it was to be here and be able do this.  It was a beautiful day.  I gave thanks.

The military doctor the day before reviewed my medical records and stated, "You are very lucky".

More than luck, I thought.  Much more than luck!