Think ink: Publications serve Travis throughout base's history

  • Published
  • By Nick DeCicco
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  One would assume anyone reading this sentence knows the product you're reading right now is the Tailwind, Travis' base newspaper.

What you may not know is its history or its role in delivering information to the Travis base populace throughout the years.

The paper is the product of collaboration between the 60th Air Mobility Wing public affairs shop and the Daily Republic, a daily newspaper serving Solano County and based in Fairfield, Calif.

Foy McNaughton, McNaughton Newspapers CEO and Daily Republic publisher, is proud of the nearly 40-year relationship between the two entities.

"The McNaughtons consider this endeavor extremely important in communicating the Travis mission," he said. "The Tailwind provides valuable news and photos to our men and women serving at Travis. The Daily Republic stands extremely proud of this excellent weekly newspaper."

History 101

Though the Tailwind is approaching the end of its 38th year of publication, it is the most recent in a series of publications to serve the Solano County military installation.

First was Front & Center, a magazine-style weekly that covered the base during the 1940s, when it was still known as Fairfield-Suisun Army Air Base.

For approximately two decades, the Global Ranger was Travis' paper. All of the pre-1964 editions are believed to be lost, according to Mark Wilderman, 60th Air Mobility Wing historian. Different aircraft, such as the B-36 Peacemaker, C-133 Cargomaster and B-52 Stratofortress, were featured in the publication's flag -- the logo at the top of the front page -- as Travis' mission changed.

The first edition of the Tailwind published on June 7, 1974. The front page of this edition mimics it in honor of Monday's Veterans Day. This edition's flag includes Travis' modern C-17 Globemaster III and KC-10 Extender instead of 1974's C-141 Starlifter, but both feature the C-5 Galaxy.

Using a photograph as the centerpiece of the Tailwind's cover became a dominant feature during the 1980s, Wilderman said. A color photograph of the Thunderbirds adorns the cover of the Feb. 20, 1987, edition in which the paper began printing on one-inch taller paper.

The DR has not been the sole publisher of the Tailwind throughout its history. For several years in the early 1990s, Cal-Tex Publishing held the contract for the paper.

When printing returned to the Daily Republic in July 1994, the paper changed from being a wider-page, broadsheet design to the tabloid style used today.

The paper introduced its digital edition in February 2008, when it began publishing in PDF format online at tailwind.dailyrepublic.net.

Audiences

Tailwind focuses on more than just the Travis mission. It's aim is to serve the base community, from the Airmen and their families to civilian employees to contractors. It also is distributed to businesses off-base to give the Solano County community a glimpse at its activities.

Part of the paper's purpose throughout its history is to help the Travis community understand its connection to the mission, said Stephen Pierce, who worked as the Daily Republic liaison for the Tailwind in 1996 and 1997 after a 10-year active-duty career that ended in Travis' public affairs shop.

"Every person on base needs to know how they can draw a direct line to the mission," Pierce said, now the Solano County public communications officer.

The paper walks a tightrope between telling the vision of the base commander and the Air Force as well as keeping its public informed.

"You were never not a journalist," Pierce said. "Sometimes you get objective journalism, but it was never a propaganda tool. It used all the proper tools of journalism to keep the community informed."

Change

As someone who has lived in Solano County for more than 20 years, Pierce said the biggest change he's seen isn't in print, but in the technology.

"The web was still a novice concept at that standpoint," he said of his time in mid-1990s. "It was a challenge to keep connected to the deployed forces. Now, that's not really an issue."

T.C. Perkins Jr., 60th AMW public affairs base multimedia office member, echoed that sentiment.

"The digital age has given us a lot more breathing room," Perkins said, who took photographs on base included in the Tailwind from 1996 to 2002 before returning in 2010.

Perkins works alongside Heide Couch, 60th AMW public affairs base multimedia office member, who said "technology changed a heck of a lot." Couch took photos as well as designed graphics at Travis from 1992 to 2006 and also returned in 2010.

On the pages of the base papers, Wilderman said the biggest changes from the days of the Global Ranger to the present is a decrease in sports coverage as well as the elimination of "pretty sexist" pinup pictures.

"You see those less and less as women came in (to the service)," Wilderman said.

Wilderman also said, in the last 30 to 40 years, social club activity decreased as dual-income families rose, diminishing time for such groups.

While the paper has changed and his own life even more, Pierce has near strayed far, feeling as though he's always "been near the base in one way or another."

"On active duty and even as a civilian, I was still in the military first and a journalist second," Pierce said. "It was a good experience. I belong to a community that will always be there."