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Youngstown native takes command of 111th Operations Group
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown native and Pennsylvania Air National Guard Col. John O’Brien recently assumed command of the 111th Operations Group at Horsham Air Guard Station in Pennsylvania.
Col. Howard Eissler, commander of the 111th Attack Wing commander, hosted the Dec. 3 change-of-command and promotion ceremony attended by 111th personnel and O’Brien’s family and friends. O’Brien was formerly commander of 111th’s Operations Support Squadron.
As the 111th Operations Group commander, O’Brien is the highest-ranking officer for the unit’s remotely piloted aircraft mission, which employs the MQ-9 aircraft, an armed, multimission, medium-altitude, long-endurance aircraft used for intelligence collection and dynamic execution of targets.
Horsham Air Guard Station, in Horsham Township, Montgomery County, Pa., is owned by the Pennsylvania Air National Guard.
O’Brien, a 1985 graduate of Cardinal Mooney High School, in addressing his guardsmen, challenged them to be humble, learn from their peers and “become leaders with the tactical prowess to sink a battleship and the faith and confidence to do it.”
A mechanical engineering 1989 graduate of Case Western Reserve University, O’Brien also graduated from the University of Akron ROTC program as a lieutenant.
As a combat pilot, he served tours of duty in Kosovo in 1999 and more recently in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A former A-10 Thunderbolt II pilot, he flew 33 combat missions in Kosovo where he participated in the rescue of an F-117 pilot who was shot down. O’Brien also flew 30 to 35 combat missions each in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among his decorations is the Distinguished Flying Cross.
O’Brien’s grandfather, Lawrence Snovak, a paratrooper with the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, was killed during World War II’s Normandy invasion June 6, 1944.
Among area family members attending the Dec. 3 ceremony at which O’Brien was promoted to colonel, were his parents, Donald and Mary O’Brien of Canfield, and his older brother, Larry and his family of Brecksville; wife, Colleen, and a son, Aidan, a daughter, Kayleigh, and a son, Connor. His grandmother, Clara Blumetti, 94, was unable to attend for health reasons.
“I love having my children here to witness this,” said O’Brien’s wife of the change-of-command ceremony. “My husband is the only one of our family in military service, so it’s an honor to have him represent us in this way,” she said.
His mother, Mary O’Brien, said she thought of her father, Lawrence Snovak, who died before she was born.
“The ceremony was very impressive. And to think I tried to talk him out of the military because of my father,” she said.
Mary said John had wanted to fly since he was 8, and when he was 13 he wrote letters to World War II and Korean War aces, and some of them responded.