page_title: Eglin Air Force Base
section_title: Late Cold War era
hierarchical_section_title: Eglin Air Force Base / History / Late Cold War era
caption_attribution_description: English: McDonnell Douglas RF-4C-40-MC Phantom- 68-0594 3247th Test Squadron Eglin AFB, Florida Vietnam-era motif
context_page_description: Eglin Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in western Florida, located about three miles southwest of Valparaiso in Okaloosa County.
  The host unit at Eglin is the 96th Test Wing. The 96 TW is the test and evaluation center for Air Force air-delivered weapons, navigation and guidance systems, Command and Control systems, and Air Force Special Operations Command systems.
  Eglin AFB was established 85 years ago in 1935 as the Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base. It is named in honor of Lt. Col. Frederick I. Eglin, who was killed in a crash of his Northrop A-17 attack aircraft on a flight from Langley to Maxwell Field, Alabama.
context_section_description: The Air Force Armament Museum was founded on base in 1975. In 1981 the original building housing the museum was condemned and the facility closed until 1984.
  Selected on 27 April 1975, the installation served as one of four main U.S. Vietnamese Refugee Processing Centers operated by the Interagency Task Force for Indochina Refugees, where base personnel housed and processed more than 10,000 Southeast Asian refugees, the first 374 of which arrived on board a Northwest Orient Boeing 747 on 4 May 1975.
  In 1978, the USAF Tactical Air Warfare Center assumed responsibility for the USAF Air Ground Operations School. In the same year, the Electronic Warfare Evaluation Program became another one of the USAFTAWC's weapons system evaluation programs, and resulted in the activation of the 4487th Electronic Warfare Aggressor Squadron in 1990.
  Construction began in 1984 on the Bob Hope Village, the only retirement facility that caters to enlisted military, opening in February 1985. Residents pay below market value for the 256 independent apartments. Col. Bob Gates, Bob Hope's USO pilot, was key in getting the comedian's support for the undertaking, as well as lending his name to the project. He was named an honorary board member of the foundation in 1978 and held benefit concerts for nearly two decades.
caption: A McDonnell Douglas RF-4C Phantom of the Eglin AFB based 3247th Test Squadron, seen during 1971.
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