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Changes ahead for Minot AFB bomb wing leadership

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE – The 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base will have a change in top leadership this spring.

Col. Matthew Brooks will conclude two years as the bomb wing’s commander, a position he has held since June 2016.

He will be replaced by Col. Bradley Cochran, currently vice commander of the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth AFB, S.D.

While Brooks has served as Minot bomb wing commander, both of the wing’s bomb squadrons were deployed to the Middle East to fight ISIS. The 23rd returned to the Minot base later this past year, swapping places with the 69th Bomb Squadron. The 69th will be there until the April 2018 timeframe. This was the first time in 12 years the Minot AFB B-52s were deployed for combat in the Middle East.

A vice presidential visit to the Minot base also took place while Brooks has been bomb wing commander. Vice President Mike Pence made a trip to Minot AFB in October 2017. Pence visited a launch facility with a Minuteman III ICBM in the Minot missile field and then spoke to about 200 airmen in a hangar with a B-52 bomber as the backdrop. Currently, Cochran is second in command of the 28th Bomb Wing at Ellsworth AFB. The wing is the largest B-1 combat wing in the Air Force.

The 5th Bomb Wing change of command for Brooks and Cochran is scheduled for late May

Other changes in leadership at the Minot base include three group commanders will be leaving this summer, Col. Sloan Hollis, vice commander of the 5th Bomb Wing, told members of the Minot Area Chamber of Commerce’s Military Affairs Committee at its meeting Thursday in Minot.

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