This morning we drove northeast of Biloxi to a rural area outside Vancleave Mississippi to see some great friends, Charlie and Elaine Philbrook. If you have followed our travels in previous years you have read about them before. Charlie was my very first active duty Air Force supervisor when I arrived at Loring Air Force Base, Limestone Maine. I was barely 18 years old, an impressionable and eager E2 Airman, fresh out of technical training school at Keesler Air Force Base, not far from where we are camping right now. This great man probably had more influence on me and my military career than anyone else. So here is the rest of the story:
I decided early on I wanted to serve in the military, as early as junior high school. My dad and my uncle were a huge influence on that as they proudly served in the Marine Corps in the south Pacific during World War II. My cousin Jesse Linch and my brother-in-law Jim Nantz both served in the Navy during Vietnam. My grandfather served in the Iowa Army National Guard during World War I. I admired all these guys and I felt a need to serve, even as a young kid. I was not sure what military branch to serve in, but I also knew I had a passion for electronics. As young kids in our neighborhood in DeWitt Iowa we were always messing around with radios, hooking up short wave radios, stringing antennas to a nearly tree and listening to foreign countries at night. Keep in mind there was no cell phones or computers back then. I remember the Sunday afternoon, after church, my dad's friend who ran the Western Auto store brought down our very first color TV. I was amazed at that! So we got ahold of old black and white TV's and tore them apart along with other electronic items to see what made them tick and to harvest the components. All of that when we were not playing baseball, riding our bikes or checking out the illusive Wendy Peffercorn at the DeWitt swimming pool (The Sandlot movie!)
A new kid, Ken Jackson, moved in the neighborhood in 1969 and he shared similar interests as me, so we became instant friends. His older brother was in the Air Force and was a "ground radio communications equipment repairman". Bam! That was it. We decided we were both going to join the Air Force and fix radios. But during my freshman year of high school my dad was promoted to Captain in the Iowa State Patrol and we had to move to Cedar Falls Iowa. Tough move for me, but that is what builds character, right?
So we moved from DeWitt to Cedar Falls Iowa on the last day of my freshman year of high school. I attended Northern University High School, also known as Price Lab School which was affiliated with the University of Northern Iowa. I kept in contact with Ken and I excelled in the "laboratory school" self-paced programs and ate up mathematics, physics, every shop class that was offered, but electronics was not in the curriculum. The beauty of the "lab school" was flexibility and so after I burned through a year of physics in a half of a year, my physics teacher immersed me in electronics!
My buddy Ken from DeWitt and I had stayed in touch, and on 18 Dec 1972 as high school seniors we both headed to Des Moines to the Military Entrance Processing Station to enlist. Unfortunately Ken did not pass the physical for his eyesight, if I recall. We were both devastated, but I pressed ahead and raised my hand to enlist on that day, under a program called "delayed enlistment". I would not leave for basic training until after my high school graduation, but because I enlisted early, I was guaranteed my technical training school dates.
On 8 Jun 1973, just days after my high school graduation and still just 17 years old, I left for Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio TX, not far from where we camped just a few weeks ago. After finishing basic training on 24 Jul 1973 I was bussed to Keesler Air Force Base for my technical training school. I was a 304X4 "ground radio communications equipment repairman". I graduated "tech school" on 21 Dec 1973 and after a short leave at home over Christmas, my dad and I drove to to my first duty station at Loring Air Force Base near Limestone Maine.
Enter Staff Sergeant Charlie Philbrook, my first supervisor. We were stationed at an off base transmitter site with a great bunch of guys that would become life long friends. Doreen and I were one of the few married couples at our site, so we hosted most of the holiday celebrations at our residence. So Charlie was an instructor for the course on the equipment we had to maintain. But besides being our supervisor and resident expert, he was also like a big brother.
Charlie made sure we were motivated and technically competent, but also made sure we had fun. I received my very first evaluation from Charlie! He and his wife Elaine treated us like we were part of their family. They were always there during the not so good times, such as our miscarriage, but they were there to help us celebrate the good times, such as the birth of our daughter Michelle "Goober".
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We stayed in touch with Charlie and Elaine, and many of the guys who we served with in Maine for all these years. We were honored that they would make the trek from Vancleave Mississippi to the Ankeny Iowa area to attend my military retirement in 2015.
My point to all of this is, how I was treated by my first military supervisor likely impacted my entire 42 year, 2 month and 16 day military career. If I'd had a bad experience I would not have enlisted in the Iowa Air National Guard when I separated from Active duty in 1977. Charlie was the kind of supervisor that would teach you, motivate you, challenge you, and put you in your place when needed. He made sure I had the tools I needed to excel and he helped remove the roadblocks in my early military career so that I could strive for excellence. He pushed me, and he thanked me and I can never thank him enough. He and Elaine treated Doreen and I like family. This world needs more "Charlie and Elaine's"! I am so very thankful for everything he did for me as a young Airman, a young husband, and a young father.
So, fast forward to today, Doreen and I drove to Charlie and Elaine's rural home outside Vancleave MS. It is a beautiful drive in the beautiful Mississippi country.
The road narrows the further we travel so the big ol' brown truck becomes a road hog of sorts! The final leg of the trip takes us down Peach Branch Road to their peaceful ranch in the country.
Since before making the trip to my retirement in their camper, Elaine has been suffering with some serious back pain and resulting mobility issues. She has had several surgeries but the pain remains. They are working on a medication pump that will hopefully help with her pain and give her mobility and strength back.
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