Peterson hosts Ammunition Bowl Family Reunion softball tourney Published Aug. 26, 2008 By Walt Johnson Colorado Springs Military Newspaper Group Sports Reporter PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Usually they're serving the nation by making sure bombs and bullets are ready for full deployment. However, the only bombs ammunition Airmen from the western region of the U.S. were concerned with were the ones "exploding" over the Peterson sports complex Aug. 15-17 as the 23rd Ammunition Bowl softball tournament took place here. The Ammunition Bowl softball tournament is more than just a chance to play softball for this group of individuals. These Airmen tend to face danger and death on an almost daily basis, whether the country is at peace or war in the routine daily duties it carries out. The ammunition career field is truly one job where the slightest lack of attention to detail can be catastrophic for the members of the unit and the people who depend on them to support them with munitions. For this reason, the ammunition community may be one of the tightest knit communities in the Air Force, according Edward Meyerhofer, who is assigned to Air Force Space Command headquarters here. To show just how tightly knit the community is, Peterson hosted this year's tournament, including all the logistics necessary to make it work. Although it did not have a team playing in the tournament, Mr. Meyerhofer said you only have to be in the ammunition community to understand why he and his committee members would take on this task with no team in the fight. "This is the 23rd annual western regional Ammo bowl softball tournament," Mr. Meyerhofer said. "We have players from about 15 different bases in the west, and we have 10 teams competing in this year's tournament. Some teams have combined because of mission requirements that would not have allowed them to field a team from their home installation. The Ammo community has always been one of the tightest knit communities on any base I've been to. We work with bombs everyday and there is the obvious danger of that. While I am here, I know or have been stationed with close to 30 of the guys playing with different teams in the tournament. It's a combination of the ammunition career field reunion in addition to a softball tournament." Mr. Meyerhofer said the tournament usually travels around to different bases in the west region, though the winning team has the option of hosting the tournament the next year. Last year's winner, Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, decided to forfeit hosting the tournament because most of the teams wanted to go to another base to play it. That's how Peterson got involved with hosting, and it's not an easy undertaking, Mr. Meyerhofer said. He said spreading it around to different installations is the right thing to do for more than one reason. "Typically the winner always had the option of hosting the tournament the following year," he said. "The tournament was started at Nellis AFB in Nevada. After a few years they said whoever won the tournament can take it. Davis-Monthan won it for the past two years, but this year no one wanted to go to the hot weather in Arizona. So we volunteered to put it on here even though we didn't have a team playing in the tournament. The funny part is we have about five teams that said they would prefer to have the tournament here every year. As a tournament director, I don't think it's that great an idea, because it is a lot of work to put on a tournament like this." Phil Stevens, who played on the winning team from Davis-Monthan two years prior, said the ammunition bowl means a lot to the members of the community. He said it may be just softball to some people, but it is more than that for the team members and that is why Peterson stepping up and hosting the tournament was something each team member appreciated. "This is our heritage," Mr. Stevens said. "We work hard at our jobs, and we play hard when we come to the tournament. One of the best things about this tournament is that you get to see old friends that you haven't seen for a year or longer. You meet your old supervisors and some of the younger airmen in the career field and it's more like a family reunion than it is a softball tournament. In fact I think it's more like we are a family having a softball tournament than it being a softball tournament. Softball is secondary and we all love to play the game but this is about the ammo family. If someone gets hurt while playing, everyone will take the time to come and see how he is doing. We also keep in contact with the guys that leave and go overseas. It's like no other community I have ever been a part of."