Chapter 38, The Beaver

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First of all I’d like to thank everyone for a fantastic retirement event this past weekend.  You don’t know how much it all meant to me.  I was overwhelmed!  A special thanks to my girls.  My biological ones and my fellow Air Force ones whom I will miss every day.

 

I’ve been an Operations Group Commander for a really long time.  When you add it all up it comes to nearly ten years.  I’ve worked with many Mission Support Group commanders, but I’ve always thought the most important relationship for an OG was with the Maintenance Group commander.

I think I learned the lesson while watching an old TV show called “Baa Baa Black Sheep”.  It starred Robert Conrad as Pappy Boyington and it only ran from 1976-1978, but it left a lasting impression on me.  There was the crusty old crew chief always complaining about the “flyboys busting up his airplane”, but it was all bluster to cover up the interdependence of flyers with their maintainers and the mutual respect they had.  I’ve always tried to nurture that relationship but, oddly, the three best MXGs I’ve worked with haven’t been crusty at all, they’ve all been women. (Although I’m not implying that women can’t be crusty!)

All three have had completely different leadership styles but this week I’m dedicating my story to Anna.  She was my first……MXG and when she came to Youngstown I thought she was rather, shall I say, stiff.  Let me explain that.  It was in no way a bad thing.  She was all business, and I’m not sure if she got my sense of humor or my whimsical way of looking at life.  As a result, I was determined to “loosen her up’ a bit.  Months went by and I wasn’t really sure I was making headway so when this incident occurred I wasn’t quite sure how to take her .

The AOB or Airfield Operations Board is a meeting held quarterly and chaired by the OG, me.  Every organization that has any part in running an airfield attends so at an active duty base it would be a meeting between a lot of military organizations discussing issues with runway construction, and grass mowing to keep the birds away, and airspace issues around the field, and base operations manning, RAPCON issues, you get the picture.  But at a reserve base, there are many civilian organizations involved since we don’t really own the airport. It makes for a much more interesting and engaging meeting and it helps build a strong relationship between all parties involved.  One meeting ended up being much more interesting than most.

We had all gathered in my conference room.  All told, almost twenty people.  We had folks from the Port Authority, civil engineering, base ops, approach control, safety, airspace manager, tower controllers and, the lone woman, Anna, the Maintenance Group Commander.  We followed the agenda for the meeting and everyone had a chance to discuss their particular area of expertise and how it could affect the flying operations at Youngstown.  We had gone around the room and the last one to speak was Jack.  Jack was “the guy”.  By that, I mean he was the guy that had been at the airport forever.  He worked for the Port Authority and if you wanted to know anything about the history of the airport or how and why decisions had been made about anything, he knew the answer.  He is a very quiet man and unassuming, but if Jack said that there was a problem you’d better believe it was serious.  On this particular day, we had a problem.

I asked, “Do you have anything for us Jack?” and shaking his head slowly from side to side he said, “We have a serious beaver problem here on the airport”.  I was truly surprised.  Finally something interesting to discuss at an AOB!  I never suspected that beavers could be a problem at an airport, but he went on to describe how the diligent critters had built a series of dams along the creek at the southwestern edge of the airport and the water was actually backing up and submerging the end of the small runway.  Who would have thought?  So I asked them how they were dealing with the problem and he said that they had hired a local trapper to kill the beavers and they had already killed three with one weighing in at nearly 75 pounds.  I thought we were finished but then Anna broke in, she calmly turned to me, looked me straight in the eye, and simply asked, “Can you eat beaver?”

Time stood still for an instant while every head in the room turned to me.  I knew what they wanted.  I knew what they expected.  They wanted me to take the slow curve and swing for the fence.  But being the sensitive, politically correct person that I am, I simply paused, turned to her with a straight face and said “I suppose so, if you’re into that sort of thing”.  She seemed satisfied and I asked if there were any other questions or comments. With every eye still fixated on me we finished the meeting. As everyone began to push back from the table, Anna hopped up and announced that she was late for another meeting so she bounded out the door and was gone.  The second her footsteps went silent down the hall, the room erupted into laughter, like I had never heard before.  Grown men with tears streaming down their cheeks.  Faces red as apples, and it went for a good 15 minutes.  We had a million one liners that popped into our heads that day, but not using any of them, in the moment, made it all the funnier.

I never found out the real reason Anna asked the question.  Was she lobbing me the slow pitch so I could hit it out of the park?  Or did she really want to know  what culinary delights could be created from rapacious rodents?

When she transferred from Youngstown we threw her a going away party and I told this story.  After telling it I answered the question by presenting her with a stuffed toy beaver on a platter, apple in its mouth, on a bed of plastic vegetables and lettuce.

Chapter 37, The Most Important Thing, Part 3

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Third and final week of “the most important thing”.

Several weeks ago I talked about ROTC and how I got through by following the sage advice of my ROTC instructor.  Well I took that lesson to heart and when I reported to active duty I decided that I would do all of the right things to get to where I, and the Air Force, thought I should go.  When you’re a lieutenant life is simple.  Your #1 goal is to fly.  That is, after all, why you became a pilot.  The progression is pretty obvious.  Upgrade to aircraft commander.  Then after a couple years instructor and, eventually, flight examiner. After that though, it gets complicated.

Guys that like to fly, and are good at it, want nothing more than to stay in a flying job for as long as possible.  But then there are the guys who either aren’t very good pilots or only became pilots as a career path to, shall we say, the “stars”.  That’s all well and good, but the Air Force has decided that everyone needs to reach for the “stars” or hit the bricks. Over my 34+ years the Air Force has gradually evolved into an, even more so, up or out organization.

I remember decades ago that everyone was encouraged to do PME, Professional Military Education.  Most guys did it, but if you were really good at your job and were an expert in some area, then you could get promoted without PME.  Those days are long gone.  It has gradually evolved into you MUST complete PME to even think about promotion, and I understand on active duty it’s not even good enough to do it by correspondence.  The problem is, once everyone is getting it done, then what becomes the next differentiator to make you stand out on a promotion board?  That led to whether or not you had deployed becoming the “most important thing”.  That worked for awhile but eventually, after a ten year war, everyone had deployed.  So what’s the new ‘most important thing’?  A Master’s degree of course.  So, now, while doing your job, deploying oversees, attending PME which in residence can take a year, you now have to go to classes to get a Master’s degree.  I’m sure the next step is to include fit-to-fight scores in your career brief and beyond that, a doctorate is the next logical step.

The Air Force pays endless lip service to taking care of airmen and their families yet insists that time that should be spent with the kids on their homework is spent on yours.  And, sadly, somewhere lost in all of the Air Force “most important things” is the thing that really should be your career’s “most important thing” and that’s doing your job the best you can.  Not maneuvering to get the next job or dreaming of the job after that, but giving the taxpayers what they deserve and have paid an enormous amount of money to train you for.  The cost to train an Air Force Pilot is well over a million dollars but most officers spend less than a third of their careers actually flying.  Careerism is a cancer that devours tax dollars and leads to thousands of talented airmen leaving the Air Force each year out of frustration and disappointment.

I left active duty 28 years ago for a variety of reasons and I found what I thought was heaven on earth in the Air Force Reserves.  I could fly my whole career, or not, it was my choice.  The experience level of the aircrew was light years ahead of active duty and people were here because they really wanted to be here.  But, times have been a changin’.  Over the last 10-15 years we have been adopting the mentality of Active Duty.  Priorities have changed and now, moving up and around, for not only ARTs but for reservists, has become the “most important thing”.  And when the mission is given second stage, and civilian jobs third stage and families fourth stage, and all sacrificed at the altar of almighty “careerism”, we have little hope of surviving as a command.  The differences in our people and our priorities is what made us what we are today and abandoning those strengths will simply make us “unnecessary”.

I don’t know what the future holds for AFRC.  I’ve always thought that it should be the “big brother” in the air force.  We should be watching over active duty and when it comes up with a boneheaded idea, that’s been tried and failed 20 years ago, have the gravitas to tell them so and them listen to us.  Instead, we find ourselves saying “me too” like the overeager little brother and then suffering the consequences.  We need to continue to be a voice of reason and experience and to concentrate on our strengths.  We know what the “most important thing” is and we need to keep doing it.

More fun stories next week!

Chapter 36, The Trials of Tall

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I was asked one question of last weeks’ chapter and I appreciate Shawn’s query.  It was: “What happened to the hot girl your were dating?”  Peg didn’t appreciate the implication of the question, but the answer is simple.  I’ve been married to her for 33 years.

I am a freak of nature.  Combine my 6’5” frame with my oversized noggin and you get someone capable of frightening small animals and children without uttering a word.  Oddly, I’ve never really considered myself tall.  In fact, I grew up thinking I was average.  My dad was 6’3”, my mother 5’9” and as they pumped out progeny we kept getting taller.  My little brother Tim is 6’7” and my sister Kelly is 6’0”.  It’s really all about perspective, but I have come to the opinion over the years that being tall can be a blessing or a curse.  I never wanted to be shorter or taller, but oftentimes those that are “differently statured” wish they were taller. Be careful what you wish for.  Let’s look at the facts.

Clothes – Good luck!  I don’t wear shorts, as often as I do, to show off my not so attractive legs.  It’s nearly impossible, or cost prohibitive, to find pants long enough for my 38” inseam.  When I try most pants on they look like Capris, or, as I call them, Manpris. Shirts are even more difficult.  I’ve never owned a long sleeve Air Force blue shirt because I’ve never been able to find one with a 38” sleeve.  Most of the time I feel like Lurch from the Adam’s Family or, with a few bolts in the right spot, Frankenstein.  For most people, if your shirt or pants are too long, you can always cut some off.  But If they’re too short, you’re out of luck.  I finally solved my flight suit problem by getting oversized ones that droop down to give the appearance of longer legs but the crotch hangs halfway to my knees.

Cars – I know I get odd looks climbing out of my Jetta, but I fit because Germans tend be tall and they design their cars accordingly.  Otherwise, there are cars that I can’t actually physically drive.  Dave Mitchell once asked me to take his Mazda RX-7 in for service while he was TDY and I had to drive it with the door open because there wasn’t enough room between the steering wheel and the door for my knee.  I’ve actually had to pay for size upgrades on rentals (mostly GM products) because I couldn’t get my legs under the steering wheel.

Fitting – I have hit my head on door frames, store displays, automatic door closers, ceilings in one and a half story houses (like the one I grew up in), overhead bins in airplanes, and ceiling fans, just to name a few.  Flying commercial is torture.  I just have to pray the person in front of me doesn’t recline their seat.

Longevity – There are over 40 studies that show a direct correlation between height and life expectancy and the results don’t favor me!

Don’t get me wrong, there are some advantages.  If you’re trying to make your way through a large crowd it’s extremely helpful.  My daughter Erin revealed to me several years ago that at a very young age she learned that just tucking in close behind me was the easiest way to get through a crowd.  But, on the other hand, you stick out like a sore thumb and there’s nowhere to hide.  If you really do want to intimidate someone, standing tall and getting close does the trick.  But, for some mysterious reason, drunks like to pick fights with the biggest guy in the room.  Another reason to stay out of bars!

So where am I going with this discussion?  I have, very intentionally, over my career attempted to mitigate the effects of my size on my coworkers.  I don’t believe in leadership by intimidation so I usually sit in a chair, or on the corner of a table, or lean against something so that I can look folks in the eye.  I make fun of myself and look for something funny to say so I don’t come off as Godzilla when I enter a conversation.  And luckily, everyone looks like a giant to children so I don’t actually look so large to them.  And I love getting down on all fours to see the world through their eyes and picking them up to give them a view through mine.

The most important thing (there it is!) is to be approachable, not intimidating, to make people feel comfortable and willing to speak freely. Tall or short, big head or little head, male or female, thin or fat, it doesn’t matter what you look like.  Wait, strike the “fat”, this is the Air Force, only thin people can be great leaders. Thin or less thin, we need the talents that everyone brings to the table to get the job done. Physically, we are what we are and we can do very little to change that.  But we can consciously change who we are emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.

When I was going into the ninth grade I decided to try out for basketball.  I was 5’9”, which for an 8th grader was pretty tall, but I knew nothing about basketball.  I couldn’t dribble or shoot or, for that matter, “walk and chew gum” at the same time but I tried and was immediately cut on the first day.  So I went out for track.  When I came back to school the next year, and was going into tenth grade, I was 6’4”.  Needless to say there were lots of leg cramps and new clothes that summer.  The basketball coach walked up to me on the first day of class and with a big smile on his face looked up at me and asked “Can I count on you for basketball this year?” to which I replied, “I wasn’t good enough last year and I’m no better this year”.

I ran track for three more years.

Chapter 35, The Most Important Thing, Part 1

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Let’s start off with a congratulations to my Nephew Mark and his beautiful bride Caitie.  You could have no better example for marriage than your parents Tim and Di and you’ve learned the ultimate budding artist lesson from your Dad.  Marry a brilliant talented woman with a good job!

I think I’ll do a series for the next several weeks on what I call “The most important thing”.

Although it’s not always possible, I usually try to break tasks and situations down to the single most important thing which leads to success.  I know there are always other factors involved, but there’s usually a single guiding principle that keeps the process on path.  For example.  If you asked me how to build a deck, or a room addition, or remodel a kitchen, I would tell you that the most important thing is to make it level and square.  It seems obvious, but I’ve worked too many projects that make me believe that the guy working on it before me didn’t own a tape measure or a level.  If you don’t do that most important thing, everything becomes infinitely more difficult.  Insulating, drywalling, hanging cabinets, finish carpentry, they all hinge on everything starting out “level and square”.  You can still make it work if they’re not, but you’ll find yourself tempted to use inappropriate phraseology and being more creative than you need to be.

I came to the Air Force as a four year ROTC scholarship cadet working towards a degree in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh.  At the time we had an ROTC instructor, whose name escapes me, who gave me the best advice of my college career.  I had gone through Pitt student orientation and then all of the ROTC detachment in processing.  I was briefed on how important cadet life was to my Air Force career and how I needed to get involved in Detachment activities.  They did a cross-country every semester with, ironically, the 911th.  There were mixers, the Arnold Air society, and additional duties, all of which were designed to immerse me into the Air Force way.  I looked at my class schedule of 22 credits and wondered how this was all going to work.

At the end of my first ROTC class, the Major called me over and asked me to come to his office for a little talk.  I was expecting a gung-ho jump in and get involved talk but his advice wasn’t what I expected. He told me that if I wanted to get involved in all of the extracurricular activities, great, but most of the other students were carrying 12-15 liberal arts credits and that the only thing that would follow me into active duty was whether or not a got an “Expert Marksmanship” ribbon during ROTC summer camp.  That was it.  No record of cadet “rank”, cadet OPRs, Arnold Air Society membership, nothing.  And, wait for it, “the most important thing” was to graduate in four years and go to pilot training. It was like a weight had been lifted off my back.

I didn’t really get much involved in Detachment events.  I was a commuting student and I had a hot girlfriend who took all of my limited spare time.  But in 1978 I graduated with my engineering degree and inprocessed into UPT class 79-07 at Laughlin AFB, the only Pitt graduate to go to pilot training that year, proudly wearing my Expert Marksmanship ribbon.

Ya’ll have a little homework assignment this week, look up the biggest “most important thing”

Hint: start here – Luke 10:27

Chapter 34, The Right Tools

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As an addendum to last week’s story Erin, my oldest daughter, reminded me that we actually bought a decorated cake that read “Congratulations Tax Collector Leigh” and then threw her a surprise party.

 

We learn a lot from our parents whether we realize it or not.  My dad was part of the generation that lived through the depression.  He was born in 1931, in the middle of it, so he grew up fully immersed in the frugality of his time.  Nowadays we call them hoarders and make TV shows about them, but back then you never threw out anything because you might need that some day and you couldn’t afford to buy another.  My dad was a second generation adding and calculator machine repairman/business owner.  Oddly, the family business survived because of the frequent floods in the Ohio valley which would swallow up the steel mills including the offices which housed the expensive office equipment.  My grandfather had developed a process that allowed the equipment to be cleaned and reused rather than be replaced, at an incredibly high cost, and once the company had established a great reputation, life was good.  But making do with what was on hand was deeply ingrained in my dad’s psyche, and doing things differently wasn’t really an option.

For example, one summer my dad had my brother and I tear down a rotting garage from the side of the house next door.  It had a flat roof which leaked like a sieve and it was on the verge of collapsing under the weight of the waterlogged rafters and decking.  The logical next step would have been to have a big bonfire and breakout the hot dogs, but in my dad’s world we stacked the remnants in a neat pile.  I was sure he was trying to start a termite farm.  The very next summer I found myself building a goat pen made out of the same heap of firewood,  carefully cutting out the useable/straightest pieces with a handsaw and designing the thing around the materials on hand.  Building things with the wrong materials and the wrong tools taught me several lessons:

1) Buy the right material and the right tools and you’ll save yourself a whole lot of aggravation.

And the greater lesson:

2) Creativity, perseverance, and hard work can get anything done.

There’s a lot more satisfaction in building something with your own hands, knowing every square inch of it, creating it from nothing, than in snapping together a kit or just buying it.  I am a great believer in getting the right tool for the job and you will always see me pick through the 2x4s for the straightest one because I learned early on how much easier life is when you start out square and level and plumb.  It’s not necessarily a bad thing to see how hard life can be when everything isn’t perfect but, given the choice, I’ll always choose the straight and narrow.

When my dad was down to his last two weeks, he called me over to his house, told me to get a notebook, and asked me to sit close and take notes.  I thought he was going to share the secrets of life with me but, instead, he began a long dissertation on how to fire up the boiler at Uncle George’s house.  I was sure it wasn’t that hard but he insisted I write it all down.  As usual, he was right.  There were steps involving clipping wooden clothes pins to wires and opening valves in the proper sequence and, my favorite step, checking the sight gage every 2 or 3 days.  When I asked what would happen if I didn’t check it he pulled me close and whispered, “It could blow up”.

I got it fired up.  I checked the gage religiously every 2 or 3 days for two weeks thus saving Uncle George from an early grave and, as soon as I got home from the cemetery, I called my furnace guy Ron and made arrangements to have a new boiler installed.

Thanks for the lesson Dad.

 

Chapter 33, Tax Collector Leigh

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Ok, Ok, I’m sorry.  I get it.  No crying this week!

As I’ve discussed before I can have, let’s say, an odd sense of humor.  Last November we had one of those rather drool off year elections.  Don’t get me wrong, I always vote, but on the odd numbered years you find yourself voting for people and/or jobs that you don’t know or even follow.  Who really knows what the County Prothonotary is or does?  And why does the Magistrate not have to know anything about the law to get elected.  Anyway, I found myself in front of the little electronic console trying to figure out who deserved my vote and why anyone even wanted half of these jobs.

I live in a township of just over 500 people so when we go to vote it’s as much a social event as an election.  The ladies behind the tables who check your ID and give you your little piece of paper are either related to you or you’ve known for fifty years.  At the first station I start off with “Hi mom, has it been busy?”.  The second station is, “Hey babe what time do you think you’ll be home?” and “Is there any food left over in the conference room for my dinner?”. The third station is “Hi Molly how are the kids?” (I went to school with her kids who, I guess, really aren’t kids anymore).  You get the picture.

So there I was doing my civic duty following the polling place rules and as I tapped away on the screen I eventually came to the position of “tax collector”.  For years the tax collector had been my next door neighbor Richard and after he passed away, one of the girls on the next street over took over, but years ago they farmed the whole process out to a contractor and since then, there had been no tax collector.  But, there it was on the screen.  No candidates, just a little button that said “write in”.  Who am I to ignore the only choice on the screen so I tapped the button and proceeded to type in “Leigh Hartman”, my youngest daughter.

What made it really funny in my mind wasn’t so much the typing a random name in, it was the concept that Leigh is one of the three least likely people I know who would be even remotely interested in dealing with any kind of math.  The other two also are living, or have lived, in my house.  My wife and daughters perfected the “Don’t worry, Dad will pay for it” plan and the higher math skills of balancing a checkbook has been something they have skillfully avoided for decades.  So, the thought of Leigh carefully managing the collection and tabulating of taxes made me, well, giggle.

Peg got home late that night and when I asked her how the voting went, she gave me the “look”.  “Why do you do that?”, she asked.  “Do what?”, I asked innocently.  “Do goofy things?” “What goofy things?”  “You know what I mean!”  And she huffed off to bed.  You’d think by now she would have figured me out!

I forgot all about election day until the week after Christmas.  I got home and there was Leigh in my living room with a thick manila envelope and she wasn’t happy.  “What did you do?” she pouted.  Tears welling up in her eyes.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about” I said, and I meant it.  “What’s in the envelope?”  And then it got really funny.  “I’m the tax collector and I have to fill out all of these campaign finance disclosure forms and I have to go to the courthouse to be sworn in and”, bursting into tears, “I don’t want to be the tax collector!”  I like to look at the bright side so I suggested, all the time holding back my desire to laugh uncontrollably, that she use the position as a resume builder.  She was looking for a new job and it would look really good to a potential employer to have that feather in her cap.  It didn’t help.  I assured her I would look into it and we’d figure it out.  That’s the “Don’t worry, Dad will fix it” plan which is an addendum to the “Don’t worry, Dad will pay for it” plan.

I called the township and, yes indeed, the position was still on the books and she had indeed won the election by a landslide by garnering 100% of the 1 vote cast for tax collector.  they told me that she was welcome to take the position though there was absolutely nothing to do.  She could attend the township meetings, or not.  It really didn’t matter.(If only we could get more politicians to do nothing we’d be much better off) Or, she could just throw away the papers and ignore it and it would just go away.  She chose the latter.

I couldn’t let it end there.  The next spring, I discovered there was a guy named Hartman running for Sheriff in Northeastern PA.  My Exec Tina made off with one of his yard signs and late one night I planted it proudly in Leigh’s front yard.

She wasn’t happy.

Chapter 32, “Where Angel go?”

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Last time I wrote about my father-in-law so I think it’s only fair I give my dad a little time over the next several weeks.

Time really does fly.  Next month it will be ten years since my dad got the ultimate promotion to heaven and I find myself sounding more and more like him every day.  Phrases he used, looks he gave, they are all a part of me and my siblings, whether we want to admit it or not.  He lived the last nine years of his life with the specter of cancer leering down on him, but he lived those years with a positive, hopeful attitude and never let it keep him from doing what he loved, or fulfilling the responsibilities of husband, father, grandfather, and Christian.

He found out that he had cancer accidently and very early in its progression.  He had a cut on his finger that wasn’t healing very well and a very smart healthcare provider recognized it for what it was, Multiple Myeloma.  At the time there was no cure, but the disease attacks very slowly and they gave him 5 years.  I clearly remember the day he came over to my house and announced “Today’s the day” and when I asked what he meant, he told me that today was five years and he was supposed to be dead.  He lived every day from then on as a “bonus” day.  Not that he changed after that, because he always knew that every day was a gift, it’s just that he felt like he had beat the odds.  And he did.  Every treatment, whether mainstream or experimental, worked on him.  From chemo, to interferon, to thalidomide, everything they tried slowed the disease.  But nothing stopped it.  So, the day before he was scheduled to fly to Boston for yet another experimental treatment, his oncologist told him “Go home, you have two weeks”.  So he spent his final two weeks (sadly this doctor was right) saying goodbye to a seemingly endless line of friends and family.

He mostly sat in an old blue La-Z-Boy recliner Peg and I had given him years before and as the grandkids came and sat beside him or played at his feet he got to see a little preview of heaven.  At the time, his youngest grandchild was my sisters little boy Eli.  I hesitate to say little because he’s currently the tallest 11 year old I’ve ever seen but, at the time, he was a precocious 19 month old who seemed to take in the world like a walking sponge.  Sadly my dad missed out on the subsequent 4 grandchildren and 4½ great grandchildren (my daughter Erin is currently processing the ½!).

He passed late on a Sunday evening.  Coincidently, we found out after talking later, the night that we all stopped praying for a miracle and started praying for a peaceful passage.  We sat around the dining room table that night for hours. Laughing, remembering, talking, crying, but mostly eating everything in my mom’s house and, eventually, everything in my house.  I don’t really remember my last words with him.  He passed in and out of consciousness those last days and conversations turned very one sided, but having two weeks to say goodbye gave me a different kind of peace than when Peg’s dad died.

My sister Kelly had gone home several hours before dad passed so she wasn’t there that night, but she made the drive in the next day and, of course, Eli was with her.  He bounded into the house and immediately ran to the blue recliner.  Seeing it empty, he didn’t ask the obvious question, but he spun around and pointed up to the corner of the room, where the ceiling meets two walls, and in his little toddler voice asked, “Where angel go?”.  Everyone stopped and Kelly, not quite sure if she really heard what he said, looked down and asked, “What did you say Eli?”.  With his little finger still pointing to the same spot he said it again, “Where angel go?”.  I think Kelly said something like, “Back to heaven”, and he was satisfied with the answer and immediately went about doing whatever it is toddlers do to entertain themselves.  He never asked about it again nor does he remember anything about that day.

May we all live our lives with as much dignity and joy as my father and pass from this world as angels watch and wonder.

Chapter 31, Lou

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The passing of Neil Armstrong this weekend really got me thinking about world events in my lifetime and remembering where I was at the time.  There are a few events that, even though I remember very little about what I was doing around it, I distinctly remember what I was doing and where I was the moment it happened. The JFK assassination, the space shuttle Challenger disaster, the Reagan assassination attempt, they’re all burned into my brain.  But, Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon holds a special place.

I was at church camp.  And at church camp there weren’t any televisions.  They were a distraction and, to be honest, we always had so much fun we really didn’t care.  But on a hot July evening, with mosquitoes circling a hundred warm targets looking for their next meal, the counselors wheeled in a little black and white TV they borrowed from the dean’s house and with some twisting of the rabbit ears to pick up the faint signal way out in the woods, we watched in awe as Neil stepped on to the lunar surface.  A special moment in a special place topped off with his special words.

31 January 2002.  It was just months after 9-11 and the nation was still wondering when the next attack would come.  We were rotating back and forth to Washington state to provide contingency airlift support for the army in the event of another attack and it was my turn.  I would be leaving the next day.  It was a Thursday and I was at home packing when the phone rang.  It was my father-in-law Lou and he wanted to talk about an article he had read about our response to 9-11.  He wanted to get my perspective on what he had read and we had a long talk about national security.  He was WWII veteran and had always stayed engaged in what was going on in the world.  He was also part of the generation that worked hard, appreciated where they had been and how far they had come.  He was a generous man with friends around the country and the world but he was never one to wear his heart on his sleeve.  His hearty generation rarely showed public affection or emotion let alone talked about their feelings.

I finished the conversation by telling him what I was doing the next day, he wished me luck, and that was that.  I started to stand up to continue packing but before I could even get to my feet the phone rang.  It surprised me a little since it was still in my hand but I punched the green answer button and said “Hello”.  There was a long pause but before I could say hello again, Lou said “It’s me again, and I just wanted to tell you that you’re the best son-in-law a man could ever ask for.  I’ll see you when you get back, bye”.  And that was it.  We had always had a great relationship over the nearly 30 years we had known each other, but he never said anything about it.  It’s a “guy” thing.  I was too busy to think much about it so I just went about the task at hand.

I left the next day for the long, slow, Herk drone to McChord AFB and, upon arrival, checked into billeting.  I had no sooner unpacked my bags when my cell phone rang.  It was Peg, in tears, calling from the hospital.  Her parents had made their weekly Friday pilgrimage to Red Lobster and as her father stepped out of the restaurant he had simply fallen over and passed away from a massive aneurism.  Quietly and quickly, he was gone.  It was a long flight home the next morning and all I could remember was the last words he spoke to me.

You never know if the last thing you say to someone is really the last thing you’ll ever say.  So I guess the answer is, think before you speak, make everything you say meaningful and maybe say less but make it mean more.  Be slow to anger and quick to forgive and don’t let the sun set on a broken relationship that you might regret.

Godspeed to you Neil Armstrong as you take that last giant leap beyond the stars.  Dad, I miss you every day.  You’re the best father-in-law a man could ever ask for.

 

Chapter 30, “If a Girl Asked Me….?”

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I’ve been an Operations Group Commander for nearly 10 years and there’s a lot I love about the job.  There’s one thing in particular I really enjoy and it’s attending Review and Certification Boards.  For you non-flying types, it’s a periodic meeting we have to review evaluation issues and to “certify” new aircraft commanders, instructors and flight examiners.  Basically we review their training and evaluation folders, bring in the “certifyee”, and we all get a chance to utter some words of wisdom for them to carry into their new responsibilities. I especially like doing new aircraft commanders.

These are guys that have been sitting in the right seat for 2-3 years chomping at the bit for a chance to be in command and run things their way, and I like to take the time to let them know that, when you’re in charge, things can go pretty bad pretty fast.  I have several stories I like to tell, but my favorite I call; “The worst question anyone has ever asked an Aircraft Commander”.  My apologies to those that have heard it, but here goes.

I’ve known a lot of crewmembers over the last 34 ½ years and the guys that are most memorable are the ones at either end of the spectrum.  The really bad ones because, well, that’s where good flying stories come from, and the really good ones because they make flying a joy.  Fred, and Fred isn’t his real name and I’ve never know a loadmaster named Fred, is one of the really good ones.  He’s the kind of guy everybody likes.  All of the kids whose parents are in the squadron know him by name and give him hugs when they see him.  He’s conscientious, professional, an outstanding instructor and an all around great guy.  So when I signed up for a weekend cross country I knew that things would work smoothly in the back of the airplane.

It was an Aeromedical training mission with the unit over at Wright-Patterson AFB and from the pilot perspective it’s about as vanilla a mission as it gets.  You pick up a bunch of Flight Nurses and Med Techs and they spend hours in the back of the airplane working on pretend patients while we bore holes in the sky.  It sounds like a waste of money and time, but I don’t want someone sticking a needle in me or, heaven forbid, a catheter while I’m being AirEvac’d who’s never done it while bouncing around in a moving aircraft.  On with the story.  We spent all day Saturday flying them around so all we really had to do on Sunday was fly the one hour back to Pittsburgh, park the airplane, fill out the paperwork, and be out the door by noon.  Saturday night we stayed at the Hope Hotel at Wright-Pat and we all agreed to meet in the lobby for dinner at 6.  6:00 came and went with no Fred.  We called his room and he said to eat without him.  After dinner we were walking through the lobby and ran into Fred.  He obviously had other plans.  He was freshly showered and shaved.  He had some “bling” around his neck.  He was obviously on the prowl.  We administered the appropriate amount of ribbing and reminded everyone of the morning bus time of 0715.

At 0715 we were all sitting in the bus, ready to go, except for Fred.  In all the years I had known him he had never been late so I gave him the benefit of the doubt but when he still hadn’t shown up at 0725 it was time for the phone call.  The phone rang 10 times before he answered it and it was obvious that I had awakened him from a deep sleep.  After apologizing profusely, he said he’d be down in five minutes, and he was.  Normally being late will get you a thorough tongue lashing, but seeing as Fred was obviously very upset with himself I figured the abuse he was getting from the rest of the crew was sufficient punishment.  We dropped the loadmasters and flight engineer at the plane and headed into base ops to check the weather and NOTAMS and file a flight plan.  Now for the bad news.  There was a wide area of rain with imbedded thunderstorms between Dayton and Pittsburgh and it was going to be a bumpy ride.  We rushed out to the airplane hoping to get going before the heat of the day pumped more energy into the storms and took off into a darkening sky.

It turned out to be as bad as we feared.  The Navs face was buried in the scope and he was calling out the headings fast and furious.  “40 degrees for 3 minutes and then we’ll come back 60 degrees!”  The hour flight was turning into an hour and a half as we zigzagged our way to Pittsburgh.  Finally we got the handoff to Pittsburgh approach and the controller told us something I’d never heard a controller say before.  “Do whatever you have to do to get through the last line of storms, call me when you’re clear, and good luck”  It was the “good luck” that got me worried.  The nav tuned up the old APN-59 and tightened up his shoulder harness and just as we started to squeeze between the two airplane eating cells a quiet voice came from the back of the airplane over the crackling interphone. “Hey Daryl, this is Fred.  Can I ask you a question?”  First of all, we don’t use names on the airplane, only crew positions.  It would normally have been “Pilot, Loadmaster, I have a question”.  Secondly, we were pretty busy.  But, I thought, something serious must be happening if he was calling me now AND using first names, so I said, “Sure, it’s a little busy but go ahead”.  There was a pregnant pause and then, ”If a girl asked me to spank her, and I did, could I get in trouble”.

You know how they do it in movies when you come to a really intense action scene and they switch to slow motion and it’s like time expands.  At that moment, hanging in space between two thunderstorms, with lightning flashing all around and continuous moderate turbulence forcing us to strain at our seatbelts, time seemed to stand still.  The copilot rotated in his seat to the left and stared at me, the navs head slowly came up from the scope and turned to me with eyes as big as saucers, and the engineer’s jaw dropped to his chest.  I’m usually pretty quick with a response, and maybe I was, but it felt like an eternity before I heard myself say:  “It depends.  Did you leave any marks and does she know who you are?”  Not really a good answer, but it’s the best I could come up with at the time.  He answered “No on both” and I said “We can talk about it when we land” and then time simply accelerated back to its normal inexorable rate.

We had a talk when we landed about boundaries and girls in bars.  And, although I know nothing about the latter, I think I covered the subject pretty well.  As much as you think you’re ready for anything and you’ve seen it all, you haven’t.  The message to the new aircraft commanders; flying is the easy part, it’s the people that will never stop surprising you.

 

My apologies to “Fred”, I’m sure he’ll be mortified when he gets this!

10 weeks and counting!

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Those of you who are my facebook friends or follow on twitter have just been inundated with updates.  My apologies.  I have just posted all of my past blogs going back to January.  So they will be archived here forever (or until I stop paying for the blog site!)  10 weeks to unemployment!

 

Daryl