 These young men had the high privilege of becoming the first cadets of the United States Air Force Academy. The scene was Lowery Air Force Base in Colorado, temporary home of the Academy, fending construction of the permanent buildings near Colorado Springs. These fledgling cadets come from all parts of the country, some from big cities, some from small towns, some from farms. But they all have important things in common. They were all chosen from among many applicants. They all had to meet the Academy's exacting mental and physical standards. They all have a lot of hard work ahead of them, and they are all ambitious to qualify as Air Force officers. The establishment of an Air Force Academy as a national necessity had long been urged by such distinguished and dedicated officers as General Spatz, General Kepner, General Mitchell, General Vandenberg, General Doolittle, and General Arnold. As General Nathan Twining, then Chief of Staff of the Air Force, pointed out at the dedication ceremony, a modern Air Force must have an unfailing source of young officers, specially and intensively educated. That dream was now coming true. A lot of work was going on at the Academy's permanent location in the footage. The hills of the rampart range of the Rocky Mountains, eight miles north of Colorado Springs. Here were 17,800 acres chosen after a long study to be the site of the new Academy, a model to show how magnificent and modern it was going to be. 1958, when the Cadet Wing, now four classes strong, moved from Lowery Air Force Base to the brand new Academy. Those men we saw enrolling three years ago are now beginning their fourth and final year. They will be the class of 1959, the first to graduate. They are given a good deal of responsibility in directing the activities of the lower classmen. Academy tradition and standards are saved in their hands. They are nearly full-fledged officers now and are accepted as such. The entire establishment is as modern as air power itself. The Court of Honor are splendid buildings, all named in honor of Air Force heroes, where the Cadets pass a major part of their lives for four busy years. Harmon Hall is the administration center named for General Hubert R. Harmon, the Academy's first superintendent. This is where the Cadets are quartered, Vandenberg Hall, six storeys high and a quarter mile long, named in honor of General Hoyt S. Vandenberg. There is living space here for the entire Cadet Wing, more than 2,000 strong. Here the Cadets, two to a room, do all of their sleeping, much of their studying and all of their own housework in a setting that is an interesting combination of Spartan simplicity and modern design. And no one has a chance to forget that this is part of a military installation. Fairchild Hall, the academic building, houses classrooms, lecture halls, laboratories, the Academy Library, the Cadet Dispensary, and the offices of the Dean of Faculty and the Commandant of Cadets. It was named in honor of General Muir S. Fairchild. The Cadets are thoroughly schooled in basic and applied sciences, mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering, aerodynamics, and astronautics. And there is an equally heavy workload in the humanities and social sciences, in courses that include history, English, foreign languages, geography, philosophy, psychology, economics, and political science. The balance between the strictly scientific and the more generalized studies was established because an officer in a modern air force must have not only a complete technical grasp of his job, he must also feel at home in the overall political and diplomatic pattern of which any military organization is now a part. Staff is entirely military. The instructors are all Air Force career officers, highly experienced, qualified specialists in their various fields. Cadets who are exceptionally good students are given a chance to take additional courses in what is called the enrichment program. The program enables such cadets to advance as fast as their abilities permit and to broaden their field of study. Also in Fairchild Hall is one of the most complete military libraries in the world. Every competent and resourceful officer must possess skill in the techniques of research and study. The many thousands of books and documents in the Academy Library provide the cadets with the tools they need for acquiring this skill, significant of the recognition that came belatedly to General Billy Mitchell was the naming in his honor of the Academy Dining Hall. Mitchell Hall can seat the entire cadet wing. Like almost everything else at the Academy, attendance here is mandatory. It is also extremely voluntary for these are healthy young men who like to eat and who need a food fueling station for the building of healthy bodies to endure the pressures of an exacting career. They were selected as cadets partly for their physical fitness and one way they are kept in tip-top condition is by the intramural sports program. It's a part of the curriculum and participation is compulsory, though as young Americans they would of course go in for this sort of thing anyway. These sports are family affairs, though the outside contest with teams representing the academy and intercollegiate games. Football the Academy has made an excellent showing against major opposition. For the limited time a cadet has for such things there is Arnold Hall, the Academy social center named for General Hap Arnold, affectionately and admiringly remembered as one of the greatest figures in Air Force history. It would have gratified him to know that Arnold Hall was to be such a pleasant part of cadet life. The Academy's upper classmen go on summer field trips. Not only to Air Force installations at home, but to military installations of our overseas allies. This indoctrination in what our foreign friends are doing and the chance of seeing other countries adds a valuable dimension to their education as officers in keeping with the role of our Air Force in world affairs. And that in the summer between their junior and senior years all cadets will take a pilot indoctrination course and as seniors members of the first class they may go on with such indoctrination if they choose. It is not obligatory. These latter cadets will qualify for solo flying and a major portion of each graduating class will go on to regular training as Air Force pilots for as long as the nation needs an Air Force and that will be a long time. About 300 of those young men we saw enrolling at Lowry Air Force Base four years ago will become at tomorrow's graduation exercises, second lieutenants, and bachelors of science. For tours of duty and various Air Force assignments and following their eventual promotion many of these young men will be chosen to go on with advanced education in one or more of the graduate schools of Air University in Alabama. Already the Academy has given them a splendid start in the long and continuing process of becoming modern professional military officers, a prime need of our country, and a dependable source of strength in the United States Air Force.