Our purpose is to pass on the heritage and camaraderie of Air Force Ammo Troops, from generation to generation. We are active duty and retired, and veteran Ammo troops in the Las Vegas area, including Nellis and Creech AFBs. Our FAMMOly Story
AMMO VETERANS ASSOCIATION-NEVADA MMS 461-2WO·MONDAY, JANUARY 20, 2020·
Our purpose is to pass on the heritage and camaraderie of U.S. Many Veterans organizat
ions support the troops by donations of funds and goods and then forget the troops they are supporting need a connection. This is where we find we do the most good. Too many vets lose their way because they lose almost all the support structure they had as an active duty Ammo Troop. Somehow through ingenious branding or just sheer dumb luck, our brethren came up with “fAMMOly”. Even just mingling with old war horses or recently inducted airman is going to give some stability to Active Duty and long Retired or Separated Vets. Its why we use the term “fAMMOly” when talking about our Brothers & Sisters in AMMO and also the families that support them. Telling you what we do is great but telling you how we started is always a winner. It’s nice to have myths and legends, fortunately AMMO is chalk full of both! About four years ago, Greig Hartman and Jimmy Taylor among others decided to start an AMMO Vet support group now known as the AMMO Veterans Association. That’s the basics, Jimmy and a few other decided that one of the best ways to attract AMMO troops is an AMMO Call or Reunion. So we had our first Monster Mash banquet here in Las Vegas. I went to that first and have been a member since. But what attracted me was the myth or legend. I heard about the first bash as they started to advertise and what I heard was this Retired MSgt Jimmy Taylor was now hosting parties across the country for AMMO. And the alcoholic in me could not imagine a better way to retire... Spend your days travelling from one corner of the country to the other setting up parties and meeting hundreds if not thousands of AMMO troops great and small. Of course that is mostly rubbish but no matter Jimmy and Greig have exactly that spirit toward this endeavor. Dennis “FTSO” Soukup, Grieg Hartman, Vic “Doc” Moss, Joe “AMMO Joe” Phillips, John & Shelly Lyons took up the mantle in 2017, Andrew “Clipboard” Clancy aided as the active duty liaison and then I (Chris “Papa Bear” Ahl) and my wife Denise were asked to assist with the 2017 Monster Bash. We also asked James Caufield to aid us and that candle lit up and we had a great weekend. We raised money for the next event and funds to aid the Nellis AFB 57 Munitions Squadron with a bit of fundraising in addition to the AMMO Chiefs Association. With it being our first solo Bash it was a learning experience but we learned well. For 2018 FTSO, John, Shelly and Denise stepped back to coordinate and enjoy the events. But we added Joe Phillips, Rochelle Ottman, Mandy Ingle to aid us in making this the best bash so far. It was a success as we added new members, a whole new group of retirees was energized to see what they could do in their local area. We had the FTSO and Papa Bear join and win the High speed Low Drag Bomb Build competition with Team NCO. Our Pub crawl from Main Street to Hennessey Irish Pub was a site to see with 70 fAMMOly making sure to add to the Fremont street pub profit rolls. Finally, the Banquet on Saturday night was just fantastic with the raffles, the games, the AMMO Bowl’s and the inappropriate humor AMMO always comes to love. No matter how you slice this, you have now got a whole section of AMMO energized all across the country wanting more of this kind of interaction. If you are reading this and wondering why not in your area. It only takes a little time on Facebook to find people everywhere and find out how others did this same thing. So what are you waiting for? We want to visit you and have good times with other fAMMOly in other parts of the country.
