Reader Roger H. Madon writes to The Scrapbook:
“What a joy to read ‘The Warthog Lives!’ by Jonathan Foreman” (from our January 26 issue). “Almost immediately upon my entrance into the practice of law in 1974, upon joining the law firm then known as Sturm & Perl, I became general counsel to Republic Lodge 1987, IAM [International Association of Machinists]. It constituted nearly 5,000 riveters and machinists at Fairchild Republic in Farmingdale, L.I., assembler of the Attack 10, aka the ‘Warthog.’ Little did I know at the time that this plane would become the loving legend of so many fighting soldiers, grunts to be exact. “The factory floor was filled with fuselages, wings, wheels, and other assorted pieces of yet-to-be-installed paraphernalia to ultimately become a flying cannon which released 60 tank-piercing titanium shells with one squeeze of the trigger. And the union workers were a proud and professional bunch of hard driving, fast talking, no nonsense men and a few women whose only goal on that floor was to provide to our fighting troops a killer plane in defense of the freedom they and all of us so enjoyed. “The production line of the A-10 was closed in 1984. I thought at the time how foolish we were as a nation to stop production of such a magnificent and practical plane. Since then I observed with a sense of irony that the A-10 wasn’t just going away without a fight. And fight it did. Mr. Foreman’s article proved the truth of that long ago observation. Thanks for the memories.”