PALMDALE, Calif.–Brig. Gen. Matthew Higer, who oversees just about everything happening at the “Flight Test Center of the Universe” in the Aerospace Valley, had a few things to note about national priorities, addressing an annual dinner of the Edwards Air Force Base Civilian Military Support Group.

Higer is commander of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

According to the etiquette and customs of the community group that supports activities at the home of the Air Force Test Center, everyone gathered Nov. 4, 2022, at the Hilton Garden Inn rose for the Pledge of Allegiance, hands over heart, the words duly recited from memory.

After administering installation of the new board members and officers of the support group, Higer noted with pride his role leading  “Airmen and Guardians” of the Air Force and Space Force in his command.

“When I say I love ‘The Aerospace Valley,’ I mean that this is the ‘Aerospace Valley,’” Higer said. “I have never seen an antelope in the Antelope Valley,” he quipped. “I have seen a lot of the airplanes that fly here.”

Then he offered a few remarks about the Pledge of Allegiance.

Taking note that we are in a fraught moment for politics and civics nationally, coming into the 2022 mid-terms, and in the time to follow, he urged the dozens of civilian and military and veterans in the audience to study an earlier period of national turbulence in the decade leading up to the Civil War.

“I’d like everyone to take note of one word in the Pledge,” the general said. “That word is ‘indivisible.’”

The U.S. Civil War, sometimes still referred to as “The War Between The States,” the attempt as President Abraham Lincoln notes to “divide up effects” and break up the United States, failed, “and that situation was corrected,” Higer told the group. “And that is what ‘one nation, indivisible,’ means.”

The general was careful to note that he was himself taking no position “left or right,” or “red or blue,” adding that was the appropriate position “for a bunch of reasons,” including the U.S. military’s non-political responsibilities to the nation and the Flag that the nation represents.

He added a few words from the storied Chinese military strategist of antiquity, Sun Tsu. He observed that many were familiar with his work, and many might not be. But in Sun Tsu’s treatises in warfare that the easiest victory for an adversary is when the enemy, through its own actions, defeats itself.

Those are the objectives of authoritarian, autocratic adversary states, the kind of governance experienced in Russia and China, he said.

“That is what Russia and China would like for us to do, to divide, and defeat ourselves,” he said.

Higer spoke on an evening that he reserved to praise the Edwards Civilian Military Support Group, a community-based volunteer group that makes quality of life contributions to the personnel at Edwards, particularly the enlisted ranks.

The evening signaled completion of the three-year leadership of the group by Lisa Moulton, credited by past President Al Hoffman and incoming President Matthew Winheim, for success in keeping the group together during two years of shutdowns and restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Moulton, unable to attend Friday, was greeted with applause and affection for her effectiveness leading the group.

Moulton organized and took lead on a series of events and projects, including support for the Airmen’s Leadership School, the base annual Winter Fest, and participation in the Edwards Air Force Base “Aerospace Valley Air Show 2022,” the first such massive event in more than a dozen years, featuring the USAF Thunderbirds demonstration team.

“We believe in the importance of Edwards Air Force base in serving this nation,” incoming Civ-Mil President Matthew Winheim said. “We are all volunteers, every single one of us, just like the service members that we serve. No one ever told us to serve. We just volunteered.”

The group, Winheim said, requires volunteers, funding, and he added, “There are always going to be people because this Valley loves its Air Force Base. We want to be able to say we are ready and we can help.”

He recalled his own enlisted service “as an airman at Edwards Air Force Base many years ago, an airman who needed a little help, and we heard about this thing called ‘The Airman’s Attic,’ and got that help. Fast forward 30 years and this airman gets to serve with the organization that made that project happen.”

The Airman’s Attic is a no-cost shop stocked with appliances, furniture, things to assist establishment of households for family moves to the base.

“There are people who need our service, and we are glad to do it,” he concluded.

The year’s “Unsung Hero” award went to Scott Cummings, and “Member of the Year,” to longtime board member and retired Navy test pilot John Fergione.

“I am retiring from the Board, but not from Civ-Mil,” Fergione said, thanking his wife, Kathy, for her support through the years.

Taking the oath as Class of 2025 Directors, Dennis Anderson, Judy Cooperberg, Allen Hoffman, Lisa Moulton, Terry Norris, Julie Swayze, with Board Officers for the next year, President Matthew Winheim, Vice President, Allen Hoffman, Secretary, Tom Weil, Treasurer, David Norris and Past President Lisa Moulton.

The group of dozens of active service, veterans, and civilian supporters were led by Edwards’ Chief Master Sgt. Denisha Ward-Swanigan, 412th TW command chief, in a rousing chorus of the Air Force Song, and it was musically clear that “Nothing’ll stop the U.S. Air Force!”

Editor’s note: Dennis Anderson is an Army veteran paratrooper, an Aerospace Valley journalist for more than 35 years, and a volunteer with EAFB Civilian Military-Support Group.