National Guard Returns from Latin America

Three California Air National Guard transport planes carrying 60 National Guard personnel returned to Los Angeles Saturday after a two-week stay in Panama and visits to nine other Latin American countries to resupply U.S. embassies.

The first of the C-130 cargo planes, which are part of the guard’s 146th Tactical Airlift Wing, touched down at Van Nuys Airport about 3:30 p.m., ending a 10-hour flight from Howard Air Force Base in Panama.

Col. Tandy K. Bozeman, the mission’s wing vice commander, said: “It was a super operation.” The duty included surprise flights to Jamaica to provide cots for about 4,000 people left homeless by flooding.

The state Air National Guard has been running supply-and-training missions to Latin America since 1978 without resistance, but this year the operation was unsuccessfully challenged in court by Americans for Democratic Action and the National Lawyers Guild.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Warren H. Deering rejected an appeal and set a July 14 hearing for further arguments.

Guardsmen returning Saturday fully support California’s involvement, saying the training they receive is vital to keep the country prepared for war.

“It’s valid and valuable to keep us war-ready,” Bozeman said. “We get to work with the people we’ll have to work with if the situation worsens down there.”

During the mission, the guardsmen flew supplies such as food, clothing and medicine to U.S. embassies in Venezuela, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Belize and Jamaica.

On one mission, guardsmen dropped a contingent of U.S. paratroopers in Panama out of planes into the canal zone on a basic-training expedition, said Lt. David E. Heinlen, who piloted a C-130 transport.