Alamogordo NM
9-25-2026 5:15am

Alamogordo Invited to Welcome Home Veteran Larry Sanmann From Honor Flight

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. — Alamogordo is invited — and challenged — to fill VFW Post 7686 on Saturday night and welcome home Air Force veteran Larry Sanmann as he returns from Washington, D.C., with Rio Grande Honor Flight Mission 22.

The homecoming, hosted by the U.S. Veterans Motorcycle Club, Trinity Chapter, with the Patriot Guard Riders, begins at 7 p.m. Organizers are asking the public to bring American flags, welcome home banners and all the patriotism they can carry, giving Sanmann the hometown welcome many Vietnam veterans never received.

It is a fitting salute to a man whose working life was measured in turbine blades and the roar of jet engines. From the flight lines of Vietnam to the hangars at Holloman Air Force Base, Sanmann spent more than three decades keeping some of America's most storied aircraft in the air.

From Nebraska to Vietnam

Sanmann enlisted in the Air Force in 1967 from his hometown of McCool Junction, Nebraska, and trained as a jet engine mechanic. His first assignment was Cannon Air Force Base in Clovis, but his stay in eastern New Mexico was a short one.

Before long he was at Phan Rang Air Base in South Vietnam, where he served from 1968 to 1969. There he maintained the jet engines of the F-100 Super Sabre, the fighter-bomber that flew close air support missions throughout the war.

Engines around the world

After Vietnam, Sanmann was assigned to Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma, where most of the Air Force's jet engines went for depot-level overhaul and maintenance. There he worked on just about every jet engine the service was flying at the time.

His next stop was McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas, working on the Pratt & Whitney J57 engines of the KC-135 Stratotanker, the workhorse of aerial refueling and cargo airlift. From McConnell he deployed to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam in 1972 in support of Operation Bullet Shot, the massive buildup of B-52 Stratofortress bombers in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. On Guam he kept the B-52s' engines running.

Sanmann then moved to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan, where he continued maintaining KC-135 engines. From there he was stationed at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, working on the engines of the F-4 Phantom II and the F-16 Fighting Falcon.

Home at Holloman

His final Air Force assignment brought him back to New Mexico, to Holloman Air Force Base, where he closed out his career working on the F-15 Eagle. Sanmann retired after 21 years of active duty at the rank of master sergeant (E-7).

Retirement didn't last long. As Sanmann tells it, he simply walked across the flight line and took a job with DynCorp maintaining T-38 Talons — and, once again, their jet engines. He later worked on the German Air Force's F-4 Phantoms and their engines at Holloman until 2004, when he retired a second time, "so he says."

To keep from getting bored, he then drove the shuttle between Alamogordo and Holloman. Today Sanmann is fully retired and makes his permanent home in Alamogordo.

This weekend he will travel with Honor Flight Mission 22 to Washington, D.C., organized by Rio Grande Honor Flight, to visit the memorials built in honor of those who served. After a lifetime spent keeping America's aircraft flying, he says he is looking forward to it.

If you go

Join the welcome home celebration for Larry Sanmann:

• When: Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026, at 7 p.m.• Where: VFW Post 7686, 700 Highway 70 West, Alamogordo• Hosted by: U.S. Veterans Motorcycle Club, Trinity Chapter, with the Patriot Guard Riders and Rio Grande Honor Flight

Bring your flags, your banners and a friend. Sanmann gave 21 years in uniform and decades more on the flight line — it takes one evening to tell him thank you.

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