Laughlin Air Force Base Hosts First Backyard Bash for Military Community

The 47th Force Support Squadron brought Laughlin Air Force Base's military community together Friday for what it billed as the "First Backyard Bash," a base-wide gathering that drew service members, their families, and civilian personnel stationed at the Del Rio installation.

The event, held March 20, marked the inaugural edition of what the 47th FSS positioned as a community-building occasion for the people who live and work at Laughlin. The base, which serves as one of the nation's primary pilot training installations under Air Education and Training Command, is home to a tight-knit population of active-duty airmen, their families, and the civilian workforce that supports daily operations.

The 47th Force Support Squadron, the unit responsible for quality-of-life programs at Laughlin, organized the bash as part of its mission to deliver morale, welfare, and recreation programming to the base population. Force support squadrons across the Air Force are tasked with connecting military communities through events that ease the pressures of service life, and Friday's gathering represented Laughlin's own entry into that tradition under a locally branded name.

By framing the event as a "first," the 47th FSS signaled an intent to make the Backyard Bash a recurring fixture on Laughlin's community calendar, giving the base's population something to look forward to beyond the training mission that defines the installation's identity in Val Verde County.