The wing was activated in 1976, when it absorbed the subordinate elements of the 141st Fighter-Interceptor Group, which moved to Fairchild from Geiger Field, where they had been supporting an air defense mission.

[3] An Air National Guard spokesman at the time characterized the conversion from the F-101 Voodoo to the KC-135 as "like giving up an MG for a semi-truck".

[4] During the 1990 Gulf Crisis, aircrew, maintenance and support personnel responded to the Iraq invasion of Kuwait on 2 August 1990, and deployed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

[5] June 1995, several rotations deployed to Pisa, Italy, for Operation Deny Flight, NATO mission enforcing the no-fly zone over Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Members of the 116th also joined the thousands of Guard and Reserve forces called up to deploy all over the world in support of America's "War on Terror."

When the first Guard KC-135 R-model landed on Fairchild AFB in January 2003, with its new engines, it became the 40th different airplane the 116th pilots had flown since it was created back in 1924.

At the time President George W. Bush ordered coalition military units into Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003, the 116th was in a training status to transition into the R model KC-135.