Living History interview with Craig Sands, class of 1983, conducted by Marilyn Summers on March the 2nd, the year 2011. We are at the GTRI field office in Shalimar, Florida. And the subject of the interview today, his life in general, his experiences at Georgia Tech. 

Craig, thank you so much for giving us your work time, I'm sure you're supposed to be at work, to hear your story. We're happy to be here in Florida. 

It's a wonderful day, and we're at the office, and this is the way you're going to spend this morning, telling me your story. Tell me, where were you born and when? 

I was born in Fort Meade, Maryland, in 1961. I didn't think you had a southern accent. No, not at all. What were your parents doing up there in 1961? 

I'm an Army brat. My dad is an Army officer, and he was stationed in Maryland at that time. 

So I was born in Fort Meade and quickly moved to Texas, California, and Germany, but every three years we were moving. Because you moved around a lot, did you ever get to know grandparents? 

Yes, I did. Let's talk about your dad's side of that first. Tell me about your dad. Is he still living? 

Yes, my dad's still living. 

And what does he do? 

Is he retired? 

He's retired, yeah, retired military, retired as a colonel for 25 years. and then he worked for a company, Bendix, for a while, and then he went back to work for his college. He went to Morgan State University. Oh, yeah. And helped them set up their engineering program. 

So he did that, and that was kind of, you could tell, you talked to him, that's what he kind of enjoyed doing. He helped him get a building set up. 

He became an associate dean or a special dean for that sort of thing, and it was like going full circle, being able to get back to the school. That's great. 

Now tell me about his parents. My grandparents, his parents, also lived in Maryland. My grandfather was from Ohio, and moved to Maryland, and he lived in the 80s. We used to go visit when my dad got stationed back in Maryland. We were there in about 30 minutes, or about an hour or so drive from both grandparents. Oh, that's wonderful. 

I thought they were in Maryland because that's where he was stationed, but that's where they were from. Yeah, they were from Maryland, and he managed to get stationed back there. his last two assignments. Ah, so you did get to know him. What did you call your grandparents? 

Grandpa, Grandpa? 

No, Pop-Up and Mama. I love it when people have fun names for the grandparents. 

So Grandpa, what did he do for a living? 

He was a painter on my dad's side. Yep, one of my dads was a painter. And what was, tell me about Grandma now. What was she like? 

My mom was a, she had long gray hair, light eyes. She had a little bit of Indian in her. and very quiet. She was quiet? 

Yeah, she was about 15 years or so younger than my grandfather. Oh, how interesting. 

So you did get to visit them? 

Oh yeah, we did. Stayed at their house. They had an old house. They had an outhouse. Wow, in Maryland? 

In Maryland, yep. The country of Maryland had an outhouse. They'd get water out of a well, so we'd go down and get a bucket and pull the water out. 

So you had a chance to go back Back in time. Oh, yes. Yep. 

It had a TV set that had the, it was black and white, but they had the little three-color bands on it. Way back. Yeah. Way back. 

So it was fun. 

So it was really very true. Where was your mom from now? 

Mom was also from Maryland. She was. The eastern side of Maryland, close to the Atlantic Ocean. Okay. And Salisbury area. What about her parents? 

My grandmother died before I was born, or right when I was born. 

So you didn't have a grandmother there. 

But my grandfather lived a long time. Pop-Up Church, you know, and he was a farmer and owned a lot of land out there in that area. Grew corn, did a lot of hunting. He was the man of the land. Yeah, man of the land, yeah. Did you get to visit him and stay there? 

Oh, a lot as well, too, yep. I saw him a lot. He was a big man, did a lot of stuff. I remember he killed a hog one day. I was a city kid for the most part. 

So I was going out there, I had country cousins, but I was a city kid, and when they killed a pig, and they all saw him make chitlins, and I never ate chitlins, so I saw my cousin. They say all you have to do is eat them. That's right. 

So my cousin's maker was, I'm not eating those. 

But it was fun. They should have showed you. That's right. They went way out in the field and said, what are they doing out there? 

Yeah. And I got to see that. Awesome. Those are good experiences. Very good. They're wonderful experiences. Tell me a little bit about your mom. What was your mom like? 

My mom was very, she's still alive, very, very, very nice woman. And she's a teacher. Oh, she's a teacher? 

Yeah, she was a teacher. My mom and dad met at Morgan State University in Baltimore, and she had a teaching degree. And what was great for my dad being in the military, because all the bases had schools. 

So she always could find a job. Yeah, she teaches. 

I was going to say, it's not hard to have a career, but it isn't really, because they're always looking for good teachers. 

So she did a lot of teaching. Do you have brothers and sisters? 

Yep, I have two brothers and a sister. Wow, so your mom was a teacher, moved around all the time, and raised four children, too. Yeah. She's a wonder woman. Mm-hmm, she is. She's a wonder woman. 

Even when she started, you know, to borrow them back a little bit on the work, she was a substitute teacher in the schools. 

And the teachers kind of learned that she was a good substitute teacher, so she didn't get in the long, like a teacher's out for maternity leave, they'd call her out. She'd get long hauled. Yeah, get it two or three week times to do that. She must be quiet woman. do all those things. One of the strong ones, as they say. Yeah, and they're still doing a lot. Are you the oldest of the children? 

No, I was the third, third of four. Oh, you're the middle kid. Yeah, I was a baby for like nine years, and then my younger brother came along. Oh, well by that time you were really... I was ready for somebody else. You could relinquish the spotlight right then. That's right, exactly. And he's the one who probably got spoiled rotten. Yeah, oh he did, yep, he did. 

So you weren't the first one to go to school or all of those things in your family? 

No, my sister was the oldest and she did all that and then my brother did the same. And he went the first three of us all military. My brother was in the Army and my sister was an Army nurse. 

And then I was in the military and my younger brother, he went to the minister now, the minister of South Carolina. 

Well, that's interesting. 

So certainly a different... 

So your parents really raised four very successful children. They've got lots to be proud of. That's wonderful. 

Now, you said shortly after you were born they moved to Texas, so can I assume that that's where you started school, or had you been somewhere else? 

I was like kindergarten, I think, in Texas, you know, before that I went to California, if I should get this right, and then Germany is where I really started going to school first, second, third grade. 

Really? 

So you went from California, Texas to California, and then to Germany before you started school? 

That was a bad thing for me to assume, but I thought you went three years every place. Yeah, it was the, first grade was in Germany. 

What do you remember? 

What is your earliest memory as a child? 

If you thought, if you just think back, what's your earliest thing? 

It was living in Texas. You can remember that. Yeah, living in Texas and having a cat that was being attacked by cat birds. And it was a cat that I ended up growing up with. He lived to be like 12 years old. Seeing that cat jump on top of a German Shepherd. That was really a sight to me. He was running from dogs. 

But he went for protection? 

Yeah. The dog came into our yard and the cat protected us. Yeah. He's like, this is my place. Any other time he'd rip a tree, but because the dog came into our yard, he jumped on it. That's a sad something. 

So see, it was a significant thing and that's what you remember? 

That's what I remember, yeah. 

And you were probably, what, two or three years old? 

Yeah, probably three years old or so at that time. Isn't that fun? 

It was. A good memory, a good memory. Yeah. 

So tell me about starting school in Germany. 

Germany? 

It was fun because there's an army base, army post, I got to get the proper terminology, army's post, the air force's base, but it was full of kids. It was just, the housing area was just buildings and buildings full of kids. And big school, had a lot of fun. No shortage of playmates. Exactly. 

A playground between all the buildings, and you just meet there and play marbles, you do all kind of stuff. And then, of course, you're in Germany, so we traveled a lot. 

Our parents would would load us up in a big green station wagon, which was too big for the German roads. And we'd go and travel places. We were going to Italy. 

So your parents were adventurers. They took advantage of where they were. Exactly. That's great. We had a good time. What about language? 

Did you learn any different language? 

They taught you German in school. We were in first grade. Every year you were there, you had German. That's why I learned that account. Very little bit of German there, but that was the language you learned when you were there. And how many years were you stationed there? 

Three years. 

So first, second, third grade? 

Mm-hmm. Yep. First, second, third grade was there. And it was interesting. You got to see a lot of memories. I always ask guys, do they remember their first grade teacher? 

Nope. I remember my third grade teacher, Ms. Handy. You do? 

Yep. I remember her. 

Now, were the teachers from that area, from Germany? 

No. The teachers were American. American teachers, yeah. The Department of Defense school system, something like that. 

I don't know why, but guys always remember their teachers' names, and girls very seldom names, and women just don't seem to remember. 

I would imagine your mother being an educator meant that you were pretty well prepared to go to school. Yeah, we were. 

She taught over in Germany, and she taught in kindergarten, so she was a kindergarten teacher when I was like first, second, third grade. She probably, you knew your numbers by then. Oh, yeah. You probably knew even how to read. Yeah, and if I did anything wrong in school, she found out about it pretty well. Oh, before you could even get home, right? 

That's right. That's right. 

So that made you all just a little ordinary saint going to school every day. You had to be careful when I went to school. Yeah. 

Well, you know, it's interesting because your parents held you accountable then. Mm-hmm. Oh, yeah, definitely. And it was expected. The older brother and sister were getting good grades, and it was just expected that... Of course, you were going to do the same thing. Yeah, you were going to do the same. Yeah. Did you like school? 

I did. I did. I did. I had good teachers. The teachers really cared. You could tell. I appreciated it so much when I was younger, but as I got older, I got to see, you know. 

So you know you had the foundation that you needed. Yeah. 

Where was the next station? 

We came back to the States, and my dad got stationed in Northern Maryland, called Edgewood. 

So you got to come back and see grandparents. Exactly. And cousins, because most of the family was in the Northeast region. 

So aunts and uncles and cousins, and I had to see all of them again. 

And it was pretty good, that was a 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, we're all, it was a base, it was a school, it was off base, so it was Miss civilian kids and military kids all in the same school. Oh, so you're finding, yeah, okay, that's a little more general. Yeah, so we're getting to see, getting to see some of that. And it was, again, another good school, and the military schools tend to be pretty good. 

Oh yeah, the fact that you know you're only going to be there, does that, how does that affect you as far as making friends and I mean do you worry about when the time is coming and you're going to have to move or do you just adjust well you kind of adjust because everybody's in the same boat you know everybody's going to be moving um and I still have friends from um um a friend I met in like seventh grade was the best man at my wedding and we still talk all the time so you make the effort you can stay in touch yeah yeah my sister still has friends from from we were in Germany that she goes and visits you know you still keep you make good friendships even though you're not there all the time well you certainly don't get in a rut when you know you don't you don't that's right and you get you get skills and making friends yeah and i think that is a skill i mean you know where you just you've got to adjust you got to do your things so where was the next assignment then we stayed in maryland my dad went to korea for a for a year and we stayed there in that same location while he was gone for a year AND THEN WE MOVED TO SOUTHERN MARYLAND, THAT'S OUTSIDE D. C., BECAUSE HE GOT AN ASSIGNMENT. D. C., SO WE'RE STILL STILL CLOSE ENOUGH TO WHERE YOU CAN KEEP A FAMILY. EXACTLY. CHANGED SCHOOLS, THOUGH. OH, YEAH. CHANGED SCHOOLS. DIFFERENT SCHOOL SYSTEM. MUCH MORE CROWDED AND A LOT LESS MILITARY IN THIS SCHOOL. OKAY. SO NOW YOU'RE TRYING TO DEAL WITH THE REAL WORLD. YEAH. EXACTLY. DEAL WITH THE REAL WORLD. BECAUSE MY DAD WORKED AT THE PENTAGON. OKAY. And now what happens is you're old enough to notice girls and to play sports. Right. Those are the significant things for males when they get 7th, 8th grade. Yep. And did those things happen to you? 

I did. I played basketball and I wrestled in what was junior high and middle school. It was called middle school then. In middle school, I did those two things. They're quite good in wrestling. Basketball, one year at baseball, not so good. Not so good at baseball. basketball, I bet, though. You were tall. Not really. I couldn't shoot that well. You weren't that cork big. Yeah, I could rebound, but I couldn't shoot too good. 

But you had the experience. I had the experience, yep. 

And in high school, you got to do one or the other, wrestle or basketball, for the same season in high school. There was no question. You were both the wrestlers. Yeah, because I couldn't do good basketball. What high school did you go to? 

Oxon Hill Senior High School. And you stayed in the D. C. area? 

Yeah, I stayed in the D. C. area. I got to finish there. My dad ended up retiring out of the Pentagon, so the family, they still live in the same house. Oh, okay. 

So there was the permanency there. Yeah. 

So I did that. My little brother missed all the moving for the most part. Yeah, because he came along in the end of that thing. Yeah. He came on the end. 

So he had a whole different experience than the other three of us had. Yeah. Oh, yeah. The difference in age is they grew up with different parents. Your parents had changed over time. Yeah. It was very, very different when there was that much of an age getting. 

So, well, how was high school life? 

Did you have a pretty typical normal high school life? 

I did. I did a lot of sports, did football and wrestled, which were two sports that I did. Did pretty good in wrestling, did good in football, made the all -county team, I think. And I know you did well academically or you couldn't have come to Georgia Tech. 

So I have to say, and you did well academically. I had good teachers. I got to admit, the wrestling coach was my math teacher, and he was outstanding. He was Mr. Gillman. and he was a great, great teacher. Oh, you remember his name. 

Yeah, and there were teachers who would write, when you wanted to go to a program, they would write letters of recommendation for you, and they actually cared a lot about the students. I had another math teacher, Mr. Quigley, who was another math teacher I had. These were all very good teachers who really cared. You hear bad stuff now about teachers. I've never experienced that. That wasn't your experience? 

Yeah. Was the high school actually in D. C.? 

No, it was outside in Prince George's County. 

So it was a Maryland high school. Because, you know, we hear so much bad things about the D. C. school system. 

So you escaped that. I escaped that, yep. 

And unfortunately, probably a lot of it might have been true, but I escaped because I was in Penn Schwartz County. And the school was a regular high school. And now, since then, they've made it a science and technology center kind of high school. Oh, okay. By the time you went, it was just a job. Yeah. 

But it was good. And the students did quite well in my class. I remember we had students go to Purdue and, you know, for engineering scholarships. I'M ASSUMING THAT YOU ALWAYS KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO COLLEGE. OH YEAH. HIGH WATER. YOUR MOM WASN'T GOING TO EXPECT THAT. THAT WASN'T A FAIR QUESTION. SO THEN THE BIG ISSUE IS, OKAY, YOU'RE IN WASHINGTON, D. C., SO HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHERE YOU'RE GOING TO GO TO SCHOOL? 

THAT WAS AN INTERESTING PART THAT HAPPENED WAS PENN STATE SENT ME SOMETHING TO GO UP THERE TO GO FOR A WEEKEND AT PENN STATE. SO YOU WENT FOR A VISIT? 

AVERA VISIT. BASICALLY WHAT PENN STATE WAS TRYING TO DO WAS TRYING TO GET MORE MINORITY STUDENTS. 

So you were being recruited. 

So I was being recruited. Went up there, stayed with a black student in his room. It was interesting, but I noticed it was like 65 degrees outside, and kids were sunbathing. I'm like, if that's all the temperature you're going to get, it's a cold campus. Top kids. Sunbathing at 65. I said, it's not getting much warmer than this. I said, that's a little too cold for me. And then my dad took me on a trip down to Atlanta to Georgia Tech. 

Why? 

How did you know about it, Georgia Tech? 

I just, I read about it in the pamphlets they sent to me. 

So they did send you pamphlets? 

Yes, and I got some material from Georgia Tech. 

So your grades were high? 

Mm -hmm, my grades were high. What was your SAT, high? 

It had to be, they wouldn't have submitted you. It was kind of high, but not compared to today's kids. Oh, well, you can't even compare to today. Yeah, I understand that. It was okay for that. It was high back in those days, but today's kids were high. teach to it now and they didn't when you were going to school. It's always just a different thing. 

But if you hit a certain mark, you're better than, then that's when they would be sending you brochures to other ones. And you probably got brochures by the bushels. I got a lot. 

I got a lot of them from like Rensselaer and Cal and a lot of engineering schools were sending me stuff. You were good at math and science? 

I liked math and science. I liked it better than English. I had a hard time trying to explain what Chaucer meant when he wrote something. I don't know what he meant when he wrote. I didn't really care what he meant when he wrote. 

But you weren't done in by algebra. Like some of us would. Math was the right answer and I could get to it. 

So did you start at Georgia Tech? 

You came on a trip with your... Had you ever been to Atlanta before? 

Never been to Atlanta. 

Okay, what year was that? 

It would have been 78? 

Yeah, probably 78. 

Okay, so your dad drives you down to Orlando. I'm trying to think what Atlanta was like in 78. 

Well, I know what Tech was like. It was just kind of like a factory. It was all bricks and stuff. It was all bricks. It was not as pretty as it was back as it is now. Oh, it's so nice now compared to what it was then. 

So what was your first impression there? 

I liked it. Why did you like it? 

I liked Atlanta. There you go. The big city is looking good. And it's hot. You know it's going to be hot. That's right. It was nice and warm. Was it a planned visit that Tech welcomed to you? 

No, it was just my dad went down there. 

So nobody was putting up any fun or trying to entice you? 

Nope. 

So I went down there. I don't even remember who we talked to down there. You did go on campus? 

Yeah, I did go on campus, definitely. I had a good time. I enjoyed the city and I liked what I saw. What other campuses did you visit? 

That was it. Those were the only two. Those were your two you applied? 

Yep. I knew University of Maryland because it was 30 minutes from my house. And I knew Howard University which was again in D. C. about 30 minutes in my house. I didn't really want to go to school that close to home. I wanted to get away. Of course. Let's have the real experience. Yeah, exactly. 

Now, the catchy thing, of course, is you're an Iowa State student, so it's going to cost a lot of money. 

But I was an Air Force ROTC scholarship. Oh, you didn't tell me that. 

So were you in the ROTC in high school then? 

No, I wasn't. I just applied for the ROTC scholarship when I was in my senior year, and I got accepted to it. 

So then shopping for a school was a lot easier because I had that. Uh-huh, because it eliminates a whole bunch of them. EXACTLY. AND GEORGIA TECH SHINES A GOOD AIR FORCE ROTC. PENN STATE HAD A GOOD ROTC AND MARYLAND DID TOO, AIR FORCE ROTC. SO I LOOKED AT THOSE SCHOOLS I WAS LOOKING AT. AND YOU LIKED ATLANTIS. I LIKED ATLANTIS. WE LIKED OUT. WE GOT AN ATTACK. THAT'S A COMMITMENT OF FOUR YEARS IN THE ROTC PROGRAM. IS IT A FULL RIDE THEN WHEN YOU MADE THAT COMMITMENT? 

IT'S A FULL RIDE. THEY PAID FOR TUITION. THE FIRST YEAR YOU DON'T HAVE TO ENLIST OR ANYTHING THOUGH. FOR THE FOUR YEAR SCHOLARSHIP, YOU KIND OF COMMITTED FROM THE BEGINNING. OKAY. 

FOR A SCHOLARSHIP, YOU COMMIT THAT YOU'RE GOING TO ENLIST OR YOU DO ENLIST? 

MAYBE ENLIST, BUT YOU KIND OF COMMIT TO THE AIR FORCE. OKAY. I THINK IF YOU GET OUT, YOU OWE THEM SOMETHING. THEY HAVE THE OPTION, IF THEY WANT TO, TO PUT YOU IN THE AIR FORCE. I DON'T THINK THEY EVER DID THAT TO ANYBODY. BUT THEY COULD HAVE PUT YOU IN THE AIR FORCE. THERE HAS TO BE SOMETHING TO PROTECT THEIR INVESTMENTS. EXACTLY. Okay. But, I mean, you were a military family. You understood. Exactly. 

So that wasn't a big deal for you, I'm sure. Yeah. Okay. 

So you go back that summer, last summer at home. Yep. You're used to moving and all that, so it's probably not a real big deal. 

But how did you get to Tech when the day came to come? 

My parents drove me down there, and I was staying at Harris Dorm. Did you have a roommate situation? 

Yeah, I had a roommate already. I met him at that time. Yeah, so they signed you as somebody. Yeah, signed me on the second floor. Was it okay? 

Yeah, it was okay. Yeah, we changed at the end of the first quarters back then. Of course. 

But it was no real problem. I remember my parents dropped me off, took me to dinner, something like that, and said bye. Yeah. That was it, you know. You're on your own. Yeah, Dad was like, have fun, you know. They would call if you need anything, and they were gone. Yeah, call if you need anything, and we're gone. 

WERE THEY GOING TO GIVE YOU SPENDING MONEY OR DID YOU GO TO LOOK FOR A CAMPUS JOB OR WHAT WAS THE DONE? 

NOW THE ROTC GAVE YOU A $100 STIPEND. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT. THIS IS A REALLY GOOD DEAL. IT WAS. VERY GOOD SCHOLARSHIP. THEY PAID FOR BOOKS, TUITION, AND I THINK THEY PAID FOR THE ROOM TOO. I'M NOT SURE. I'M NOT REMEMBER. BUT IT WAS A FULL RIDE SCHOLARSHIP. VERY GOOD SCHOLARSHIP. OF COURSE YOU'RE PAYING BACK IN YEARS. WHEN YOU RETIRED. It's probably two for every one or something like that. It was four or five. I think it was four years. That's not bad. Then it was year for year. It's higher than that now. I think it is. I think they've raised it now. I think they have. 

I know now the kids that come in, come in for, well this is not necessarily a scholarship, but they come in for one year with a commitment, but they can leave it after that. Yeah. You know, it gets them into tech and find them, you know, what scholarships. 

But I've noticed a lot of them are coming in on military discussions, especially out-of-state people. 

So we can afford it. Out-of-state tuition is expensive. Yeah, it's just awful now. It was pretty cheap when you came. It was. It's all relative, of course. 

But it was compared to, one of my nephews wanted to go to Tech, ended up going to Michigan and graduated this year in engineering, but my sister said, the out-of-state tuition was $28,000, $30,000. I was like, for a year? 

And she goes, yeah. 

And, you know, it's still a good deal compared to, like, if you went to Emory, it's that, you know, for an in-state. 

So, I mean, it's just crazy. It's how the rates have gone. And we aren't going to see that change. No, they're going to keep going. No, we haven't. That's what it's ended with. 

So, okay, so here you are at Georgia Tech. Did you know that it was going to be a tough school? 

Did anyone tell you? 

No. They didn't. That's not fair. Did they have an orientation? 

They did have the summer orientation. 

It was, I can't remember the name of it, it was an acronym they had for it, and all the Tech freshmen went to it. It was a five-day orientation over the summer. Oh, so you went to the camping one. Yeah. They had like a hard rock camp or like, they had three or four different places they would go. It was an overnight. Yeah. This one was actually on the campus. Oh, you had one on the campus? 

Yeah. Oh, that's it. You're talking about Vasset. Yeah, Vasset. Oh, man, they throw everything at you. Yeah, and you get to see all the stuff and all the students. It's kind of overwhelming. It is. 

It is, but it was fun to be able to see that first without all the upperclassmen running around and everything else and learning the way around campus and did that. As a minority student, were you welcomed? 

Yeah, I was. It was a, didn't really have any problem with that. We had a critical mass by that time of African American students, so you weren't the only one. No, I think that year it was the largest class, the 79 incoming year was the largest class. It was, it was. 

And at that point, my dad was in the engineering at Morgan State, and he told me this, but Georgia Tech graduated more black engineers than any other school in the country. It still does. 

Yeah, and it's because, you know, more than Morgan, more than Howard, more than the historically black colleges do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had that many students. In fact, all put together. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's just, yeah. It's a terrific school, you know. 

If you can hack it. Yeah. 

If you can hack it. 

If you can hack it. 

Now you came from a very good educational background. I did. And that helped a lot. 

The first year especially. Because at least you knew how to study, didn't you? 

Yeah. I knew how to study. I had had calculus already in high school. And I found- You missed those teachers. Exactly. Yeah. Because it was one of those where some of the other students hadn't had calculus in high school. No. Yeah. 

So that helped me a whole lot. Yeah. Yeah, if you come in there without preparation, you're pretty well behind before you can start. 

So you got your wheels under you. You were okay then? 

At the end of the first quarter, you were doing okay? 

I was doing okay. I was doing quite well at that first quarter. Probably too well. Got a little big in it. Oh, that makes you ***** then. Yeah, a little *****. They kicked it out of you real quick. 

Okay, so it took two quarters to keep you where you were. That's right, yep. Hello, this is the fire hose. Let's see if we can drown you. Yeah, and chemistry was one of the class that was tough. And physics? 

Mm-hmm. And physics. I mean, those are the big dusters, calculus, chemistry, and physics. Yeah. Exactly. Did you come in declaring engineering? 

I did. I came in as an aerospace engineer originally. Okay. And then... 

So the first year you were just doing all the course? 

Yeah. Everybody else. All the engineers in there together. Did you stay in aerospace the first whole year? 

I did. Did I take one class in it? 

I don't know if I need to do a class in it or not. I stayed the first year. I think I changed the second or third year doing industrial engineering. What motivated you? 

Graduating on time. Was more... Because it was going to take longer? 

It was going to take longer. It was going to take longer to get out. Tell me what you thought of the ROTC program. Actually I liked it. It was the... No big deal to you then, huh? 

No, it was, to be honest, it was interesting. It was an A that you could get quite easy. Helps the grade for you. It sure did. A couple quarters, that came in very handy. If it was only a couple quarters, you're a miracle man. 

Because, I mean, grown men, you know, that are brilliant men, and trying to get out of there in four years at that time were crying. It can be very challenging at times. It was very challenging then. 

If you know how to study and you keep your priorities, that's the deal. That was the hard part. 

Did you participate in anything extracurricular at all? 

Did you get in love with anything? 

Sports, intramural sports, did intramural football a lot because the dorm I was in, Harris, was big. 

Okay, so you got recruited. Yeah, they won the dorm championship for the year. 

The reason I left Harris was they closed it down for remodeling and they sent us all something themselves. 

But we had a tradition, we didn't know we got there, a tradition of Harris dorm was the intramural football, flag football. 

And of course you play it and you play against the independent team and you play against the frat team. You know, we lost to them, but we were the dorm, the dorm league champions. You were the dorm champions. Yeah, yeah. Did you come in on a meal ticket so that you were eating at the dining halls? 

I did. The Britain Dining Halls where I ate a lot. And then, like a junior year or so, I kind of turned it in. There's other places to go. Yeah, other places I can eat, yeah. You lasted a long time, if you like. Yeah, I did, yeah. 

What program were you on for summer? 

Did you stay in school or did you go home? 

And the summers, I went to the University of Maryland one summer and took one of the humanities class in English or something like that. Oh, that was good. 

So you were on the ball. Yeah, so I was taking that out of the way. It was interesting to see the University of Maryland. It was huge. 

The difference between 10,000 students at Tech and 30 -something thousand at University of Maryland in the summertime. Made you feel like you were in the right place? 

Yeah, just partying all the time, all night. It was just a huge school. Yeah, wow. It's a whole different thing. That's really good, though, that you had that experience. I like being able to see that, and I'm glad I went to Tech, you know, as opposed to Maryland. And then I stayed for a mini semester, a small semester, either over spring break or something. I took a double-E class, and it helped me get out. Also, it made me appreciate that I was an IE and not a double -E, taking that class. 

Jimmy Carter said that electrical engineering at Georgia Tech was by far the hardest thing He's never taken into life anything, and that included everything in Annapolis and everything everywhere in the world. It was. It was. Yeah, it's not for the faint of heart. That's for sure. No. Hats off to those folks who do that. How were your social skills? 

How was your social life? 

Did you make friends quickly? 

I did. I had a good roommate. Ended up staying in the same room for three and a half years. What is the name? 

Greg Clark. Oh, that's cool. He finished up in health. Health sciences? 

Yeah. Yeah, I had a degree in that after a while, but yeah, he grew roommates the whole time. Oh, that's nice. 

So you made a permanent friend there. 

Did you get involved in any of the groups on the campus other than the intramurals? 

A little bit intramurals, a little bit into the African American Association there. Did they have some events that you attended or not? 

Mostly just dances, that sort of stuff. 

Well, that's something. I had a lot of that. Were there enough girls around? 

Actually, girls from other colleges would come over. How about that? 

Yeah, the girls from Spelman College. Especially if you had something going, huh? 

Yeah, exactly. Which, generally speaking, I'm told there was almost always something going. 

Yeah, we had parties and dances, and sure enough, there'd be girls from other colleges that would show up. I ended up dating one for most time when I was in college. She went to Spelman. 

So we'd go see her a lot over at that college. 

Did we have any entertainers that came to the campus that you remember? 

Because I know we did a lot in that time period. I mean, they had, you know, big names, really big names in the family. None that I remember. 

There wasn't anything you ever remember going to? 

I was told by some others that sometimes that was a lure to get the women to come over. Yeah. Come with us. Yep. That's true. The Fifth Dimension came. Mm-hmm. Let me see. Who were those three guys? 

Well, Peter, Paul, and Mary actually came. Yeah, showed up. Mm-hmm. I mean, they were coming on a regular basis. James Brown. Yeah. You had to do that, because the ratio there was very off, the male to female. 

But a lot of them came, and everybody was supportive of them. Did you go to football games? 

Oh, yeah. All those days. 

So you bought into Texas. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I had a good time at the football games. Back then, it was probably your tuition, almost. You paid like five or ten bucks, and you got into the games. All the games. in football and basketball. How good or bad were we at that time? 

I'm not familiar with those guys. Not a good time. Who was the coach? 

Bill Curry was the coach. He was a wonderful man. He was. He had a hard time recruiting. 

The big thing we did remember in football, we tied Notre Dame when they were number one in the country. At first I was a win. 

So everybody went nuts, right? 

We all stayed after the game, and we were yelling, and Bill Curry came over and talked to the students, and it was great. 

Now that, see, that's a good memory to have. That's a good memory to have. Yeah, it was, that was a good one, and we did okay. Remember, we, it was good to see, we had, we played all kinds of, we played Auburn. I remember seeing Auburn has a couple good running backs. They beat us, but we got to see, you know, this is good. It felt like big time action. Yeah, it was, it was, we were playing good teams. 

Who, who mentored you? 

Who, who would be looking out for the black students at that time? 

At that time, we did a lot. Was Dean Dahl around? 

I don't remember Dean Dahl. 

So he wasn't doing any, he was around. He was around, so I remember. He wasn't mentoring you particularly. Yeah, right. Was the African American group supportive? 

We were supportive and we did a lot for each other. We did. A lot of studying for each other. 

So it was not an official thing. It was unofficial that people looked out for each other. Yeah, you did a whole lot. Studying in the library, because over the first two years we were all in the same classes. We had different majors, we were all in the same classes. and so we'd all get together and study and that would help each other out a lot with that. Did the Black House exist at that time? 

It did. Yep, it was out there on the fringe. Yeah. We'd go to that every couple weekends and it was amazing that place even stood there. 

Well, that was a place to meet folk, was it? 

Yeah, oh yeah. People came in there, so if you didn't know them from a class show. 

Yeah, you'd meet people there and we always met in everybody because we were the biggest class at that time, So we outnumbered the junior, the sophomore and junior classes as far as students go, the black students go. 

So we kind of hung around each other a lot. I'm trying to think of who I might have interviewed from that time period. Did you know Doug ****** or Patrice Perkins? 

Patrice Perkins sounds familiar. She graduated, oh she was into everything, but she graduated I think in 85, a few years afterwards. 

But she was there with the critical, what you call the critical mass. That's where I got that term from, was from her. Yeah, it was one where we had a black homecoming queen. Oh, that what? 

Okay. I remember that. And it was just a numbers. It was a pure vote. I'm trying to think of what her name was. Amy was her name. Yeah, Amy. I remember Amy's last name. She was a cheerleader. Yeah. And she ran, and everybody ran. And what happened was, you know, GTAAA said, hey, I'll vote for Amy. I'll vote for Amy. And it was a shock because basically what happened. 

You didn't expect it to happen? 

BECAUSE WHAT HAPPENED, THE REST OF THE VOTE GOT SPLIT, OR THE FRATS WOULD BE MAD AND WOULDN'T VOTE AT ALL. 

AND SHE WON, AND IT WAS LIKE A QUIET, AND IT WAS JUST SILENT IN THE STADIUM, AND I WAS LIKE, DID THEY SAY AMY? 

BEFORE EVERYBODY WENT NICE. YEAH, EVERYBODY WAS LIKE, DID THEY SAY AMY? 

SHE WAS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL. SHE WAS, AND VERY INTELLIGENT, VERY NICE, AND JUST A SHOCK THAT IT HAPPENED. SURPRISE, SURPRISE. IT WAS, IT WAS, YEAH, AND IT WAS JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS. 

How did the faculty teach you? 

What did it react to you? 

Did you feel like you were welcome? 

Yeah, I did. 

What I found more at Georgia Tech, from a racial part, with students, and faculty was fine. They didn't have any problem at all with faculty. And students, it was more just exposure. I found a lot of the students had never had black kids in their classes in high school. 

So here's their first exposure to having a black student sitting beside them. Even though integration had happened 20 years before, it was still a long time ago. 

Yeah, and my roommate, his high school was all black, so he hadn't had white students in his classes before. 

So he had some cultural things to adjust to. Yeah, so it was a little different. He was, fortunately, prior military, so he had a little bit more, too. 

But his high school, he told me his high school yearbook and said, where did you go to school? 

You know, this is right here in Atlanta. 

But it was a totally segregated environment. Yeah, it was. It's interesting. It's the same story with women. 20, 30 years after they had integrated, they were still not part of. 

You know, it's just that, you know, it just took such a, it's still, in fact, you could talk to women over there today and they would tell you it's still not happening. Really? 

Wow. Because they're such a minority. Yeah, they are. You know, they're just such a minority. They are. That it, it makes it more difficult. 

But the faculty was receptive. Oh yeah. Faculty was very good. They didn't have any problems with talking, talking to the professors and all that. They were all very welcome. 

When we talk about industrial engineering, now some of those people, those professors probably are still around. 

Some of them may not be, but do you remember anybody from IE? 

I remember Professor Ammons, Jane Ammons. Oh yeah, she's still there. She's still there, yeah. Jane Ammons, oh god, she's so knowledgeable. Yep, she is. She was a professor when I was there, a young professor when I was there. Dr. Al Keal, I don't know if he's still there or not. He was one of the professors. He was our senior group project mentor. He was good, a good professor. Was Paul Eaton still there? 

Paul Eaton. He had been very old probably at that time, so maybe not. Yeah, I think not, but maybe by then he wasn't. And Gross Close, I'm sure, had passed away by that time. Because they were the pioneers. Was Mike Thomas there? 

Or John Jarvis? 

Was Mike Thomas the human factors? 

I can't remember. I just know he was IE for like 25 years before he went in with Admin. There was a human factor, I can see him, I can see his face. Yeah, and he was real big in human factors. 

And the other one was John Jarvis was there for like 35 years, so he must have been around when they were there. And they were good. I thought IE was a very good department. IE was the top school in the country. Yeah. 

I mean year after year after year, bring it on, it doesn't matter what school competes, we always come out top in IE. Yep. And he was a good professor. 

It's one of the most desired degrees around the world, I mean because it's big in Hong Kong and Shanghai and you know, that's what they always start with is IE. Yeah. Yep. And the logistics. That's right. Those two things, you make money. That's what that, I remember, I can't remember the professor's name. 

But he was one of the big names, too. His thing was OPMs, other people's money. He always talked about OPMs. I can't remember his name. OPMs. You want to make sure you use other people's money. And he said, an IE's job is to at least save like twice as much as his salary. 

Your job is to save your company by coming up with plans of how to set things up and how to run your factory. to save at least double or triple your salary. That's why Georgia Tech graduates are so employable. Yeah. For that very reason. Yeah, I can't remember his name. I mean, so many people that I, all the people I know, what did you learn? 

How to think. Yeah, exactly. How to solve problems. That's exactly what it is. People say that. 

You're not going to come out of Tech and work exactly what you learned at Tech, but what they want you for is, in fact, you know how to solve a problem. Yeah. They can put a problem in front. They'll teach you what they want you to do, what paperwork they want you to do. Your job is to solve the problem. The tech degree is the key. And then after that, you're on your own. It is. And I saw that big time. You did. You don't when you're going through it. No, you don't. You hate it when you're going through it. It sounds like you had a good time. I did. You didn't hate it. No, I studied on, I took Fridays off. I studied Saturday mornings from 8 till 1 or whatever. Whatever it took. Yeah, and then I'd go out and then go back into school Sunday, start studying some more. 

So you had a routine, and you stuck to it, and that was all you through. Yeah, and you'd always go to the library. I did some study in my room, but I often went to the library just changed. Went to the library at Tech, went to the library at Atlanta University Center. My girlfriend at Spelman, you'd go to the library there. 

But always studying, and you did a lot of it. 

But you parted hard when you studied, you know, and that was kind of you earned it. And you went out Friday night. You rewarded yourself. That's right. You could easily say, okay, I know where I'm going back to. The thing is balance is knowing how to do both of those things in the proper context of time. And there are some students in the freshman year who didn't understand that. No, and that's why they weren't there. That's why they weren't there. Sophomore year, unfortunately. Yeah. 

But you really weren't, you were challenged the whole time you were there, but you really didn't ever go on academic probation? 

No, I didn't. Bravo. Yeah, I got through it. I got my share of C's, dropped a number of classes. It's funny how your ego manages to cope with that. Yeah, and my dad helped me out with that. My mom helped me out with that. 

She's, you know, I said, Mom, do I get C's and all this kind of stuff? 

He said, let me tell you about your dad. Your mom's a wise woman. Yeah, he got a share of those, too. There was, you know, sometimes you just take your C and move on. It's a humbling experience. 

Oh, listen, I know brilliant people who said I was happy for a D in physics just so I wouldn't have to do it again. That's right. Yeah. Just don't make me do it again. That's right. The term prof used was gentleman C. Take your gentleman C and you move on. And that's what I did. I haven't heard that expression before. He said, take your gentleman's seat. I like that. And I took a number of those. And I dropped a few classes. It was called Pink Parachute back in those days. And you'd drop the day with Big Party Day. And you'd show your pink parachute and you'd get a free drink at every frat you went to. Isn't that fun? 

Yeah. I haven't heard that story either. Pink Parachute. Pink Parachute. Because you'd go to the registrar and you'd sign. They'd keep one copy and you'd get the pink copy. And that night, the frats and everybody would have parties. dorms at parties and you show your pink parachute you have a beer you know we just interviewed the the guy who was registrar we were there a week ago i wish i had known about the parachute i'd have to know about it he told he told us he had his name on 78 000 georgia tech diplomas because he's been there for so long he was there he was the registrar from 68 until 2000. wow so he was But I didn't ask him about fake parachutes, all right, I got a new story. Yes, that's right. There were times, and a lot of it was more time management than failing. It was, I've got these three classes, and this one's killing me, I've got to drop one. And you take the one that was really hurting you, and you drop it. 

So that's prioritizing. Yeah, exactly. 

You look at the next semester now, and it would mean you take a class over the summer OR YOU TAKE A CLASS DURING THE MINIMESTER. DID THE AIR FORCE SEND YOU OFF TO ANYTHING, ANY SUMMERS? 

THEY DID. JUNIOR AND SENIOR YEAR I WENT TO THE AIR FORCE SUMMER CAMP FOR ROTC. MINE WAS IN NEW YORK, TRY TO MAKE IT CLOSE TO WHERE YOU LIVED WHERE YOU WENT HOME. MINE WAS IN PLATTSBURG, NEW YORK, UP STATE NEW YORK. PLATTSBURG? 

I WAS THINKING NEW YORK, WHOA. PLATTSBURG, ACTUALLY WE WERE ABOUT TWO HOURS OR SO FROM MONTREAL. OH, WAY UP. YEAH, SO I WENT TO MONTREAL FOR A WEEKEND. that's a fun place to go to. Yeah, it was. St. Catherine Street. It was a good time. 

So did you learn a lot more about what you were getting into with the Air Force? 

A little bit, yeah. And I had a real good, they gave me a captain. It was always Captain Betts. It was really Alpha Betts. It was an Alpha flight. And Captain Betts was our leader. And you got to see a lot of other Air Force folks. You know, you got to realize, you know, it's Georgia Tech. It's all engineers. Yeah. And a couple of folks from Atlanta University were there. 

But when you go to your camp, you get to see all the other folks from other stuff, you know. Do you feel for what your community is going to be then? 

Yeah, it was fun. They did a lot of good stuff, a lot of team building type things. And it was a good time. 

So really you had a pretty good four years, didn't you? 

I did. I had a good four years. I really enjoyed the four years of college, looking back, much more than high school. I'm so glad to hear that because I know it's not always positive. 

So you're really a very upbeat and positive person. Oh, yeah. Yep. I think you're kind of an optimist. Yeah. I try to be. It's wonderful to be around somebody like that. I enjoyed the four years there. When you graduated, actually, you know, we say get out of tech. Where was it held? 

It was in the Alexander Memorial Coliseum. It was there. Okay. And it wasn't a siege yet either because that was before the Olympics. Yeah. 

So it was kind of hot. Yeah. Hot in there. Did you get your commission at the same time? 

I got my commission later, in the end of June. There was some paperwork messed up. And I actually got commissioned at Howard University, because I had gone back home by then. 

So it was a whole separate thing then? 

Yeah. 

So I finished the ROTC, and they said, okay, all the paperwork's done, now I get commission. Where's the nearest place you can do it? 

Well, Howard University at Air Force ROTC, too. 

So I contacted them, went there with my parents and family, and I got commissioned by a captain there at Howard. Oh, okay. Did your parents come to your graduation? 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. My parents came. My uncle showed up, and my brother and sister both came, and my family all came to that. It was fun. Yeah, it was good. That's a nice thing to do. Yeah. Had a good weekend there. 

So once you were commissioned, you didn't go right in, though? 

No. I had a time gap, and I worked for IBM. 

How did that come up? 

Well, they had an internship, and I knew I'd have this gap, so I applied for it. 

I told them straight up, I'm going to the Air Force, don't get me thinking you're going to hire me later on, and they said, all right, and I applied for one in Virginia and one at Boca Raton in Florida, and the one in Virginia said, yeah, we'll take you. It was Manassas, Virginia. 

It was where they built their, what they call it, peanut, was their PC, which was way back in the 80s, PC chips, and they had the wafers that they were making for PCs. What kind of job would they give you? 

I was an industrial engineer. I worked in the industrial engineering area there for them. 

And the little project I had was they were working, putting things on the floor, like for, what was it for? 

Some kind of washing or eye washing or something. And they wanted to put as few as possible based on the number of people they had. 

So they gave me that project, and I was sitting with the other industrial engineers. and I've been was it was unusual they had no union which was I thought was good because I worked for a union place for several months and they had a mix of school IE's like me and guys who came from the floor who had been working on the floor for 20 years who are also in the industrial engineering department. 

So we're taking experience and learning. Yeah. And they learn a lot. Did it work? 

It did. 

It worked real good because you know Most of us were smart enough to know when a 20 -year guy spoke, we listened. You know, we didn't say what the book says. No, we sat there and listened to them and picked their brains. Yeah, and what was going on. 

So it was good. In retrospect, it was a year, but it was a good one. Not quite a year, but it was a good time. Yeah, it was a good summer. Yep, it was a good summer there. Did it give you the value of your degree? 

It did. Did you realize that you had done well? 

Oh, I did. And I started to learn. I learned very quickly with the value of Georgia Tech degree, Matt. Because you say that to people, they get, wow, you went there. Isn't that funny? 

It is. Everybody says the same thing. Yeah. It's a wow experience. It is. 

And it was particularly at that time, because at that time in America, it was the quotas were big, you know, unfortunately. And the affirmative action meant quotas. They had numbers, numbers, numbers. And so you came on board, and it was kind of like, okay, you're here because you're a quota kid. And they said, where'd you go to school? 

Georgia Tech. You're like, okay, you're not a quota kid. We just hired you. And it did. It makes a difference, doesn't it? 

It makes a difference. Yeah. And it was, because if you're a quota person, you've got to fight. You've got to battle to show you belong there. 

But the degree from tech meant, okay, you've- We know you're useful. Yeah. You know you've done this already. Come on in. And that's where I first saw that. That's really cool. That's a good application for me to hear. I was glad to hear that. Unfortunately, that quota thing was died down. It was a double -edged sword. A lot of people didn't realize that. Oh, yeah. 

So then it was your, the Air Force said, okay, now you can come. Yeah, I didn't come in. 

And so where did they want you to go? 

I came into Columbus Air Force Base and then I went to Mather Air Force Base in California for Navigator School. That was my next question. What were you applying to be? 

I started trying to be a pilot and didn't finish that. Because what? 

I couldn't land a T-38. You couldn't? 

Couldn't land it. Oh, not good to go and not be able to come back. Yeah, that's right. I could land a T-37, maybe six months of that, and T-38 couldn't land it. They said, tell you what, the Air Force said, we'll send you to be a navigator. I was like, okay, still flying. My dream was always going to fly. 

So I go to California in Mather Air Force Base. Big difference between Columbus, Mississippi, and Sacramento, California. I bet. And it did quite well. I had a little leg up because I had six months of aviation already. 

So I finished my navigators class quite high. I was like number three graduate of 30 or 40 of us. 

So I got to pick the jet I wanted to go to. to. I ended up going to F-111, so fighters, so I had a good time. 

Mather was a one -year experience, and parties were outrageous, it was like this is the Air Force, this is great, you know. Little did I know, it was a little bit skewed, because you're in a major city. We were lieutenants, single lieutenants, paid, basically overpaid students is what we were. You could do what you wanted, and nobody would do what you wanted. Exactly. Oh, my. 

A whole year of that, huh? 

Yeah, because I went to navigator school and went to electronic warfare officer school. Electronic warfare officers, under -navigated, were the same kind of wings. Their specialty was how to defeat what the enemy had to shoot our planes down. And that's what electronic warfare was about. Is it all computer -based or radar-based? 

Mostly radar, infrared-type stuff as well. 

So there's a lot to learn. Yeah, and you learn a lot. 

So there's an extra four-month or five-month school. I stayed for that. And that was just fun, too. Because you study hard. You had to stay in a building. You couldn't take stuff home with you because it was all classified. 

So you go to that building to study. 

So you're learning something different. Yeah, and you had simulators you go in. YOU WOULD SIMULATE BEING SHOT AT. YOU WOULD SIMULATE WHAT YOU WOULD DO IF YOUR PLANE WAS BEING SHOT AT. SO YOU GUYS ARE REALLY, REALLY TRAINED, HUH? 

YEAH. WE'RE TRAINED. IT WAS THE ONLY THING AT THE SCHOOL AT METHER, THE BASE, THAT ACTUALLY DEALT WITH AN ENEMY. EVERYTHING ELSE WAS JUST PURE NAVIGATION. BACK IN THOSE DAYS, NAVIGATION WAS, GPS WASN'T OUT YET. OH, WHAT? 

IT WAS MY AGE OUT NOW, YEAH. GPS WASN'T OUT YET. We did a lot of things by Doppler radar, how fast you're going over the ground. We actually did sextants. We'd shoot the sun and the stars. We did night celestial navigation in an aircraft. Does anybody really still do that? 

I don't think so. I think they may make them do it for training. 

Okay, so you now would know how if you had to. Yeah. At that time, some airplanes were still doing that for a backup. 

And you could fly them over the ocean or whatever, they'd take a little section, pop it through a hole in the top of the jet, and they'd shoot the sun, they'd do all the computations, and they'd figure out where they were within several miles of doing that. Yeah, it was one of those where you'd hate sun. Day celestial navigation was fun, because there was only one sun. Sure enough, night celestial, you find a star. You've got to find the right star. Yeah, well, that's a little more confusing. Yeah, you look through the little light, and there's two stars equal distance apart. You've got to pick one of them. You're not sure which one's the right one. It never worked out good. 

Of course, there's always some guy who, the tail of the jet had a little white light on the back of it, and he'd end up shooting the tail of the airplane. Which would get him nowhere. That's right. Yeah, very stable, but it wasn't what you wanted. 

So it was... Isn't that fun? 

It was a good time. 

So this is going now, you're into your second year of training. Yeah, in the Air Force, and I got the plane that I wanted. And they took us from there, but they sent us down to another Air Force Base, Holloman. And it was called fighter lead-in training. And it was a fighter jet, so a small jet, two-engine, and he put us in the back seat. And our only job was to not get sick. It was 11... Not get sick because of dodging, you mean? 

Yeah, from flying and all that kind of stuff. 

But for the navigators. At that point, we were called WIZOs, Weapons Systems Officers. And because we're a fighter navigator, it's called a WIZO. And we go down there, and the pilots were there, too. This is the first time we got to meet with student pilots. And they were in the front seat, and we were in the back seat. Is it hard not to get sick? 

Some guys, yeah. How about you? 

It didn't make you sick? 

Not really. Everybody has been sick. Everybody's like, they've never been sick. They're telling you a story. It's something that's going to make you sick. Usually it was heat that got to me. It was hot. Oh, so you could get nauseous. Yeah, you could, yeah. Or trying to keep my head down too long. 

But not regularly. I've never had a lot of air sickness. 

But you fly around. Yeah, fortunately, yeah. 

You fly around, and it was just fun, too, because the pilot training regimen for that was very difficult. 

It was cheaper for the Air Force to put a young pilot in this small plane than to put him in a more expensive fighter. And they trained him the basics in this small plane. For the Wizos, for me, there wasn't anything for us to do in that small plane. Yeah, but they said, we'll put you in here just for some basic airmanship. 

So you get more hours in the air. Yeah, and we did that, and it was just fun. We'd fly around. We've had instructors in the front seat sometimes, student pilots in the front seat sometimes. You've got a lot of airtime here now. Yeah, we've got about 11 hours, 11 flights. That's all we've been there for a week. And we had like two classes, two training classes. And then it's like, anytime you see a plane you can get into, get into it. And they call and say, hey, yeah. Oh, that's what they wanted you to do. Yeah, the plane with an empty back seat jumped in. Because the more you ride, the better the more you ride, the better the more you ride. The better, yep. And we do that. We had a blast. And at night, we talked to the pilots. 

So you were thinking, well, maybe I did the right thing. Yeah. It was kind of fun. Yeah, I liked it okay. It was kind of fun. 

And we got to actually meet some of the pilots who we were going to be flying with in training because we talked to guys, you know, I'm going to F-111s next, where are you guys going to? 

We meet guys going to F-111s. I've met guys like 15 years later who I flew with, you know, who I got to fly with. Yeah, I was in his back seat. like I remember you were at home yeah it's like yeah I remember that in the flight the flight we did you know it was it's pretty good is a small small community ends up being but that lasted about a week then they sent us to a survival training and land survival was in Washington State it was cold and they this is like if the ultimate happens yeah yeah you jacked out yeah Yeah, you'd eject. 

So they want you to what? 

Know how to survive? 

Know how to survive. Yeah, you had to take a parachute and turn it into a tent. And they taught us all the things you could eat. You know, you eat ants, and it tastes like lemon drops, you know. And they'd kill a rabbit, and we'd eat it. And a group of eight of us. And of course, they always gave the most schemish person a rabbit. They're here, kill the rabbit so we can eat. And we were all hungry. And the person delayed a second. It was like one of the guys in here, boom, bap. You know, it's time to eat. there was no there was no compassion we were only good rabbit food that day and enjoyed it and that was survival training and it's got snowed on do they do you got snowed on yeah we did they do you have the proper they brought it out yeah they brought it up for that it's okay you got a snowman's we're bringing they brought us sleeping bags and then the next day we did the um we had the evasion training and that was if you ejected behind enemy lines how you could get away and they trained us oh really yeah yeah i wonder how effective that was yeah it was kind of one of those where you know i'm going to be flying an airplane where the whole capsule comes out i don't think they have a hard time finding us but we did it anyway and we went through it it's all part of the deal i mean you have to be as strong as you can be and so it's part of the strengthening process yeah it was it WHAT AN ADVENTURE TO BE REMEMBERED. SO CRAIG, THEY TAUGHT YOU HOW TO SURVIVE IF YOU PARACHUTE IT OUT OR IF YOU REJECT IT OUT. AND THEN THEY TAUGHT YOU HOW TO EVADE THE ENEMY. ALTHOUGH I DON'T KNOW, LIKE YOU SAID, YOU WERE PRETTY CONSPICUOUS IF THAT WERE THE CASE. SO THEN WHAT CAME NEXT? 

AFTER THAT THEY TAUGHT US WE HAD TO WATER SURVIVAL. OH, THAT'S REAL. Yes, they sent us down to Miami, Homestead Air Force Base was a real Air Force base then. And we did water survival. 

So we went from cold Washington to warm Miami. Did they literally make you jump out or be trapped in the water? 

No, we did parasailing. They put us behind a boat with a parachute and the speedboat kicked off. 

And the same thing people pay 50 bucks or whatever to do down here, the Air Force would do it for free. 

So you would feel what it was like to be in the air to come back? 

It goes up in the air and then you pull a little little lanyard and you drop and you're on a parachute and you land in the water and they come by and get your parachute. 

That's a pretty clever way and a lot cheaper than taking an airplane after dropping you from $10 a day or something. Oh, okay. 

Yep, so we did that and you climb them to your little life raft and they come pick you up in a boat a little bit later. That reminds me, I never asked you, did you take drone proofing when you were at Tech? 

Yes, I did. 

So you were ready anyway. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I could swim, and I took you around proofing, too, yeah. 

Okay, well, I should have asked you that when you were there. Is that still a requirement? 

It was still when you were there. Yeah, it was, definitely. It wasn't until 1986. Wow, all right. 

So it lasted a long time. 

Was it brutal when you were there? 

Did they tie your hands and make you swim underwater? 

We did, I remember the rubber brick, white rubber brick, had to do that, and we did something else with it. I think we were hands were tied. And you had to go underwater. Yeah, had to go underwater back and forth, yep. Right. And it was mandatory. You didn't pass it. You were out. Oh, yeah. I had some friends who were really worried about that. And they shouldn't. That's right. Because they didn't know how to swim. And I was like... 

But by the time you got down to Air Force Miami, you were fine. I was ready. Yeah. I was ready for that. And they had the little life preservers on and everything else. It was... Water survival was fun, plus it was in Miami. 

So, of course, we managed to get down to Miami Beach at night, you know. And we had a good time there. And it was... Go to the Air Force and see all the hot spots. Yeah, it was starting off good. It was starting off fun. Then what next? 

Then after that, we finally got to, went to our base where we were training. It was Mountain Home, Idaho. Idaho? 

Idaho, and it was a F-111 base. That's a remote place. Yeah, it was about 50 miles to the east, I think, east of Boise. I can't remember east or west of Boise, but 50 miles from Boise, Idaho. And it's isolated, you're right. They didn't have a McDonald's. I had never been to a city in America that didn't have a McDonald's. And that kind of, that's what I kind of figured. Yeah, that's pretty remote. Yeah, that kind of hit, like, wow, we're really out of here. Yeah. And there was tumbleweed going across the road. And a group of three or four of us lived together. We were all students going through training at the same time. And the training lasted six months. Long six months. Yeah, long six months there. The flying was fun. The flying, as you were students. 

But you weren't partying every night there. No, not there. Not so much. Yeah. Not so much. 

You go home, watch TV, study a little bit, and the flying part, they had a lot of classes and they needed to go fly. I think I remember from classes, one of the classes they had was about spinning the aircraft. 

The F-111, they said to get into a spin, they had given us training on spinning an airplane at May 3rd. Basically, the plane's out of control. 

You do something weird with it and there's no airflow going on the wind, so the plane starts spinning, falling and spinning. And you do a certain procedure, the plane recovers, and you fly out of it. And they showed us a film of the F-111 when the test pilots were doing this. They had a parachute in the back of it. And the pilots did the same thing. 

They got it weird, flew the plane straight up, did something strange with it, and the plane got into a flat spin. And then they popped the parachute. The parachute just ripped right off. And then the next thing you know, the test pilots were ejecting. And they said, this is why you don't spin the F-111. 

And they said, if you ever lose control, get out of the airplane, because you will not recover the F-111, so I said, okay, we'll remember that. 

So that was the spin testing and the ejection system testing all at the same time. 

That was one of the things I remember from training, and flying with older pilots, colonels and such who smoked and it was it was the uh taken off you know the young lieutenant flying with the colonel seems to get in the air he pulls a little can out puts on the dashboard like a cigarette are they allowed to do that not now they're not back in those days they could yeah oh my god you're trapped with it yeah and his gear up fight the cigarette up and and and he's just FLYING. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY TO HIM? 

HE'S A COLONEL. BUT THEY WERE FUN. BECAUSE RANK IS EVERYTHING IN MILITARY. AND THE PLANE IS A LITTLE BIT DIFFERENT AS YOU GET CLOSER, BUT A COLONEL IS ALWAYS A COLONEL. WHETHER YOU'RE AN AIRPLANE OR NOT, HE'S ALWAYS A COLONEL. BUT IT WAS FUN. THOSE GUYS, YOU COULD TELL THEY REALLY ENJOYED FLYING. because there's a lot of paperwork so when they got to fly it was a break for them so they were very the colonel yeah they were not doing that and they were enthusiastic and they loved teaching yeah i learned more from the colonels probably than i did from anybody else um they said you ever do a ridge crossing before and i was like no sir and he went over this over this mountain and just turned the plane upside down i'm looking like okay this is gonna be fun you know and we had it It was a good time. 

How long altogether were you trained? 

How many years? 

The training took a total of about two years. Two whole years? 

That's what it sounds like. Yeah. By the time I got to England- Was that where your first assignment? 

My first real assignment was. Yeah. I was easily a first lieutenant. Yeah. First lieutenant. Way into being a first lieutenant. That's like two years. 

So, yeah. 

By the time I got there, it was six months at F-111s and in a year or so it navigated and other stuff. 

So, yeah, it was about two years of training. And so what was your first assignment? 

England, you said? 

England, yeah, Upper Hayford. It was called RAF, Royal Air Force, Upper Hayford, was the name of the base. And technically it was a British base. They were all Americans, and we had like two Brits on the base. 

Okay, so it was a Kurdish. Oh, really? 

That much? 

Oh, yeah. Yeah, they said two of them on the base as a British wing commander. Because it was a, you know, the British were letting us use their base. Right. And for what purpose? 

To reconnaissance? 

No, it was a, that one was a bomber. It was a fighter bomber. and we were there for the Cold War. We had targets already selected. If the Cold War had started, we knew exactly where we were going to be the first day. 

So you were a standby for whatever might happen. Yeah, we were there for the Cold War. How long were you stationed there? 

Three years. Oh, that's a long time. Did you get a chance to see the target? 

Oh, yeah. We had a lot of attention in England. Probably the best chips I got was Berlin before the wall went down. It was because Berlin was part of World War II, it was separated into four sections. the Russians couldn't stop us from going there so they took us on an airplane into Berlin and when we wore uniforms we were allowed to go on the other side because it was still because all the World War two rules were still in effect so the Russians were considered allies back in that part so we got to go see east the east side of Berlin so you're on one side of the wall and all the murals are drawn on the wall and you drive through Check Point Charlie and went through that and you look back at the wall, it's pure white. And they said, it's pure white, so they can see who they're shooting at, if somebody tries to escape. Oh, they can see. 

And it's a big, big, yeah, and it's a big open area, and it was, it was, they said they had mines in it, and all this kind of stuff. And it's like, you're doing all this to keep people in your country. Something's wrong with that. And they took us to these stores, and the shelves were empty. And even if it was, they'd be- So you saw for yourself just how bad the situation was. Yeah, we did, yeah, how bad that was, and how much of a farce it was. 

They said the people would, one town would give up their crops or whatever so that Berlin would have, be able to show Westerners how good it was. You know, we could eat lunch there and that sort of thing. It was, it was, yeah, you got to see how bad it was. That's exactly what it was. You got to see how bad communism really was. And you got to see part of World War II you hadn't thought about. There were a lot of memorials on that side in the Battle of Berlin that the U. S. didn't take part in. The Russians and the Germans fought that one. Yeah, it was pretty ******, very and brutal. 

But the Russians lost so many people. They lost a lot of people. 

There's a statue, I remember, of a Russian soldier and a kid, and they said they put that up because so many soldiers were shot, both sides, were shot trying to rescue kids. You know, the kid in the middle of the street, a soldier goes to pull him out before he gets killed. And so they had a big memorial for that. 

But it was a brutal, brutal fight. You had been to Germany before, but not under those circumstances. Yeah, not to where I could see and understood exactly what was going on. Did you get to visit any of London at all? 

Lots of times. 

Now that's a wonderful place to go. Yeah, it is. Because we were about an hour or so from London, Upper Hayford. 

So we were about 20 minutes north of Oxford, so we'd go to Oxford and see stuff. Oh, so that was a good gig. Yeah, it was great. Because we'd go, and there was a Navy base outskirts of London. We'd drive the car there, park on the Navy base, go get in the tube, and go downtown anywhere. Oh, yeah. That was a really good time. It was a great three years there doing that. Didn't get to see Scotland as much as I wanted. I wanted to go further up into Scotland and see that, but I didn't. At the same time, I was there. My brother was an Army pilot. He was stationed in Germany flying Army planes. 

So did you get to visit with him? 

Yep. I met him in Spain. His unit was in Spain training, and I got to take a plane down to Spain and have lunch. That's what that means. Yeah, that's really neat. 

So we landed in Spain and got to have lunch and meet all his buddies down there. And we flew back home to England. Isn't that something? 

And then he flew over to England once. Only could the military make that happen. Yeah, that's right. Only the military could make that happen. 

So it was good. Got to go to Denmark. We had a squadron exchange with one of their units and had a great time there. 

So the Air Force was working out pretty good. Yeah, I had a good time there. 

Now you're into your third year of it. 

But were you thinking career then, or were you still thinking, ah, I might get out in four years? 

I was thinking career then. I was having fun. You really did enjoy it. Yeah, I was enjoying the flying part. Couldn't really think of what else I really wanted to do. Because for me, I was living the dream. That's what I dreamed of doing. And you were comfortable because it was so familiar, too. Yeah, yeah. 

What was your next gig? 

The next one from there, I stationed at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico. Again, in the middle of nowhere. That's like another country. Yeah, it was. It's on the Texas -New Mexico border, what I call brown Texas. 

If you go to Dallas and Houston nice and green, at some point Texas turns brown. And that was the brown part of Texas. And New Mexico is just like another world. It is. It's so different. They call it High Plains, which is, excuse me, it's cold, a cold desert. Albuquerque's are two and a half hours away. You go there, it's a long drive. It is a long drive. And it's just a very strange difference. YOU KNOW YOU'RE SOME PLACE DIFFERENT. YEP. AND OF COURSE THE TOWN LOVES HAVING THE MILITARY THERE BECAUSE OF MONEY. THEY BRING A LOT OF MONEY IN. SO YOU'RE WELCOME AS ALL GET OUT. YEAH, FOR YOUR MONEY. BUT NOT FOR ANYTHING ELSE. THEY WEREN'T MAKING FRIENDS. YEAH, EXACTLY. THEY WEREN'T SETTING UP A LOT OF THINGS. THEY HAD NO DATING SERVICES. THEY HAD THREE LIQUOR LICENSES AND SOMEBODY OWNED ALL THREE OF THEM AND DIDN'T OPEN THE STORE. AND IT WAS CAUSING PROBLEMS BECAUSE PLACES LIKE RED So there was no place? 

No place, yeah. It was bad for the young people there. It had the highest suicide rate in the U. S. That sounds funny. It was tough on the young people. I wanted you to stay there. I was there for two and a half or three years. 

You really were the whole assignment? 

Yeah, I did that and I went back there again for a second assignment when my plane moved. 

So you've played your part in purgatory. Yeah, I have. I've done that. And it was just a, it was cold. That's where I thought about getting out. There was times I did look at Atlanta, the Naval Air Station Atlanta was flying A-6s. And I actually sent them an application. 

I thought about getting out of the Air Force and going to fly the Navy and A-6s at that time because the Georgia Guard had gotten rid of the F-105s, I think they had, or F-4s they had. 

But the Navy was flying A6s, which took two people. It was very similar to the plane that I was flying. And I seriously thought about getting out and doing that at the time. 

But somehow they didn't respond and the time went by? 

They didn't respond and I changed planes. There's a storm happened about that time frame. We were supposed to go. Our unit was, bags were packed, ready to go. Had all our shots, had lots of shots. And the cargo planes never showed up to take us. 

I'm like, what's going on? 

And what had happened was the planes in NATO, England, had said, you can go to the war. NATO has released them. 

So they took the planes from England and left us in New Mexico. Even war looked good to you. Yeah, exactly. 

What had happened was they took our, they took a bunch of our military police and a bunch of our nurses, went to the war. 

So the joke we had was, you know, our base sent our women and children to war. We didn't send the men to war, we sent the women and children. What were the children with? 

Okay. 

So it was an embarrassing time. Because you don't want there to be a war, but if there is one, that's what you're trained to do. You want to be there. Yeah, and it was, so we stayed home. 

And it was, that summer was tough, because you go to an air show, you do air shows, and people will say, wow, did you guys fight in the war? 

You say, no. And it looked just like you were a coward. Like, it wasn't our choice. It wasn't like we didn't want to go. No, they don't allow hot -******* in the war. You've got to be part of the unit. You've got to be part of the unit, you know, and people didn't understand that. They're like, they thought the whole Air Force went. No, we didn't send the whole Air Force to the war. We don't send the whole Air Force. 

So it was bad. We had one pilot who actually just couldn't take it. We were in an elevator in Tampa, and we were picking a plane somewhere. 

And these two ladies got in the elevator, and they said, you guys are Air Force, right? 

Because we were on flight. She said, yes, ma'am. Did you guys go in the war? 

And he said, yes, ma'am, we did. And when they got off, he said, I couldn't take it anymore. I just couldn't take it. Those two old ladies had never known the difference anyway. I was just so tired of saying and explaining why we didn't go to the war. No, I would have said that. You were justified. 

So what happened next? 

So then, I had been here about two and a half years. 

And because I had gone to the electronic warfare officer training, I was qualified to go to a different airplane. very similar looking airplane but it had a different mission it jammed enemy radars and they said you want to go to this parents plane I said well get me out of cannon so I'll go do it you know and I did that so I went back to that mountain home Idaho which is where the training was and the planes were based there as well and I went there for training and training took about two months three months I was already doing a plane there's a different piece of equipment in front of me and I did that mission and I figured with that plane I NEVER BE LEFT BEHIND AGAIN. BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR, YOU JUST MIGHT GET IT. BECAUSE I DEPLOYED A LOT FROM THAT AIRPLANE. I WENT ALL OVER TO DIFFERENT THEATERS AND DID DIFFERENT THINGS. TWO MONTHS OF TRAINING IN THAT, I WAS QUALIFIED IN THAT AIRCRAFT. AND THEN, EXCUSE ME, SINCE THE WAR WAS OVER, WE WERE DOING A NO -FLY ZONE ENFORCEMENT. WHAT'S YOUR RESPONSIBILITY IN THAT? 

IN THAT AIRPLANE, WHAT WE DID WAS, WE JAMMED RADARS. 

THE FIRST PLANE, WE DROPPED BOMB FROM THIS PLANE, WE SO WE WERE TO EXCORT THE FIGHTERS IN AND OUR JOB WAS TO JAM THE ENEMY RADAR SO THEY COULDN'T SEE OUR PLANES. OH, I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW THEY DID SOMETHING LIKE THAT. SO YOU WERE UP IN THE AIR ALL THE TIME. YEAH, UP IN THE AIR. 

AND THE RADAR UP ON THE GROUND WOULD TURN THE RADAR ON AND TRIED TO FIND OUR PLANES SO HE COULD DIRECT HIS PLANES TO IT OR DIRECT HIS ENEMY MISSILES TO IT. AND WE WOULD JAM IT SO HE COULDN'T SEE OUR GUYS. SO IT WAS JUST PART OF THE... SO DO YOU FLY HIGH THEN? you're above them or? 

We're actually beside the fighters. 

So we're flying kind of with them a lot of times. Sometimes we're behind them. Sometimes we're in front of them. 

But the idea is... 

So it's a formation. Yeah, a formation. You're staying right with them all the time. Yeah, right with them. 

When they say no fly, what do they mean by that? 

Well, we had the, what was going on in Iraq at the time. Excuse me. Yeah, it was Iraq. They had a southern no fly zone and a northern no fly zone. 

And what we were doing was the Iraqis were not allowed to fly any airplanes south of a certain latitude line, and we patrolled it to make sure they couldn't fly any airplanes, and the reason was they had Shiites were down there, and we were trying to protect the Shiites from Saddam Hussein. This was after the war. And up north they had the, I just lost the name for them, the people in the northern Iraq. Oh, oh, the Kurds. The Kurds, yeah, the Kurds were being protected, and we couldn't let the Iraqi Air Force go there. 

So you get a lot of air hours. Yeah, you did. I've got a lot. Yeah, I've got over 100 missions doing that. 

So we fly. That's what they're talking about doing in Libya now. They're trying to do that, really? 

They said they're going to create lone fly zones in Libya. 

So that means that very same thing then. Let's go up there. And make sure they don't fly. 

So they can't leave their country then. 

Well, the airplanes, the main thing we were doing was making sure the airplanes didn't come down and bomb the Shiites or the Well, that's probably the same thing they're going to do. Yeah, exactly. Keep the warplanes out. I wasn't sure what that meant, so that's good. Thank you for explaining that. And we patrolled those. And there were a couple of incidents where we'd bomb them because they'd do something. 

So it was active warfare, man. Kind of. Not that much. 

How many hours at a time in the air? 

We'd go probably like four hours, three, four hours at a time on these missions. We were based in Saudi Arabia. 

So it was over, and then it's like a day's work. Yeah, it was, which was, being in Saudi Arabia was a good thing. Flying was great, because you're actually doing the flying you're trained to do. That you were trained to do, yeah. When you're on the ground, no fun. Being in a Muslim country was different, and particularly Christmas time. We didn't have any lights out, we didn't have anything, you know. No Christian symbols were allowed, no crosses. It's part of being respectful of their culture. Yeah, exactly. 

So it was kind of tough. 

Did the military give you training on that so you would understand it? 

We had some training on some of that. We did. We had some, when you first got there, you had training on what you can and can't do. Because it's a very different culture. It is. You know, about showing your heel. 

Maybe even showing your heel to don't do this to, you know, from a different, whole different meaning to them than it is to us. Yeah. And that sort of thing. And they had, you didn't do as much cultural exchange kind of stuff. There were some Saudis that come on the base and would talk to people. IT'S PRETTY ISOLATED. YEAH, IT IS. AND YOU'RE VERY ISOLATED. THE FIRST TIME I WAS THERE, WE SHARED A SQUADRON BUILDING WITH THE ASADI AIR FORCE. NICE. AND THEY HAD MARBLE FLOORS, A FOUT, AND IT'S LIKE, THIS IS A SQUADRON BUILDING. THEY GOT BIG BUCKS. THEY GOT BUCKS. YEAH, THEY HAD THE BUCKS. THEY PUT US OFF IN A LITTLE BUILDING SOMEWHERE. BUT WE WALKED AROUND, WE WERE LIKE, WOW, THAT WAS NICE. YEAH, IT WAS VERY NICE. 

CAME BACK THE NEXT TIME, THEY HAD US DOWN IN A LITTLE and then they moved us out to the other side of base. The flying was fun and you flew with different airplanes. You got to meet guys with different airplanes. 

And there's always a natural, there's camaraderie, but there's also a natural competition between different airplanes. You talk about each of those airplanes all the time. We gotta do something? 

Exactly. 

So we had a good time. 

You ended up doing a lot of no-fly zones because when we talked, we talked about no-fly in Iraq, no-fly in Bosnia. Yeah, and Bosnia was started off as no-fly and turned into combat. Oh, it did turn into combat there. Yeah, because of the, we were there doing the no-fly zone stuff. This is like 94, 95. We're based in Italy and we fly over that and they shot down Scott O'Grady, the Bosnians did. I forgot about that. Yeah, we were there when I was there when that happened. And I remember flying for like five straight days trying to find him. I thought he was dead, to tell you the truth. And I remember taking off one day saying, hey, we need to get you guys airborne. We were the number two. We had two planes in the air already. You guys need to get airborne. 

So we get airborne, take off, heading down the Adriatic, heading towards Bosnia. Here on the radio, I said, we got him. He's got some slight burns on his neck, but we got him. And they had rescued him. Wow. I forgot that story. Yeah, and it was surprising to us because we flew every day trying to find him, looking for him. And we flew out to other fighters, and they'd be calling his name and all kinds of stuff. And that one day, I guess, the Marines went in and just grabbed him, bright daylight, very brave. They pulled him out, big celebration. He was the perfect guy afterwards. He made some mistakes when he got shot down. 

But afterwards, he was a perfect poster guy to have. 

If I had gotten shot down by somebody and they rescued me, I wouldn't be quite as friendly on TV about it. 

So what did you do to him? 

Did you go back and bomb him? 

What happened? 

He was just kind of very humble and happy to be rescued. He was a great PR guy for that. Great PR guy for that. And so then there was retaliation? 

No, there wasn't after that. It It was real quiet. 

I came home for a month, the no-fly zone stuff continued, went back, and then I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when the Bosnians or somebody sent a shell into a marketplace and killed like 16 or something people. Oh, innocent people. Innocent people. 

And then all the atrocities came out, and NATO finally said, we've got enough, we're picking a side, and Bosnia, we're going to start ******* you guys. and for about 11 days it was a war and what happened what made this war last so short was as soon as NATO which was a part of NATO started ******* the Bosnians the Croatians and the Muslim forces that were left started to attack on the ground so now they've got the biggest air force supporting them in the air while they're attacking on the ground they were smart they were very smart when they did that and the Bosnians were starting to lose losing all the land they had built up And they quickly came to the peace table. Within like six or seven days, they were in Ohio talking to the Americans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that in Ohio. Yeah, and that's what caused it, because they were getting tore up. 

They had forced probably to beat the Croatians, but when they were getting bombed by NATO, they were losing. That was kind of the difference between the Kosovo War and the Bosnia War. There was no ground force in Kosovo. That's why it lasted so long. There was a ground force in Bosnia, and the Croatians were really getting... 

Well, NATO on the ground was not armed. No, NATO didn't do anything right now. 

So they weren't helpful at all. Exactly. 

But in the air, they were definitely armed. Very, yeah. 

We had, I got to hear the first female fighter pilot, she was Dutch or Danish, and we were flying around, you know, jamming radars, and we'd hear this female call sign, *****, which was her call sign, and she was rolling in and ******* a tank. We were like, did you hear that? 

I'm in a war. 

It was just, yeah, this was, you know, because we had women who were on AWACS talking, but But we had never had any fighter pilot women at that point. We have them now, but at that point we didn't have any in combat. And we heard her do that, and I was like, that's different, you know? 

It was cool. 

Well, you were getting plenty of air time, weren't you? 

We got plenty of air time. 

What's the, when they come to you at a certain point and say, you're enlisted on the stop, do they give you an incentive to re-up? 

Hmm. 

I mean, do you do it four years at a time, or do you come in? 

It was, let me think, I had a six-year commitment after training. Every time you move, you get like a two-year commitment. And every time you take classes, you get a two-year commitment. 

So I think with classes and everything else I was doing, I always had a commitment of some sort. Okay. 

But I could have, if I really wanted to, I probably could have gotten out at 10, 10 or 12, about that or even later. 

But by that time, it was too much invested. Yeah, exactly. I was going to stay in and stay in for the long haul. Which you did. Yeah, I did. Yeah, I did. Which you did. I did, yep. 

What was your decision at 23 years? 

Why did you leave after 23 years? 

At 23 years, what I got out was they had, they were trying to get rid of people. They still are. Because the Air Force was drawing down. Afghanistan and Iraq are Army wars. And the Air Force. 

So there was no need for as much further. Yeah, in the Air Force. 

So the Air Force was getting smaller, so the other guys would get bigger. 

Did they give incentive to do that, like they do in the real world? 

Well, the incentive was, we'll let you leave and not take any of the money we gave you back. Because I was getting a bonus at that time. The Air Force had gotten rid of too many people, too many aviators, and they were giving us bonuses. And it was weird. I had been in 19 years already. 

So I was definitely going to stay in. I'm not going to leave at 19. I got 20 and get a retirement. Oh, no. And they're going to throw $15,000 at me to stay in for three more years. Take it. 

Okay, sure, I'll take it. And I stayed in, and at the 23-year point, they said, hey, we need guys to get out. We're going to have a selective early retirement board. We're going to look for guys, and we're going to throw them out. Or you can just get out on your own with no commitment. I was like, well, I'll just pick my own date to get out. 

If you don't need me anymore, I'll get out. 

So I said, I'll just go ahead and get out. Don't need to meet the board. You know, if they tell me to leave, I'll get out. And I got out in May, or June 1st, I guess, 2007. 

Was that a shock? 

I mean, to have a different, all of a sudden, you're responsible for yourself? 

Yeah, a little bit, a little bit, yeah. I was kind of prepared for it. Did you have a good plan? 

Mm-hmm, I did. What was your plan? 

Worked here. I was already working in the same office, and thought a lot of guys had done this. 

Well, how did, I mean, you had to apply to go to GTRI. Yep, I did. 

I had applied to go to GTRI, but I had other things out as well, other resumes out for contractors, because of what I had done. and I had Bob Beasley. He's my boss. I had worked with GTRI before in 1999. After I stopped flying, one of the jobs I was doing was training. And I worked with the GTRI group in Tucson. 

So you already had some networking. Yes. And what I noticed was I really like working with these guys. They're professional as it does in Tucson. Very professional organization and easy to work with. And they just did good work. 

So sent out an application to come back in and as a research scientist is really what you are. Yeah. 

Now Georgia Tech Research Institute has really strong ties with the military. They do, yeah. And we have a part I'm with is the Air National Guard Program Office. 

So we're still very strong ties with the military. Yeah. And you've got all the connections too. Yeah. And I worked in the same office. 

Um, so I had actually been in that squadron, um, for five or six years, a year in Korea, and I came back. 

And I had been like the operations office, second in command for a short period of time, temporary, but we had a gap between some people. 

So I knew the squadron pretty well, and they knew me quite well. And so when I was retiring and Bob said, come talk to us. I was like, sure. I knew GTRI. I'd been to the campus in the military for some classes they had held. I'd taken several GTRI classes, or not GTRI classes, but the classes that Georgia Tech has. 

So I knew the organization quite well. 

So it was a drastic change. It was a drastic change. I knew who I didn't want to work for. 

There's a particular contractors that I'd worked with after I flew, and I didn't like how they did business. They kind of milked the military. 

They told us whatever we wanted to hear, and they came back with, oh, we'll say it costs us much more for that. See, now that's a valuable experience, too. It is. 

Yeah, because it was just, it was like, you know, oh, you want to air in your tires, you know, kind of selling you a car kind of thing. Come on. You knew we needed this. Why are you guys dragging us along? 

And I won't say the company's names, you know, but... DO YOU WORK WITH CONTRACTORS IN THE CURRENT POSITION YOU'RE IN? 

VERY RARELY. RARELY. YEAH. VERY RARELY. THE GTRI, WE'RE A DIFFERENT KIND OF CONTRACTOR. WE SIT SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE MILITARY, WE'RE KIND OF LIKE WHITE HAT. AND I LIKE THAT. WE SUPPORT THEM. WE'RE NOT TRYING TO SELL THEM ANYTHING. SO IT WORKS OUT GOOD. THEIR RELATIONSHIPS ARE REALLY STRONG. 

ONE OF THE THINGS I WANT TO GO BACK TO, WE TALKED ABOUT, YOU LIVED IN LAS VEGAS FOR A WHILE, AND YOU GOT INVOLVED WITH THE TUSKEGEE AIRMENT. Yeah, I did. You've heard I've been stationed in New Mexico, Idaho. I finally got stationed in a real base, in the city. And I was doing training there, building training material for guys for Toronto Corpair. 

And when I got there, Tuskegee Airmen were having a convention, and I just did something around and found a local chapter and said I wanted to join. Next thing I know, I'm the president of that chapter. 

What did they do? 

And what was the point of the organization? 

The organization, at that point, was to try to get young people, minorities in particular, young people all together, into science, science and math, and maybe aviation. And using Tuskegee Airmen as a role model for that? 

As a role model, yeah, exactly. That's really cool. Yep, and we had... 

So you were working with young people then? 

Yeah, and we did two big projects. We had a convention there, and we did that, and that was all fun. We got to meet some great, great guys. The guys are all homeboys. You talked to some of them before. Great guys. 

And the projects we did, though, we had one project where we got United Airlines to donate an airplane for an evening at McCarran Airport. This was before 9-11, so this was, you know, fairly good. 

But they had a plane that was done flying for the day. They brought out an all-black crew, flight attendants, pilots, ticket person, everybody. 

And we got kids from the local area and the school district, but buses, bringing the kids to the airport. we got them all through security it was much easier back then mostly black and hispanic kids and put them on a plane and they flew them around for 45 minutes and the door was open the kids cycled up to the front to see the cockpit again it's all pre-9-11 so you could do things like this you know the kids all went to the front of the plane and got to see the see the pilots flying an opportunity they would never never get they got this they got to see you know hey yeah minority but you can do things other than play basketball you know you can see this you can see you can do this there's only a few of you that are going to play exactly you want to tell them that you can't all go to american idol you got to do other stuff you know yeah that's a great way to do it and it was it was it was fun and you just inspired them then to advocate to something higher yeah and i was just trying to expose them to that that was i didn't even realize that they had chapters all over the country they do just you know just about them here in Atlanta but it's not no the chapters all over probably 15 or 20 chapters it's hard to keep chapter yes best be a major city because we were losing chapters any other really good goal it is we had that and we did some the same kind of rate is so high you know and if they can advocate for a career they might not they have a dream they want to do something yeah yeah if we get good for you for doing that that's great it was fun that's probably the biggest the biggest highlight of being there being a president and that meeting some of the some of the original guys they're all humble cool great stories yeah that's wonderful so um you moved to Florida after you got out and your group you're associated with actually is on the base it's Eglin yes yep we're the base And it was actually I came to Eglin, it was my second time being stationed here. 

I was stationed at Eglin in, I came back in like 2002, 2003, worked in the squadron, went to Korea for a year, worked in the plans section there, and then came back here and retired. And so it was great being here. It's not that big of a change. Exactly. 

And unlike my life, where I've moved all over the place, my daughter has been in school in the same school system all seven years, all seven, grade eight, I guess, kind of kindergarten. 

So she's had friends that she's known for years, you know, it's different. It's interesting to watch because I get to see her and her friends grow up. And it's a whole difference. Since we're talking about that, let's talk about your daughters. You have two daughters. Yes. Tell me about Bianca. Bianca was, she's 25, lives in Atlanta. She was born in 1985. not really all that close unfortunately wasn't around with her mom when she was growing up so kind of kept in touch and did the extended parent parent kind of thing yeah that's true too where where did she go to school school in Atlanta didn't didn't finish college go to college just high school and has worked several jobs there there in Atlanta do you stay in touch with her now? 

Not very much. Not very much. Yeah, not very much, unfortunately. We've kind of gifted apart. 

What about Carrie? 

Carrie, she was born here in Florida, went to Las Vegas with us for three years there, and then came back here. And she's been here in Collimator? 

Yeah, in Fort Wall Beach the whole time. 

So she's had a very stable life. 

She's had a very stable living living here and she she plays uh plays basketball for the middle school and plays um clarinet she made the all -state band good for her yeah she's only 12 years old 12 years old yeah she made the all-state band for middle school uh she loves it she has great friends and some are military some are not so you know the ones you know they're gonna move you know and she knows about how that works she had friends who've moved away and come back so she understands how all that goes but yeah great great smart kid she tutors math to the kids yeah I want to keep her keep her doing that and I want to talk to you about your cancer we talked about this before you said you're very open about it you can go in a way you educate when you talk about this yeah when were you diagnosed I was last April I had some stomach pains I went to Google like everybody does type and said appendicitis. I said, this is easy. I'll go get some operation, eat some ice cream. 

So I went to the emergency room on the base. I'm a retiree. He has to go to the hospital on the base. It was a Friday afternoon, and the ER doc felt it. He goes, yeah, it probably has appendicitis, but let me do a CT scan just to be sure. 

So he wheeled me down, and he comes back in, and he says, I wish it was an appendicitis. It's not. 

He's an ER doc, so he couldn't make a diagnosis, but I could tell by his body language it wasn't gonna be good news it'll be cancer and they said you know you can fight this thing kind of do you know you know sticky and he drew out what it was great doc you know and I know I knew he couldn't tell me exactly what it was but he let me know enough did he say the C word did he say it's cash no he just got a problem yeah I got a problem and we're gonna refer you to you're gonna get a phone call on Monday from your primary care physician and they're going to talk to you some more. 

Well, it's a scary weekend waiting. Yeah, but I knew what it was. Did you really? 

Yeah, because the way he was talking, I knew it was cancer. 

And that was the first time you'd had the symptom? 

I had lost a lot of weight, but I'd been trying to lose weight. Ah, it just happened that way. Yeah, and I'd been trying to lose weight, and I'd lost a lot of weight. 

So that masked that was the symptom? 

Yeah, and they say the lower right cancers were the slower ones that show up. It takes its time and it kind of builds up on you. And it was colon cancer. It was colon cancer. I went back in on Monday. It was probably colon cancer. We were doing some biopsies and see what we got. He said the CT scan also showed stuff on the liver. I said, so it's stage four. We can't operate. I said, well, this is great news, you know. And so they did a needle biopsy on the liver to make sure it wasn't liver cancer spreading the colon. And so this is kind of where the denture parts are. I had never seen the insides of a hospital like I had then. 

This guy takes this needle with lidocaine in it and he's sticking it through my ribs to get to the liver. He says, do you feel this? 

He's not going to get pumping lidocaine in it. 

And then he has an intern with Eglin, the Air Force Base here, is a training hospital for the military. 

And so he's taking out pieces of meat and lets the intern do it and they're like, well, this is my turn next. you know everybody gets a chance on it and he did that is you know a good doc and it was not liver cancer it was colon cancer exactly and they told me that and then I met the oncologist on Friday or so when she told me it was stage four one week later and you're already getting a diagnosis everybody yeah they were quick military hospitals take some hits for the other slow and all that but when they need to be they can get very fast yeah and the that you had a diagnosis what was the treatment what were they offering well they were saying they're gonna give me palliative chemotherapy so I said what does that mean it's just gonna keep you alive the idea is we can't cure it it's there so we're just gonna give you chemo that kind of fights it and holds it steady and keeps a good quality of life so the chemo I'm getting is not the type that you lose your hair with and you need shots for red blood cells. You can't attribute your hair to it? 

No, I had lost long before that. 

I was like, wish I would lose it if I was shaving if that was the case, you know, take out the side stuff. No, that's luck. No, I think that's mostly the red tie that comes with breast cancer. Yeah. 

But does it make you sick? 

No, it doesn't. I have problems with hiccups, which is weird. I get the strange side effects. Hiccups really bad during the chemo. 

And people, you know, you go to to the store, try water, try this, and you're like, no, it doesn't work like that. These aren't normal hiccups. It's not those kind of hiccups. No, they're induced. Yeah, exactly. Physically induced. Mm-hmm. 

So what is the treatment? 

How often do you go? 

Well, right now, every other week, I get it. They put a port in my chest. It's only done through IVs. It's a little like an eyeball type thing. It's stuck in my chest, and they popped in the IV right there. They did that surgery, and they also took out six inches of my colon. Oh, they did go in and do some surgery. Yeah. The surgeons here at the base said there's not enough room in his colon for him to be able to pass. 

So they're going to have to take some of it out. They took six inches out of the colon. That helped a lot. And then what else happened in between, they did the first CT scan and the lesions started to shrink. They sent me an MD Anderson in Texas, the cancer place. Yeah, that's a tough place in the country. 

And they looked at it and said, well, we can try a surgery on your liver, and if we can get all of it, you'll be cancer-free. I said, okay. 

So what they did was they tried to make the good side of the liver grow bigger and remove the bad side. That's the thing about the liver. It does regenerate. It does regenerate, yep. And they did the surgery in December. 

They cut out the bad part of the liver, but they didn't get everything, or some of it had already spread to the good side. 

So now there's a bunch of blood flowing into my liver to regrow, to help it regrow, and I guess the liver, the cancer cells that were there just grew with it. 

So when I went back for a CT scan in January, there were more lesions on my liver. 

So the surgery didn't work. Will they try it again, or will they do more chemo on it? 

They're doing chemo right now. I think we're going to do chemo for a while and see how that goes. They may try it again. 

So it's a week on and a week off? 

Yep, week on and a week off, exactly. 

I have, for example, I go Monday, Monday I'll be in the hospital for four days, I mean for four hours, I get the chemo, and they give me a little pack that has some chemo that takes for 46 hours. 

It's a little pump in a pack, so I go back on Wednesday and they take it all out, and then I'm good for another week and a half. 

But it doesn't make you sick? 

It makes me sick, no. I go to work with it. I tell people, it's not a man purse. This is actually just, you know, this is my chemo. Not a man purse. Yeah, not a man. Don't tease me about that. And it's a, it makes me tired. It's all. It makes me tired. Yeah. Are you a high energy person? 

Because you seem like a high energy person. Yeah, and it kind of takes a lot out of me. It takes that out of you. And it, for a couple of days after it, too. 

So it usually will take about a week for five days for me to completely get over it. 

And what long range, what are they telling you? 

How long are you going to do this? 

Indefinitely? 

That was probably the hardest thing to see was they have these sheets, you know, they're real good at making sure you get the right chemo, so they have a sheet with a name on it and all this stuff, and it says number X of how many, and mine says number 10 of indefinite, you know, and it's kind of like... 

But if you're, as part of the military, being in a training hospital, new technology, new ideas, you're going to be, you're a good specimen to try things on. I am. That's kind of what my doctor, oncologist here, really was pushing me to go to MD Anderson. 

Not so much because she knew that they would do this liver thing, but she wanted me to be on their roles so that if they got a new trial, I'd be the person they'd look at. I know somebody in Atlanta that's been doing that for like 13 years, and now cancer-free. I mean, you know, there's always something new. Yeah, exactly. Avastin, it's been like two or three years, a new drug. I take that, and it's awesome. That's just shrinking the stuff. Yeah, so they're killing it in one place, then they don't know about the other one. They're going to kill it. Do they talk about liver transplant completely? 

No, they haven't talked about that yet at all. You're still new in the game. Relatively speaking, it's not even a year yet. Right, yeah. And we'll see. 

And the hope is if the chemo does what it did last summer where it started to shrink, they're down like 40% in three or four months. If it does that again, I can do that. How are you doing with your weight? are you able to maintain your weight? 

I am now. I lost about 30 pounds after the surgery in December. 

So I'm back down. You're a big guy. 

Yeah and I was worried about but my suit still fit and I had to get one that I wore last year when I was skinny. 

But the thing is to keep some weight. Exactly. Keep the weight. 

So yeah. 

Are you on a fitness routine for nutrition? 

I was and then I had no side effect kick in a couple of weeks ago. I just had massive bouts of diarrhea and that just kind of wore me out. And they gave me some drugs for that. 

But there's all the supplemental insurers and things like that to make sure that you don't lose ground. That seems to be really critical to it. Because you're a big guy. You're a healthy specimen for this. 

Being a cancer victim, because you are, you know, they made a victim out of you, they've made a victim out of you, the one thing, it's the only time in your life it's good to be fat. Yeah. Somebody told me that. That's true, yeah. 

In fact, this woman who has survived so long, she's like, who knew I woke up every morning being fat and it turned out to be a good thing. That's true. Yeah, because if you'd have been a 90 -pound weakling, you'd be gone. Exactly. Yeah, I had lots of weight to go through. 

Part of it is that you're, you know, you're, and the other part of it is you're an optimist, and that's always good, because positive thinking, that keeps saying over and over and over again, it has, definitely plays a role. That's true. There are a few things I want to see before I go, you know. 

Well, you've got a young child. Exactly. I mean, you know, there's a lot to see from it, so. 

So if you keep a positive attitude, keep your weight going. Yeah. Eat a lot of chocolate. That's right. And just, you know, encourage the experiments, encourage the investigations. Definitely. It's amazing. 

Because even just a few years ago, there were certain kinds of cancer that were like pancreatic or esophageal, and now we're hearing of people actually beating it. Yeah, exactly. This is when, when you read the numbers, it's real scary. Oh, yeah. That's why you don't want to Google too much. Yeah, exactly. You read the numbers, it's pretty scary. 

And I try to look at that and keep a positive attitude, or have a good outlook on it, and going to Texas helped a lot. 

I saw children with cancer, and when I started seeing that, I started saying, you know, I'm not that bad off. I can win this battle, and I have something to look forward to. 

Well, that was really good they sent you to Anderson, because that is where the crossroads of the world comes with this. And so they are as advanced as they can get. I'm sure you'll have follow -ups with them. I will. I go back there in April for another follow-up with those guys. And they're going to look at it again. And they look at the, I got a blood clot. 

So they're looking at that as well. Are they going to treat you, are they treating you for that here? 

Yeah, Lovenox shots, I do those. It's a small blood clot, they said. Learning new tricks. What's that? 

You're learning new tricks. I am learning new tricks. That's right. Give myself shots. I never thought I'd be able to give myself shots. And see, you learned that. Yeah. It's about self -preservation. It is. Yes. Has your family been supportive? 

Your friends have been supportive? 

Oh, very supportive. 

Do you have sisters and nephews in addition, your brothers and sisters, your sister and brothers? 

Sisters, yep. My nephew actually drove me back from Houston. He flew down. That's so important to have that family. Yeah. He flew down from Maryland, got in my car and drove me back. Very cool. Yeah. And it was just good. She has two wonderful sons and a wonderful daughter as well. But, you know, you hear all the things about raising kids in the city and all that. and she produced two in Baltimore. Two kids are awesome. Both of them graduated from college this year. Oh, that's great. And they have empathy. They understand. They understand what uncle's going through. Yeah, exactly. It's been a lot of year. Yeah, and I've had help from people at work. GTRI have been wonderful. They gave me a Kindle reader. I was sitting there about a week or so after I had diagnosed, this box shows up in my house. It's a Kindle. Where did this come from? 

And then I started getting Amazon gift cards different field offices. 

And it's like, you buy your books, because we know when you're on chemo, you'll be sitting around doing nothing for a while. And sure enough... Oh yeah, going to the infusion center. Yeah, oh yeah, you're sitting there reading through my Kindle. And it's just, it's humbling, though. 

Because you think, what did I do to deserve this kind of support from people? 

Everything since the day you were born. And you're passing it forward. Every day since the day you were born, correct us. You're passing it forward. And you don't have to go to the bookstore now. You just order yourself a book. Exactly. Yeah, it is. And every time I talk to people, I tell them that. And they say, what's that? 

Kindle. I got some work gave this to me. Isn't that great? 

We have very thoughtful people working with us. I do. GTRI has wonderful folks. You're very kind to share the story with us. It's not an easy story. No. 

But people can learn from it. I hope so. And you'll learn from it. You'll learn. Positive attitude is 99% of the game. And the man upstairs. Yep. That's right. You know, keep the faith, as they say. Thank you so much for taking time out for us today. You're welcome. Very welcome. It's a story of inspiration. I'm very touched that you would take time for us. 

Well, thank you for taking time to stop here in Shalimar. We're happy to have an American hero in our archive. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.