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Wright Patterson Air Force Base

A Moment of Opportunity for Dayton

By Loren Thompson
Lexington Institute

When Dayton community leaders conducted their first fly-in to Washington in 1984, the U.S. military was engaged in what proved to be the last big modernization surge of Cold War years.

The Air Force was buying hundreds of new fighters each year, not to mention two different bombers.

Every facet of military spending was increasing, and by the end of the 1980s employment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base topped 30,000.

But then the Cold War ended.

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