Welcome Homes, Changes of Command, & Activations Published Nov. 8, 2009 By Capt. Matthew T. Mutti, Wing Executive Staff Officer 104th Fighter Wing BARNES AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Massachusetts -- Col. Robert Brooks, Commander of the 104 Fighter Wing hosted a commander's call on 3 October in which many individuals were recognized. The event began with recognizing 14 members who returned recently from deployments in support of the contingency operations overseas. The members were assigned to the four groups and deployed to bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Netherlands, Germany and Kyrgyszstan. Following the welcoming home of these local heroes, the wing awarded six wing safety awards, seven combat action medals, two meritorious service medals, and the mass medal of merit and the legion of merit to Col. Gary Keefe on the occasion of his retirement from the Director of Staff position at the Joint Force Headquarters. Lt. Col. Peter Green was selected to supersede Col Keefe as the new Director of Staff and thus relinquished command of the 104th Security Forces Squadron to Capt. Steve Reynolds. Lt. Col. Thomas Kelly was selected to run the Exercise and Evaluation program as the wing prepares for its upcoming Operational Readiness Inspection, thus relinquishing command of the 131st Fighter Squadron to Lt. Col. Harold Anderson. In September, the United States Air Forces underwent a reorganization within the Mission Support Group, aligning the Services Flights and the Military Personnel Flights into a single squadron called the Force Support Squadron. This change in Air Force structure required Capt. Ramon Diaz to relinquish command of the 104th Services Flight and Maj. David Mendoza to relinquish command of the 104th Military Personnel Flight. Following the relinquishing of command, the new organization, the 104th Force Support Squadron was activated and Maj. Dave Mendoza accepted command of the new squadron.