Legacy Selfridge pilot takes final flight

HARRISON TOWNSHIP/ROCHESTER — After two decades of service, Rochester resident and Air National Guard Maj. Jason Holm has piloted his final military flight.

Taking place over the course of June 13, Holm flew an A-10 Thunderbolt II along with two other pilots around Michigan. The first stop on the trip was to the Grayling Air Gunnery Range for training, flying back along Lake Michigan on a path that went over Charlevoix, Traverse City and Manistee.

The flight marks the end of a military career that began with his enlistment in 2004. Holm’s father, Keith, flew F-4 Phantom II jets out of Selfridge in the 1980s and 1990s. Holm joined the Air National Guard at Battle Creek while in the Western Michigan University aviation program, getting hired on in 2006.

“I enlisted there to try to help get a pilot spot and help get myself through college with all the benefits you get from that,” Holm said. “While I was there, about a semester before I graduated, I was hired for the A-10s out in Battle Creek.”

That year, the A-10s were moved out to Selfridge as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Act, putting Holm on the path to fly out of the base his father used to. After several years of officer pilot training on T-37 and T-38 jets, Holm went through six months of training on the A-10 and then began going on mission flights.

“I love it,” Holm said of the A-10. “It’s always an Army and Marine favorite. Our job is supporting guys on the ground, so thinking about the 18- or 19-year-old rifleman on the ground and being able to support them. I know multiple people that at some point in their military career, they’ve been saved by an A-10.”

Holm’s career led him to fly the A-10 in a variety of places. He was deployed to Afghanistan in 2011 and 2019, and in Kuwait in 2015, as well as in Europe: in Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania. In 2018, he flew in an A-10 painted in World War II invasion markings over Normandy as part of the 74th anniversary remembrance of the landings on June 6, 1944.

“We got to fly out of England and fly over the whole Normandy route with a bunch of C-130s based out of Europe, so we all got to fly together up and down the coasts and over the cemeteries out there,” Holm said. “I think they were dropping paratroopers, like the reenactment they do every year. It was pretty cool to get to cross the English Channel in a D-Day painted A-10.”

Before touching down for the last time in an A-10, Holm made several passes over the runway for friends and family who came out to witness the occasion. Once he landed, Holm was summarily sprayed with both water and champagne. He shared some words and mementos with the squadron before heading to the American Legion post in Rochester to cap off the night with over 60 family members and friends.

“I’ve been super lucky to be able to get this job and be able to do it for as long as I have; I’ve been extremely lucky with all that,” Holm said. “My parents encouraged me to do this and supported me throughout the whole thing. I’m excited to move on and spend more time with the family. I have two little boys now and I’m excited to spend time with them a little more.”

While his time behind the yoke of an A-10 has come to an end, Holm is not leaving the pilot’s seat anytime soon. After retiring from the Air National Guard later this fall, he will join American Airlines’ roster of 737 pilots, a job Holm was hired for in 2018.