The last KC-135 flying tanker deployed from Grand Forks Air Force Base has returned home, the base announced Monday.
The next time the tankers go anywhere will be to another base sometime in December, ending the tanker mission at the Grand Forks base.
As part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure round, the base is shifting to a new unmanned aircraft mission with Predator and Global Hawk aircraft.
The last deployed tanker belongs to the 905th Air Refueling Squadron, the only tanker wing of four that had been a part of the 319th Air Refueling Wing. The base didn't say where it deployed to, but many Air Mobility Command assets serving in the Afghanistan theater were based in Kyrgyzstan.
Recently, anticipating its imminent dissolution, the 905th turned over its mascot, a fake stuffed-rhinoceros head over to the Blue Moose restaurant in East Grand Forks for safe keeping until another squadron claims it.
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The 319th's other squadrons, including security and civil engineering, will remain to run the base.
