Monthly Archives: April 2013

Chapter 66, Secrets

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First of all, Happy Birthday to my lovely wife Peg.  My beautiful granddaughter Charlotte is 3 months old today and, although I’ll be a gentleman and not reveal Peg’s age, I have made her angry by telling her that she’s 224 times older than her granddaughter!

They say that the key to a successful marriage is open communication and keeping no secrets.  A nice concept in theory.  But over the last 34 years we’ve discovered that, sometimes, what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

Those of you that fly know that occasionally things happen in an airplane that, let’s just say, could be considered terrifying.  Whether it’s a close encounter with your wingman, or the ground, or the weather, or even a projectile aimed in your general direction, if you fly long enough you’ll eventually encounter something that inspires you to kiss the ground when you land.  Not long after we were married I had my first hair-raising flying experience.  After the adrenalin wore off I told Peg the whole story.  I gave her every gory detail assuming she would be impressed with the prowess of the crew in extricating us from a dangerous situation.  I had been told that “sharing” was very important to a healthy marriage and that we need to be open with our “feelings” both positive and negative.  Her reaction wasn’t quite what I expected.  After a few silent moments she said; “You need to never tell me anything like that again”.  “But”, I replied, “We’re supposed to share everything, not keep any secrets.  How can we ever maintain a state of marital bliss if we don’t tell each other everything?”  “Well”, she said, “I’d rather maintain my sanity, so feel free to keep any secrets that would otherwise cause me undue stress”.   There you have it, carte blanche!

I was never quite sure if her definition of “undue stress” matched mine but it’s an arrangement that served us well for over three decades.  I got to survive near death experiences and she got to live a stress free life.  We did, however,  have one caveat to this arrangement.  She agreed that after I retired she would be willing to hear all of the stories she had missed over the years.  In her mind, since I wasn’t flying anymore, she wouldn’t have to worry about future life threatening events.  So, over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing what I call “The Stories Peg Has Never Heard”.  Many of you have heard, or been involved in, these stories but I’ll redact names as necessary or call everyone involved my favorite anonymous name “Fred”.

I do have one non-flying secret which my wife discovered two days ago.  Like many families, we have a place in the house where we keep all of our keys.  Right after we were married Peg decided that we should have a place right inside the door to the garage where we would always put our keys so we wouldn’t be running around the house looking for them.  It’s what her family did and it’s a great concept.  For a while we used little hooks on a piece of wood but eventually we had too many keys so we switched to a basket (Longaberger of course!)  I immediately embraced the concept because I was pretty fed up with searching purses and coat pockets for keys.  However, for any plan to work you have to actually use it.  So one day, over twenty years ago, after furtively searching the house for either set of car keys, I decided that I would have to secretly modify the plan.  I would leave my spare set of keys in the basket, but I would hide my real set of keys in a place which was in plain sight for me but where Peg would never see them.  On top of the refrigerator, there’s a 3 inch gap between the top of the fridge and the bottom of the upper cabinet and for the last twenty years I have put everything that Peg doesn’t need to see, there.  Most of the things are just things I don’t want to get misplaced during a “cleaning frenzy” but, occasionally, I’ll put something like a gift jewelry box there because I know she’s not tall enough to see it and she has no reason to climb up and take a look.

When I first started putting my keys there I wanted to test the system so I drew up a gift certificate that entitled the bearer to a dinner at the restaurant of their choice valid for one year.  If she found it and cashed it in then I would know that my “in plain sight” hiding place wouldn’t work.  I remembered that it was up there five years later.  It hadn’t been moved.  Two days ago, with her car at the dealership, she needed my cars keys.  Somehow she didn’t notice my spare keys at the bottom of the basket and she yelled upstairs; “Where are your car keys?” and I yelled back, “Where they always are, on top of the fridge!”.  “Since when?” was her reply.  “Since forever” and then I realized the jig was up.  I need to come up with a new secret.

“The Stories Peg Has Never Heard” starts next week!

Chapter 65 – “Thanks to my ’66 Studebaker”

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It’s one of those mornings.  I don’t know if it’s last night’s enchilada or just too many thoughts running around in my head but I need to put some pixels to virtual paper even though it’s 0430.  So here goes.

As most of you know, I’m a pretty pragmatic guy.  Normally I’m not impulsive and I like to think things through before I jump in.  I’m especially that way when it comes to cars.  Now don’t get me wrong, like several members of my family, I love cars.  I like everything about them.  There are few things as enjoyable as driving on a winding Pennsylvania road with a stiff suspension and tight steering.  I like the smell of a new car, the feel of leather on the wheel under my fingers, the purr of well engineered engine.  I love everything about cars except for one thing, the payments.  And here’s where my pragmatism takes over.

I decided years ago that if I was going to buy a new car, I would pay cash for it.  So, to that end, I started out with used cars. My first car was a 1966 Studebaker Commander.  It had been sitting in our driveway for years.  My dad bought it from a friend for $100 and it needed a lot of work.  So in the summer of 1974 I asked dad if I could buy it from him so I had something to drive to college.  He handed me the keys and said if I fixed it up and it passed inspection it was mine.  Sort of a graduation gift.  I spent that whole summer replacing fenders and painting and when school started I was on the road.  I drove that car through four years of college, to pilot training in Del Rio, TX, to Rapid City, SD and kept it until I bought my first VW in 1981.  It died an ignoble death at the hands of a drunk driver while parked in front of my parents house.  It did, however, provide me with a path to a new car.

Not long after I went on active duty, I started making car payments.  Not to GM, or Toyota, or even Volkswagen, but to my savings account.  I noticed all of my Air Force Academy buddies in pilot training had purchased new cars right after graduation and I figured if they could afford car payments so could I.  So I started saving money so I could buy one, eventually.   When I did buy my first new car, a 1981 VW diesel pickup, I proudly negotiated a cash price and wrote the check.  I think it was around $5,000.  Those were the days!  From then on, we continued that process.  We didn’t always buy new cars, but when we needed a car we had the money because we had always been making payments.  People say they can’t afford to save money but somehow they figure out how to make monthly payments.  Here comes the fun part of the story.

Ten years ago today, while deployed for the beginning of Iraqi Freedom, I decided that Peg needed a new car.  Her Mazda Protege was getting a little long in the tooth, it was a week from her birthday, and I was deployed for an “undetermined” length of time.  At the risk of setting the birthday bar too high, I went on line, contacted my local VW dealer, picked out a car, paid for it, and on 23 April called Peg and told her to drive out to the dealer and run an errand for me.  Needless to say, she was happy.  When I redeployed in July of that year I decided to also replace my car which I gave to my daughter Erin as a wedding gift.  Peg and I then had matching 2003 diesel VW Jettas.  Hers a wagon, mine a sedan.

For the next ten years I continued my normal habit of making car payments to myself.  I figured $300 per month, per car was an average payment so that’s what I did.  Now it’s time to do the math.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after ten years, $600 per month/ $7200 per year, plus interest, adds up to over $80,000. Now that’s a big chunk of change but I really didn’t sit on the money.  I realized 5 years ago that I could take part of that money and pay off my mortgage, and that’s what I did.  But, I thought, I had always managed to make the house payments so, like the car payments, I continued making house payments, to myself.  In the end, I was able to retire, when I did, because of a 66 Studebaker.

I know my parents always felt bad about not being able to help more with our college costs, but that gift of a 1966 Studebaker has paid for far more than they could have ever imagined.  Enjoy your kitchen Mom!

Postlogue:

Now I know there are some of you who just HAVE to have a new car under you at all times.  I’ve heard the reliability arguments, the long term repair costs arguments.  Here’s my response.  You have to pick the right car in the first place, maintain it, and not drive it like a bat out of hell.  We’ve put over 300,000 miles on our VWs.  We’ve averaged just over 42 miles per gallon.  That’s 7,143 gallons of fuel.  If we had bought a car, and let’s be generous, that averaged 24 miles per gallon, that would be 12,500 gallons.  That’s a difference of 5,357 gallons.  Even assuming that diesel fuel costs 10% more than gas (because of taxes!) That adds up to over $12,000 in fuel savings alone and we haven’t spent anywhere near that in repairs and maintenance.  Are we going to buy new cars any time soon?  I don’t think so.  I’d like to keep driving the Jettas for another four years, but then I’m going to need some advice on which really expensive cars to buy.  Or maybe we’ll just get something used and reliable and start a grandchildren college fund!

Delayed gratification is always more rewarding and meaningful.  A good lesson whether it’s cars or wedding nights!

Chapter 64, Retirement Pay

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Ah well, I’m quickly approaching the six months of retirement milestone and I thought I would give all of you federal employees a glimpse of what you have to look forward to as you approach your wonderful day of retirement.

I’ve always tried to approach any process whether squadron level, group level, wing level, or AF level, as if I were just any average guy.  Even if they try to give the “O-6” preferential treatment I always ask that I be handled just like everyone else.  I’ve found myself frustrated more than once, but how else can we find out what’s broken and what’s not.  So, when it came time to start the retirement process I decided to do everything exactly by the book.  I had seen some folks put off the paperwork or lose records and then scramble to get everything done in time.  I like to learn from others experiences so I was ready to go with all documentation in hand when the date finally arrived to begin the process.

I thought that I would have to go down to Civilian Personnel to fill out paperwork but, in reality, everything is done online.  Although I use the term “online” very loosely.  AFPC (Air Force Personnel Center) has set everything up online but in reality you’re just filling out dozens of pdf forms on your computer and after you fill out the last one you’re instructed to print them all out and take them to Civilian Personnel who then staples them together and sends them via snail mail to San Antonio.  A little archaic but I figured the process was evolving.  The problem is, there are very limited instructions and getting answers isn’t easy.  For example,  you’re told that you retire at age 56 but in reality, your last day of work is the day before your birthday.  But, if you list your retirement date as the day before your birthday then they say they won’t pay the “Social Security equivalent” benefit.  So, in the end, your first day of not coming to work, which is your birthday, is your retirement day, ARGHHHHH.

Personnel sent the package in and then the waiting began.  Months went by with no feedback at all but finally, I got a call from a very nice guy at ARPC about a month out from the magic date.  He clarified some of entries on the forms, corrected some errors, and on our second conversation went over his computations.  After applying my unused sick leave, computing my average high three salary, dividing by my number of good years and months, and dividing by twelve, he came up with the exact number, down to the penny, that I had also computed as my basic monthly annuity payment.  After subtracting out health benefits, survivor annuity payments, and income taxes we had the answer to what I would be taking home every month.  And here’s where the train started to leave the tracks.  I asked how much discontinued service pay ( I think that’s what they call that social security equivalent thing) would be on top of the basic annuity and he said;  “Here’s where I have to apologize sir.  The week after you retire your complete package will arrive at OPM (Office of Personnel Management) in Boyer, PA.  There it will fall, literally (since the facility is underground in an old mine), into a black hole.  It will take months and months for them to compute what you can do in about 30 seconds.  Good luck”  I thanked him for working so diligently on my retirement and said goodbye for the last time.  I miss him.  I miss the human contact with the bureaucracy.  There hasn’t been any since.

OPM has worked very effectively to ensure no human contact is available.  You are given access to a severely limited website where you can change your address, bank account information, password, or request a replacement 1099G.  Other than that your only option is to send an email which they promise to answer in 20 working days (30 if they have to look at a record).  4-6 weeks to just answer a simple question!  There is a page with a checklist which shows the progress of your package.  They acknowledged receiving it the week after my retirement and then nothing happened for three months. I sent an email asking the status and after a month they replied that my package had been assigned to a specialist and it would be completed “very soon”.  I don’t know about you, but very soon in my world had always meant a couple of days maybe a week.  Obviously not so at Government House.  After 2 months of waiting for “very soon” I sent another email.  That was 25 working days ago and resent it 5 days ago.  I even offered to take the 45 minute drive up to the mine and sit down with the specialist to answer the obviously difficult questions they have and even help them go to the IRS website and do the 30 second computation.  All to no avail.  Deafening computer silence.  Not even a kind human voice on the other end of the phone.

Well, you say, aren’t they giving you an “interim” payment of approximately 75% which they tell you about in the pre-retirement briefings?  Not so much.  At best they give 50% of what you’ll eventually get per month.  OK, I’m done venting. I apologize to the readers who have no idea what I’m talking about but I thought it was worth taking a week to make sure all of my ART/civil service friends have planned on funding their own retirement for AT LEAST six months.  Supposedly OPM has worked very hard to reduce the wait time and they claim it’s down to an average of 145 days.  They call that something in the free market, failure.

I can’t wait for the government efficiencies of Obamacare.  Adding an extra layer always makes things cheaper and more efficient!

Chapter 63, Spray

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I wasn’t sure how I would feel about not flying anymore but after 5 months of a new life paradigm I think I’m ok with it.  Actually, there were only two flying events that I really missed when I stopped doing them and those were B-52 aerial refueling and C-130 aerial spray.

What they both have in common is a high degree of stress and a higher degree of proficiency and skill required to maintain that proficiency.  Flying two large aircraft in close proximity to each other is an inherently dangerous activity but doing it well is, well, a blast.  On the other hand, flying a large aircraft in close proximity to the ground is also inherently dangerous but, in the case of aerial spray, extremely rewarding.

Most military flying is training in preparation of performing a wartime mission.  Practice bombing, aerial engagement, and airdrops are challenging and fun but the activity doesn’t really directly benefit the taxpayer or aid mankind.  I suppose the argument can be made that hauling cargo and passengers accomplishes both training and real world support but, in many ways, it’s not really the same thing as directly relieving human suffering.

Aerial spray is an incredibly unique mission.  It is both a direct military support mission and a homeland defense and protection mission.  The experiences of hurricane Katrina and the Gulf oil spill proved that aerial spray can not only provide a critical barrier to protect our coastline from environmental disaster but can directly and efficiently reduce the spread of insect borne diseases and subsequent injuries and death.  It’s the kind of mission I enjoy because it requires an incredible amount of skill and provides an equal amount of satisfaction.  However, the biggest challenge is to find ways to train for the mission.  Maintaining the high level proficiency required to fly 150 feet over densely populated urban areas avoiding cell towers, powerlines, bridges, noise sensitive areas, birds, and other aircraft is a huge challenge.

You just can’t, like other military missions, find a sparsely populated area or a military training range and fly over it to maintain proficiency.  Sure, it works for oil dispersant and herbicide missions, both of those are accomplished in areas with very few people.   But spraying for mosquitoes is specifically tasked to prevent diseases in large populations affected by natural disasters and practicing by spraying deserts or extremely rural areas is actually negative training.  It can lull you into a false sense of security about the nature and abundance of threats.  And that’s why, for over 40 years, aerial spray has fostered relationships with communities across the country to both train in realistic environments and benefit communities that are regularly plagued with large outbreaks of vector borne disease (biting bugs carrying bad stuff).

No urban community would ever allow large aircraft to repeatedly fly over at extremely low altitude solely for the benefit of military training, but by partnering with cities, states, counties, and the media in communities adjacent to military facilities, Aerial spray has been able to provide the most realistic training possible to its crews.  They don’t just run exercises simulating working with the press and local agencies, they do it.  Amazingly, there are almost no noise complaints from the communities.  There have been rare attempts by citizens accusing the military of damaging the paint on their cars or killing their pets to sue the Air Force but, because of the extremely accurate tracking of the treated areas and the benign nature of the products used every case has been laughed out of court.  If we produced just half as many engineers as lawyers how much better off would we be?!

The results of this training synergy is a perfect safety record for military aerial spray and a fostering of long term relationships with communities who, due to their proximity to the threat, are most likely to be hit with future natural disasters.  I can think of no better scenario than training dollars spent that perfectly fit the training requirement and aid the public at no additional cost.

So I guess the answer is yes, I do miss some parts of flying but, more than the flying, I miss working with the dedicated folks that make it happen. I miss flying with crews that seem to effortlessly perform tasks that are almost impossibly complex while flying at 200 knots and 100 feet above the ground.  I miss people walking up to me on the street and thanking me for making their lives a little more bearable.

I remember, years ago, taking Gen Tanzi on an aerial spray orientation/training flight.  He had been a fighter pilot his whole career and I figured he would find aerial spray a little, well, boring.  After about ten minutes of spraying I noticed that he was being very quiet.  He has standing behind the flight engineer and he appeared to have a very firm grip on the seat.  I tapped his shoulder to ask him how he was doing and when he turned to look at me his eyes were as big as saucers.  All he could say was that this was the most terrifying flying he had ever been a part of.  By the end of the flight we had another convert!