Mark your calendar—IronOaks is celebrating our Sun Lakes veterans on Nov. 18. Moving the date a week enables us to honor our veterans like never before.

Breakfast is from 8 to 9:30 a.m. and includes pancakes, scrambled eggs, sausage, orange juice, and coffee. Breakfast is free for veterans and $14 (plus tax and gratuity) for guests.

The guest speaker will be Colonial Dave Sail, COL (RET) U.S. Army, who served 28.5 years active service, the last 10 years on the Army Apache Program as the TRADOC Apache Systems Manager (two times) and the United States Army Europe Apache Fielding Chief. He had two Vietnam Combat tours, flying Huey transports for three months, then Huey gunships for nine months. His second tour, he flew Cobra attack helicopters, AH1Gs. Between tours, he took a direct commission into the infantry branch. He retired as a colonel after working and flying the Apache the last 10 years. He went to work at MD Helicopters, and then it became Boeing. He worked in international business development in countries such as the UK, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Kuwait, and Greece. He then became a program manager and worked in the Netherlands for three years. The last years, he worked as the department head for all our Apache field reps, both domestic and international, to include our reps in Iraq and Afghanistan. He retired after 17.5 years and started the SW Chapter of AAHF and Flying Museum here in Mesa and Falcon Field, now with 225-plus members and 10 aircraft, including many Vietnam veteran aircraft.

Additional program details: Huey helicopter rides will be available for purchase (cost sharing is being worked on, so we can’t confirm a price right now, but $115 would be the maximum). These are 15-minute rides, taking off from the Oakwood driving range.

Reservations can be made for breakfast and rides at the Oakwood Concierge desk Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., or by calling 480-317-3600.