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Tag: Incirlik

Aiming High in the Air Force: 2007: End of the Line

My final year in the Air Force–though I didn’t realize it would be at the time–started off slowly, but things would change soon enough.

Yet Another Exercise

My supervisor retired at the end of 2006, so another sergeant in the office took over his position. She rarely ever went over to the warehouse, spending most of her time at her desk in our flight’s office. As a result, I was, effectively, on my own in continuing to run and organize the warehouse, while my supervisor focused on other duties.

Aiming High in the Air Force: 2006, Part Two: Leaving Las Vegas

As my days in Las Vegas drew to a close, my coworkers arranged a going-away party for me… at Star Trek: The Experience.

Star Trek: The Experience

Before leaving for the party, I checked my email, and discovered a message from the base education office. Apparently, the results of my last CLEP test had come in, fulfilling the final requirement for my Associate’s degree in Emergency Management. Effective June 1st, I was finally a college graduate.

Aiming High in the Air Force: 2006, Part One: Moving Up and Out

As 2006 opened, my friends brought me along to a New Year’s party on the Strip, to help get my mind off everything that had happened over the past year.

New Year’s on the Strip

The weekend, of course, brought new challenges to the brand new year. My dorm room shared a bathroom with the room next door, and my neighbor and I hosted a small party in my room. He, unfortunately, had too much to drink. When he insisted on trying to drive one of the girls back to her dorm, two blocks away, she and I both told him that he wouldn’t be driving anywhere that night, and took his keys away to make sure of it. His thinking process was clearly impaired, because his response was to dive headfirst off the second floor balcony at the end of the hallway where our dorm rooms were located.

Aiming High in the Air Force: 2003, Part One: Combat Stinkin’ Mobile

Combat Stinkin’ Mobile

After spending the holidays with my family, I took my car, which had been sitting in my mom’s driveway in Iowa since I had left for Basic Training in August, and drove myself back to Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. I returned a couple days early, so I didn’t have to go back to my classes immediately. I was nearly finished with my training; only a few more tasks remained ahead of me.

Service before self

Map showing Baumholder’s location

At the end of 1990, American servicemembers began to build up in Saudi Arabia, along the border that country shared with Kuwait. This action, Operation Desert Shield, was precipitated by the fact that Kuwait had been invaded by its larger neighbor to the North, Iraq. While these events were front-page news across the globe, they had an immediate, direct impact on my life, as I was a teenager growing up in Baumholder, an Army post in Germany.