PORT ANGELES – Fewer than 24 hours after returning from a trip which spanned more than 18,000 miles worldwide, Port Angeles School Superintendent Gary Cohn couldn’t pick just one experience that stood out.
Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, Cohn stood on the flight deck with planes zipping past him.
“You could feel the wind of them passing through you,” he said.
“People have gotten blown completely off board before.”
While at Camp Leonier in the African port city of Djibouti, he and the rest of the VIP tour group he was with checked out the troops’ efforts to maintain peace and stability.
Djibouti is home of the only U.S. military base in sub-Saharan Africa.
Cohn was part of a Defense Department Joint Civilian Orientation Course that traveled to the Mideast and the Horn of Africa.
The group interacted with all four branches of the Pentagon: Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
“There is huge cooperation and integration of the troops,” Cohn said.
“You might be on an Army base, but there will be troops from all the branches working there.”