Timing is everything

Back in ‘94 I rep’d the Wing at a worldwide airlift /airdrop competition. Everything was graded, including the moment the wheels touched on the scheduled arrival time at McChord, the Tacoma, WA air base hosting the competition. 

I had planned the arrival to the second, including which flap setting gave us the best chance of making adjustments. 

Beautiful day, so we planned it for a 50% flaps landing, and briefed it that way. 

We had our Wing Commander on board, because he wanted to smooze the old buddies he had flown with when he flew -141’s out of there, “back in the day.”

So we cruise in, the crew working like a well oiled machine, map reading and running the descent and before landing checklists. 

As we get on short final, we have the timing absolutely shacked. Suddenly, the pilot calls for 100% flaps, completely out of habit. I was like, “What..? No!” And the Co-pilot, hesitating says, “You want 50%, right?” 

The Wing Commander, standing next to me immediately chimes in, “The pilot said 100%, so give him 100%!” 

The Co- shrugs and puts the flaps to 100%. 

The plane pretty much comes to a hover. I mean it just slows to a crawl. 

I threw my clip board into the bunk behind me, sat down and buckled in, biting my tongue and counting down our landing, “…5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, +1, +2, +3…” 

We touched down 11 second late. 

As we parked and unloaded, I watched other competitors come in, comparing their touchdown smoke to the clock… hoping 11 sec would be a typical landing. Nope. Time after time these guys were spot on, landing +/- 2-3 seconds. 😡

The Wing Commander kept to himself for awhile.

——

For the competition, each meter from the target for the airdrops was 1 point, and every second +/- on each airdrop and landing was a point deduction. 

In the end, after 3 separate airdrops and 4 landings, we placed 2nd for best C-130 in the world by 2 points. 

Still, Chris Joniec was the best Wing Commander I had, in a long career of every type Commander possible.

.

Notes to my 20-year old self

 A question pops up every now and then: “If you had the chance to go back and meet your 20-year old self, what advice would you give him?”  I think this is an interesting question.

In 1980 I was a Junior in college. I was 100% focused on graduating, becoming an Air Force Navigator, flying for as long as possible, seeing the world, and convinced I would not see the year 2000.

Looking back from 42 years later, I think it all worked out pretty well. It did not work out EXACTLY the way I hoped at age 20, but I think it was even better than I could have dreamed.

I did graduate. My eyesight stayed okay enough that I got the Navigator slot and went to Navigator Training at Mather AFB, outside Sacramento, California. I graduated from that and, while I didn’t get the F-4 or F-111 I wanted, I got a great crew airplane, the B-52. That plane led me to Ellsworth AFB, SD where I met Laura. Beat that!

I wanted to see the world, and while the B-52 didn’t offer much of that, I did get to Spain.  But later on…. I ended up on the C-130 and I’ve seen a good portion of five continents.

On the personal side, I basically knew from way back I wanted to find the one right woman who wanted me, get the house, settle down and build a family. That too, worked out better than I imagined.

So what would I go back and tell that kid, still two years from college graduation,  punching way above his weight? “Trust your gut, you’re gonna do great!”

Follow your dreams - go forth with purpose, but live like Gumby. Be flexible! Life is hard and adulting is harder. You don’t get everything you want, but sometimes (most of the time) you get exactly what you need. When you come to a fork in the road, take it; not every path will be straight. Whatever you do (and this is crucial), push yourself to keep moving forward. The worst thing you can do is sit and spin.

Most importantly, enjoy the ride!

My favorite quotes

 Quotes are like beacons in the night. They guide you safely through the deepest valleys, and once on the hilltop, give you guidance on the direction of your next move. Here’s a few of mine:

“One day at a time.” - Me, at USAFA, 1978 - 1982

“You’re always one decision away from a totally different life.”
— Unknown

“…Your mission remains fixed, determined, inviolable. It is to win our wars. Everything else in your professional career is but corollary to this vital dedication. All other public purposes, all other public projects, all other public needs, great or small, will find others for their accomplishment; but you are the ones who are trained to fight.
     Yours is the profession of arms, the will to win, the sure knowledge that in war there is no substitute for victory, that if you lose, the nation will be destroyed, that the very obsession of your service must be … Duty, Honor, Country.”
— Douglas MacArthur

“When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” — Leonardo da Vinci

“Skill’d in the globe and sphere, he gravely stands, And, with his compass, measures seas and lands” — John Dryden

“You don’t have to ‘Click-click-click.’”  - Laura Griest

“I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things …” — Antoine de St-Exupery

“Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning”  
— Admiral James T. Kirk

“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
— Herm Albright

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.” — Thomas Paine

“If I do my full duty, the rest will take care of itself
— General George S. Patton, USA

“Never give in… never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.  Never yield to force… never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”  
— Winston Churchill

“Didn’t I tell you?” - Laura Griest

“Real men fly air to mud because they understand the fundamental law of wartime negotiations. You negotiate with the enemy with your knee in his chest and your knife at his throat!” — Unknown

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” — Edmund Burke

“A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.”
— John Stuart Mill

“You had me at ‘Hello.’” - Dorthy Boyd, ‘Jerry McGuire’

“I never trust a fighting man who doesn’t smoke or drink.”  
—  William “Bull” Halsey

“I wish to have no connection with any ship that does not sail fast, for I intend to go in harm’s way.”  — John Paul Jones

“I love the smell of sweat, piss, and JP-8 in the evening… It smells like VICTORY!”  — Me

“Well, boys, we got three engines out, we got more holes in us than a horse trader’s mule, the radio is gone and we’re leaking fuel and if we was flying any lower why we’d need sleigh bells on this thing… but we got one little budge on them Rooskies. At this height why they might harpoon us but they dang sure ain’t gonna spot us on no radar screen!”
— Maj. T.J. ‘King’ Kong, ‘Dr. Strangelove’

“Life loves on.” - Robert G. McIlvaine (look him up - 9/11)

“What’s next?” - President Jed Bartlett, ‘West Wing’

———-—————————-
This would look great on a tombstone

COSMOS MARINER
DESTINATION UNKNOWN
— Conrad Aiken

Talents I wish I had

 If there were talents to be had, there are a couple I would love to have. Unfortunately, I don’t.

Music. One would be the ability to sing. I started off so well… I had a great voice when I was a kid. When we lived in Washington Mom signed me up for singing lessons from some lady in Oak Harbor. We would drive over every week after school and I would stand next to the piano and run scales over and over again, then practice show tunes for 45 minutes or so. 

Had a couple of recitals, for which I talked her into expanding my repertoire to Yesterday, by the Beatles, and Edelwiess, from Sound of Music. Then we moved to Las Vegas, and that ended that. Shortly after that my voice changed, such as it did, and the training was lost. But who wouldn’t like to sing in a band???

So learning a musical instrument would be fun. I played the trumpet pretty well all through Junior High and into  my Freshman year of HS. I must not have signed up for Band after that, and that was the end of that. Probably peer pressure from my friends. I took guitar lessons for a short time in grade school when we lived in grade school (probably 3rd grade?) but again, that’s when we moved… this time to Libya. Never got far enough along to get to the good part where you get hooked on it.

I’d love to be able to do that whistle that kids can hear six blocks away. My Dad had that. When it was dinner time and we hadn’t noticed the street lights were on, he’d walk out on the lawn, hit that whistle and you knew you were gonna get an ear chewing on the way to the table.

Art. Always loved doodling, and my Mom was so naturally talented that I really gravitated to that in our relationship. She painted and got me into acrylics. I have a basic ability to draw, but with some study and guidance, I think I could be pretty good. I love to watercolor (there are a few efforts around), but I’m just good enough to be dangerous… I don’t have the skills of making things seem real… but I’d probably be a great Monet….

Dance. Everyone in our family knows I love to dance. Always have. Its the fluid movement and control the person seems to exude. In every school, there was always one kid who you knew would go on to make that a life’s work by heading to New York or LA. 

Liked to go to the school musical productions and watching them. Being on stage was not my thing, but definitely being able to dance like that would be fun.

Public speaking. Always wished I felt more comfortable with that. I think that came from always being the new kid in the room. Besides being naturally shy, I think that not getting the opportunities due to being…that new kid… you don’t get or make the chances to practice. My brother Dave was in Toastmasters for awhile. I always thought that was very brave and proactive of him.

Writing. I think I write pretty well, at least all signs from the past lead me to believe that. But I’d really love to write well enough to write some sort of novel. 

My problems is not just getting past the blank page, it’s also that little bit of residual ADD. I have never been able to stay focused and have never had an idea that just got under my skin enough for me to spend days and months fleshing it out into a story like the ones I’ve always loved to read. I wanted to study Journalism it college, and write great things for some big name paper (Plan A). But then I got sucked into the Air Force and military life (Plan B) and I never looked back. Life happens.

So I could best be summed up as a Dabbler in many trades, Master of none.

What's on your bucket list?

 I was never one to make up a bona fide “Bucket List,” then try to check it off. In actuality, I’ve done some neat things that fit really well into someone’s Bucket List, and I’m lucky enough to count them as things I’ve done that are out of the ordinary.

Living overseas when I was a kid afforded me some unique opportunities that not everyone gets to experience.

In Libya, not only getting the opportunity to live in such an incredibly different culture and country, but I got the chance to visit a Roman ruin called Sabrathah as part of a class trip. We were in the 3rd grade, but it was completely fascinating to me.

When we lived in Italy, Mom and Dad took Dave and me to visit Rome. We visited all the big sites:  the Colosseum, the Vatican, the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Roman Forum, St. Peter’s Square, the Sistine Chapel, and more.

In 9th Grade, I hiked down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and spent a week with Greg Madonna and Dave Curtiss on the Havasupai Indian Reservation. Gorgeous tropical enclave in one of the multitude of canyons at the base of a number of spectacular waterfalls.

Learned to ski while we lived in Italy, and kept it up pretty consistently until we moved to Pennsylavania and started getting busy with flying, work and family. I did ski is some pretty great locations: Piancavallo, Italy; Kitzbuhel, Tirol, Austria; Mt Baker, Washington; Aspen, Snowmass, Vale, Copper Mountain in Colorado; Tahoe, and Heavenly, Mt. Charleston, Nevada; Squaw Valley, CA; Brian Head, UT; Terry Peak, SD; and Hidden Valley, in PA. Hidden Valley was were it all came off the rails: Laura and I took a long President’s Day Weekend trip to Hidden Valley. Stayed in a nice lodge. The skiing started okay, but by noon we were skiing on grass, which was quite scary.

At the Academy, I achieved two big dreams: 1.) I got five solo free-fall parachute jumps. I have a pretty good fear of heights, so I decided if I ever got the chance to parachute jump, I would, just to prove to myself I could. It was a lot of fun, but when I was named a Distinguished Graduate of the program, and offered another jump, I declined. 2.) I solo’d in a sail plane. That was pretty cool. Caught some big updrafts in the air above the Academy and tucked up next to the Rampart Range, which made it difficult to stay below 10,000 feet (we weren’t pressurized). Great place to learn the basics.

Kurt and I got our basic PADI Scuba Diving card one summer through the local community park. I had dived down in Puerto Rico as part of “Discovery Dives,” which were nothing more than putting gear on us, having us watch a video and then diving into the ocean and following an Instructor around for an hour or so, no matter where he went or how deep he dove. Pretty sure we got down well below 50-75 feet. In our official check out, we did all the pool work over a couple days in the Community Park, then we did and open water dive in a Quarry up near Westminster. It was a lot of fun!

Got the chance to fly a C-130 with a helicopter on board up to Reykjavik, Iceland, and spend a couple of days in a local spa. It was the Blue Lagoon, and was located on a vast geothermal power plant. Our rooms opened out onto the Spring, so you could walk right out the door, and dip onto the super-warm geothermal springs and soak for hours.

When Kurt was in Scouts, I took him and about six other kids to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, and spent 12 days backpacking through the NM wilderness. We covered 76 miles and climbed to the top of a 12,000’ Mt. Baldy. It was a blast!

I’ve seen Williamsburg and Jamestown, Old Faithful in Yellowstone, and Yosemite. Visited Valley Forge Yorktown, Gettysburg, New Market, Petersburg and Antietam battlefields, as well as Normandy Beach and Point du Hoc. In College I spent a week in Bermuda for Spring Break, riding around the islands on a moped, paying for expensive drinks and just being a regular college student (Florida is a much cheaper way to go!). Hiked up Diamondhead at dawn to watch the sunrise (Air Force trip, so it was just a couple of guys on the crew). Was deported twice from Qatar. That was pretty bizarre.

Got to tour Ireland with Laura and Jill; as well as bits of France and London with Laura, Kara, Jill and Kurt.

The one goal I haven’t achieved yet is getting my private pilot’s license. I’ve wanted to do that since I was a kid, but life always seemed to come up with distractions that made my time and money much more attractive to be spent elsewhere. Work, family, etc. I plan on getting it done, I just have to get a clear spot in my schedule with good weather, and a good instructor.

One day, I really want to be able to say, “Today, I am a pilot.”

Some of the top moments in my life

 There have been a few REALLY great moments in my life.

26 May, 1978.
Agua Fria Union High School Graduation.

I don’t know how High School Graduation can’t be a big deal for any kid. It’s a pretty epic milestone that seperates you from being a kid to starting that journey out into the universe, carving a way for yourself in the world. I know it meant a lot to me, having had to slog through two high school programs, thinking you have it all figured out in one, only to be yanked out of it in the middle of my Junior year, and having to figure things out again. Not all my credits counted the same. Classes I would take as a Senior at Rancho were now Junior classes, so as I started my Senior year, I’m reversed with my classmates. Not that that was a bad thing: I made a lot of friends who were a year behind me. Wouldn’t have done that at Rancho. In the end it all worked out, I graduated in the top 10% of my class, was in National Honor Society still (see the collar thingy), and made my parents proud of me!

2 June, 1982.

Graduation from the United States Air Force Academy
Commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the United States Air Force

Huge day for me!  That was a long, tough four years, and it was all on me to make it work. Quitting was never an option, but there were any number of days, my freshman and sophomore years, where I was convinced I was going to flunk out. Yet, somehow the semester would come and go and I was still pulling down C’s, B’s and some A’s. By my Junior year, I had chosen a major and things were clicking along, and I knew I could handle the academics. There were still some struggles like Philosophy and Physics, but even they fell by the wayside, because by then the light was starting to shine in the distance, and it didn’t feel like a tunnel anymore. I think the impressive thing is that when we graduated, we were given a class ranking, and I actually fell in the top 50%. That left me speechless for a bit: I was a long shot to get in, had shown up with the ELITE of my HS peers, somehow managed to survive an attrition rate of 50%, AND end up in the top 50% of those remaining. Crazy.

January, 1983.
Graduating from Undergraduate Navigator training.

Nav school was the first military technical school I ever attended. It was different, in that I was now a 2nd Lt in the Air Force and working as a job, not just attending school. Again, my future hung in the balance, because at the end of this school I would be assigned my aircraft. But now I was doing the things I always dreamed of. I flew in airplanes and directed the pilots on where to go.

The first plane we flew was the T-43. A small Boeing 737 converted for Navigator training. It could hold 16 Nav student stations, with 4 instructors watching over them. Great trainer. We had a route due north, due east, and one that went southeast. Each mission allowed you to get practical generic experience in the plane doing the job you would be expected to do later in your career, once you were trained on your particular aircraft.

We learned how to take position fixes. Decipher things like wind effect, airspeed, drift, magnetic variation and then predict were we would be an hour or two hours later. We learned how to operate and interpret a ground mapping radar, which came in real handy as a B-52 Bombardier. Celestial Navigation, both day and night, were huge topics of study, and I used them extensively in the B-52 and as a C-130 Nav up until the mid-late 1990’s, when everyone bought the Koolaid that it was easier to just use GPS. Pretty sure they don’t even teach it anymore, which will be fun when the bad guys shutdown all our GPS satellites.

The last plane I flew was the T-37. Think of a low wing Cessna -152 with two jet engines. Two man  cockpit. We learned map reading and visual navigation flying around the Sierra Nevada using time, and heading and visual map cues, such as lakes, dams, road intersections, grain silos, etc to identify checkpoints and turnpoints, all the while trying to hit a Time Over Target (TOT) within 10-30 seconds. Very fun.

Assignment night was a big event. I was hoping for an F- 4 or F-111. Not my fate. The top 2 or 3 guys got their choice, and the rest of us fell to class ranking, our “Dream sheet,” and the needs of the Air Force. I was like #4 in my class, so just out of the running for getting a choice. I think I got my 25th choice: a B-52 to Ellsworth. I was devastated! I wanted the fighter, but more than anything I wanted to see the world. I actually considered self-eliminating when I found out my assignment, but as with anything, a good night sleep and common sense prevailed, and I determined to find out what this new adventure was all about and how I could excel at it.

I actually went over the the B-52 Squadron on base at Mather AFB, and asked if I could get an orientation ride. They thought I was crazy, but as newly rated Navigator, with a future Buff assignment, they agreed. Before I walked to the plane, someone remarked, “Geez, Kid, this seems like a lot of work. If you really want to know what it feels to be a B-52 Nav, go lock yourself in a closet for 8-12 hours with a vacuum cleaner.

He was exactly right.

27 January, 1984.
Meeting Laura.

5 July, 1986.
Getting married.

Family.

15 September, 1987 - Kara

Being the first, there are lots of things that stick out about the beginning of  our family, and Kara arriving in our lives. First was finding out we (Laura) was pregnant. I was staying at Laura’s apartment in Washington, DC on during one of my C2 (Combat Crew Rest periods) after a 7-day nuclear alert tours. Part of the deal was for living next to the plane for a week, we received 3-1/2 days off, where we could pretty much go anywhere we wanted and and not be charged with leave. I went to see my wife!). She shook me awake one morning and stuck a plastic stick in my face. I, of course, had no idea what it was.

Fast forward 8 months or so, and Laura has moved up to New York, we have bought our first house and moved in, and I’ve been to SOS and back. (It was action packed!)

Kara’s due date was 15 September. I was back on my crew and on alert again, and Laura was going into work every day. Then on Tuesday afternoon, I got a phone call from Laura that said I should head to the hospital, where she would meet me. Contractions had started! Then she said she was running home to get her bag, and would meet me there. Yikes!  So I found someone to ride with me and hang out through the birth, because I was still subject to getting called to go fly the mission. (Not sure if they even attempted to find a replacement; everything became a blur at that point.) From the time we got there, until Kara arrived, it seemed we were in constant motion: go in one room to change into a gown, then the contractions coming faster, so we moved to another one where we hung out very shortly, but then they just moved her right into delivery. Lots of nurses bustling around, but no Doctor. Don’t worry, they assured me, he was on his way. And he was. He basically walked in, reached in, and brought out Kara!

4 February, 1990 - Jill

Psychologists have a list of things that can add stress to your life. In the winter of 1989/90, most of them piled up to make it a very stressful time in OUR lives. Into this, poor Jill arrived (totally our fault, NOT hers!).

We had decided to get out of the Air Force the summer before, and in early November, we put our papers in to get out on the 1st of May. Involved with that decision were all the myriad of stressors: that crop up: selling our house, moving somewhere new, but not knowing where; looking for a new job and finding the job; finishing up my MBA; packing up the house. where would we go if I didn’t have a job, etc.. Drama!!!

Jill was born early on the morning of the 4th. The evening before, we decided to take Kara to new Disney movie playing at the base theater. I remember Laura holding Kara on her lap while we watched the show, and at some point, Laura grabbed my arm, squeezing it and telling me we had to go. Contractions had started. We took Kara to her babysitter, Debbie Miller’s house, and then headed to the hospital. I thought for sure it was going to be quick and dirty like Kara’s arrival had been. Not to be. It went on for what seemed like several hours. (it didn’t really). Because Laura was in labor awhile, everyone had time to assemble, and things went fairly orderly as far as i could tell, until there was a quick flurry of activity as she came out. The umbilical cord was initially wrapped around her neck, but with a quick flick, it was clear and she was crying. It happened about that fast, and if I wasn’t paying attention, I would have missed it. But then everyone was all business and smiles and our family was suddenly twice as big as when we started!

Laura and Jill spent rest of that short night, and probably the next in the hospital. In the meantime, (details are fuzzy), Pat, at least, must have driven up from Zelienople. I took Pat to the hospital to help bring Laura and Jill home. For some reason, I must have run back to the squadron building for something while the women all got ready to be discharged, because while I was driving back, in really crappy weather, like an ice storm, I slid into a police pick-up truck who pulled out in front of me when I had the right-of-way. Naturally, this caused quite a delay, but since I had a camera in the car to take pictures of bringing Jill home, and pulled it out taking all kinds of pictures of the accident, nothing came of the incident police-wise (the guy ended up paying to fix the damage himself), and I was back on the road to my family fairly quickly. Obviously not fast enough, if you are waiting in a lobby for a ride home on a winter day.  Life happens.

8 December, 1993 - Kurt

My most vivid memories of Kurt’s birth day include walking around and around outside with Laura on a pretty nice day for December. Once things started, I remember being relegated to the side of the delivery room so Laura’s Mom and sister could get front row seats. For some reason they let all of us in, and it got to be a bit crowded at “Go Time.” Having experienced two births before, I generally understood the sequence of events and followed along and listened to the medical staff’s conversation and tone of voice. All went great!

As with the previous births, we purposely avoided knowing the baby’s sex before the arrival, so on top of being thrilled at the sound of a healthy screaming baby, we got the thrill of hearing, “It’s a boy!” for the first time!  What a blessing: a fully rounded out family!

15 May, 2015
Taking Command of the 737th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron.

There was a TV show back in the 70’s called ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep.’ It starred a guy name Robert Conrad as a very flamboyant Lt Col Pappy Boyington, who was the squadron Commander of a Navy F-4U Corsair Fighter Squadron, stationed in some mythical island location during World War II. That’s the guy I wanted to be. The MFWIC (Muther F’r What’s In Charge) in a combat zone.

Through a series of strange and unforeseen events, I was given that opportunity. It started when my Commander wanted to set up a new Inspector General Exercise Evaluation team on base. He came to me to be the head exercise planner. I balked a bit, but how do you say ‘no’ to your Wing Commander? So I put together a bunch of large scale excises, culminating in a mass casualty exercise called Exercise Lycoming Reach. It simulated a terrorist attack on the Little League World Series. Our job was to “evacuate” a 100+ ‘patients’ and transport them to waiting FEMA medical teams in Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and Springfield, MA, for triage and ground transport to hospital treatment centers. Big operation. Involved 850 people, numerous state and federal response agencies, ambulance companies in three states, all done in one day.

That blew everyone’s mind away, and by the end of the day, I was the deployed Squadron Commander for our 2015 desert deployment to Kuwait. From that point on, I was consumed by the myriad of details of getting people ready and out of town: including making the crews, finding bodies from other units to fill our vacancies, determining where we would stop on the way over, etc.

Once there it was getting settled, getting everyone flying, then finding out immediately we would move the whole unit to Qatar in 1-1/2 months, so getting immersed in those plans. It was a hectic 6-8 months. I really enjoyed it!

The big event that kicks off a tour as a Commander is the Change of Command ceremony where the Operations Group Commander takes the flag from the out-going Commander, and passes it to you, in front of everyone in your unit. It’s pretty Awesome.