Frost Times

My time here in Altus, Oklahoma is drawing to a close. Many times in life we dread the end of something we have become comfortable and familiar with, however this is not one of those times. People will often become familiar with a place, find a routine and become a creature of habit in said routine. I have become one of these so called creatures of habit. I however am so ready to break the habit and find a new place to explore and to become comfortable with. Oklahoma as you may have read from my previous posts is not one of my favorite places. It’s too hot in the summer, to cold and windy in the winter and there is not much to do that doesn’t involve getting drunk or getting in trouble. Minnesota is the place I will always call home, for home is not always about the location, but is all about the people who occupy it. I have for so many years longed for a sunny warm winter season far away from the cold blizzards and freezing wind chills all so common in The Great White North, but now after these many months in the land south of Dixie, I long for snow flakes and fireplaces. Trees covered in snow, the pureness of a fresh snowfall, the stinging feeling of your hands being warmed by warm water after a snowball fight, the frozen eyelashes after a headfirst slide down a snow covered hillside. These are the things I long for. Woods, trees and water. All things I have been robbed off these past few months. 

My flights lately have been amazing. We are required to have 8 flights before we can be recommended for our final flight (called a check ride) which we are graded on all aspects of our training and the mission. The 8th flight we receive is called our rec ride (standing for recommendation ride) on this ride we accomplish all our normal tasks, and if the instructor believes we are ready to go to our check ride after accomplishing all we need to on our rec ride, then we are recommended for the check. On Saturday morning I had my flight 7. I flew up to the southern end of South Dakota and back, my flight was nearly flawless and everything went as well as it’s ever gone before. When I landed my instructor told me that he would Proficiency Advance me and flight (meaning I get to skip a flight). He recommended me for my Check Ride on flight 7, which is pretty awesome. However, due to timing, I have decided that I would rather have an extra flight to practice, and therefore have flight 8 on wednesday and my check on friday. Less than a week away from finishing training and I am so excited. My time here has been full of lessons and hardships. I’ve been blessed to have such an amazing girlfriend in Kaydi who puts up with my crazy schedule and still finds time to talk to me on the phone every night. Being away from all my friends has been so hard, but I know that it’s been hard having me gone too. I think of you all constantly and I can’t wait to spend as much time with you as I can in the future. You all mean the world to me. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a great day. 

Love to all, Dan

The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

This past week has had it’s ups and it’s downs. It’s surprises and it’s disappointments. Last week, I had my fourth flight. Now I will take some time to explain some things to you who are reading this who have a hard time comprehending or understanding the gravity of certain situations which I have been through. Now to first explain something quite simple, I as a Boom Operator in training, started my training by going through Basic Training in Lackland AFB which is located in San Antonio. I went through 8 and a half weeks of no cell phone, never being able to once talk to someone during the 4-6 minutes we had to eat our meals, getting yelled at constantly and then having lights out at 9 pm and a 4:15 wake up which always involved an hour of physical training. After I graduated Basic I went to another section of that very same base and started my Technical training. I went through 7 weeks of classes about basic aircraft functions and the physics of flight, the basic rules and ideas behind in-flight refueling. From there I spent a little over a month in Spokane Washington going through survival training and then training to prepare me for the possibility of being a Prisoner of War. A lot of what I went through there is considered classified and it was my least favorite part of my life. From there I arrived in Altus Oklahoma which is in the middle of absolutely nowhere. AT&T doesn’t even exist in Altus Oklahoma. So I arrived in the middle of the summer to sit around and wait for class to start. I came to Altus on the 65th day out of 99 days in a row that it was over 100 degrees during and it was something a Minnesotan like myself would consider his nightmare. It has been mentioned to me that Oklahoma has no natural lakes….this has not been confirmed by myself but I believe it…the place I love the most has over 10,000 lakes, and the place I hate the most has zero. I’m guessing Hell has about as many lakes and this dried up piece of dirt. Anyway back to what I was explaining, I waited a month to start class and then went through a pretty intense course consisting of 7-4 class days and about 13 tests. After finishing the course, I moved on to the Simulator. I flew 12 simulated missions and was sent over to the flight line where my first blog picks up. I flew for the first time then and it was an amazing experience that I have worked so long and sacrificed so much for. So there I am in the stage of my training where I am flying, and will get 8 flights that count towards my completion and then a 9th flight called a check ride that will determine if I am a qualified Boom Operator. I have at this point in my story flown on my 4th mission. Now for anther quick explanation….the Air Force is organized pretty efficiently. I am an Airman, in an Element, in a squadron, in a group, in a Wing in a Numbered Air Force in the Air Force which is in the Armed Forces which answer to the President. Airman consists of me (One Person) an element, which I am a leader of would be 12-25 people, a squadron would be about 100-200 people, a group would consist of 1,000-2,000 and a wing would be an entire base or about 10,000 people. As I prepared for my flight four which I mentioned in the beginning of this blog about 500 words back which you read approximately 3.5 minutes ago, I found out I would be flying with the Vice Wing Commander. Now usually people of importance don’t bother me when I’m around them, however when you have to spend 5 hours in a small space where you could very likely make a complete ass of yourself and completely mess up the entire purpose of the mission and your bosses bosses, bosses, bosses, bosses boss is there watching everything going on, it can be a bit nerve racking. Needless to say I was nervous. To make things worse, my instructor wasn’t feeling well so I was tossed in with a new instructor who I had never met before and had to deal with it. We got to the jet which was my fourth time ever being on it and the Vice Wing Commander (the guy who is 2nd in command of our entire base) showed up and came aboard. Col Eaton was his name and he was actually a very nice man. I ran through everything I usually do on the jet and tried my best to ignore him, however after a malfunction happened we ended up having to wait an hour on the jet before we could take off and we had nothing to do. I ended up talking to Col Eaton for about 45 minutes about this and that and discovered that he was born in Duluth, MN and grew up there. It was really quite amazing being the lowest ranking person on base being able to talk and work together to accomplish a mission with the highest ranking person on base. After our malfunction was fixed we took off and had an amazing flight. Col Eaton came back and watched me do my refueling in the back of our jet and yes, it was nerve racking not only because refueling a 300 foot long 300,000 pound chunk of metal is insane but having him watching me on my fourth attempt ever kinda got the adrenaline pumping. After the flight he told be I did an awesome job and that he was proud his base was helping train airmen like me. It was an experience I won’t soon forget. 

My next two flights were not nearly as memorable nor as nice to me. I flew a few days later and after taking off with a normal crew, we did a few practice landings and were about to head out to Colorado to conduct our Air Refueling when I noticed as we were climbing out to 9,000 feet that our oxygen system had totally broke. So we turned around and my first attempt at flight 5 was cancelled. I waited a few days and then had my second attempt at flight 5 which I referred to as 5.2 and that went a little better until on my first contact with the receiver I tried to disconnect and my Boom wouldn’t come out. When this happens it is called a delayed disconnect and it ends our mission right then and there. So last night I flew for nearly 5 hours and none of it counted. So now I wait for next week to go on flight 5.3 which will actually be my 7th flight but still only count as my 5th flight. So hopefully everything goes well and when I get back from Christmas I will only have 4 flights left to complete my training. Thank you for reading once again and I hope you all have a great day!

Love to all, 

Dan