Snyder's Side: Article 8
Why Are You Doing That?
Decided to do something really wild -- craft up another 'side at somewhere near 38,000 feet in the air, just off the Pacific coast of California. I'm heading out on a deployment with my colleagues in the Kansas Air National Guard. I'm not sure if I'll get to post this before getting back (depends on whether or not I can get Internet access while I'm gone) but it'll get there just the same.
In case you aren't familiar with my story, I served in the Marine Corps from 1980 until 1984 on active duty and until early 1987 in various reserve units. Civilian life after that was spent doing the work I was trained to do in the service on commercial aircraft: I showed up at TWA in late 1985 with nothing on my resume but that I just got finished with 4 years of fixing aircraft in the USMC and was hired in February 1986 at a then-unbelieveable wage of $12.25 an hour with really good benefits. The years since then have been pretty good (given that the airline industry is fairly unstable from time to time) and I've been able to live pretty well.
One day it hit me, I still enjoyed working on aircraft but the atmosphere at Camp Fix-A-Plane (my code name for the big garage at KCI that I work in) absolutely sucked. My plan has been to get out of the commercial aircraft business and yet I still wanted to "play" with jets. Near that same time, a high school classmate asked me if I ever thought about getting back in the service (no, she wasn't a recruiter.......). My first course of action was to see if I could get back into shape, which ended temporarily after a lovely ankle sprain took me off my feet for a couple of weeks and off the track for almost a year. When I finally got back to a place where I thought I was ready to ask the Corps if they wanted my services it turned out I was too old -- their maximum age was 34, and after deducting my prior service I came up to 36. So much for wearing those dress blues again.
But that also opened up another avenue, one I now wished I had looked into years ago: the 190th Air Refueling Wing. Oh, we'd met: I saw their area when I ran at the SCCA Solo II Nationals starting in 1997, knew of Forbes Field from the signs along I-70 we saw on our many family trips out to the original part of Kansas the Snyder family came to in the 1800's, and saw these souped-up 707's (the military calls them KC-135's) coming and going while working road course corner crew at Heartland Park Topeka (hard to miss them!). Naturally, I was interested -- big planes and getting a chance to serve again, sort of a way to say "thanks" to this country for teaching me the skill that gave me the ability to live the life I have so far. From the first time I stepped on the base it was like coming home: they took me in and the rest is history, some of it being written as we speak.
I have people ask me sometimes "why are you doing that/why did you do that?" A first (somewhat smart-aleck) response could be "Because you didn't" or "So you don't have to" but it's simply 1) a way to enjoy working on airplanes again (excellent atmosphere!) and 2) my way of saying "thanks" for what my family and I have. Can't ask for much better than that.
Take Care,
KS