Chris Risk:
CLASS OF 1980
Wheatland High SchoolClass of 1980
Wheatland, CA
Chris's Story
Life
I have done it all!
I have ridden on a double decker bus in London, traveled the subways in Seoul, looked straight down into a geyser hole in Iceland, been in the Statue of Liberty, the Space Needle in Seattle, looked out over the Gulf Of Fonseca in Honduras, swam in the Persian Gulf near Dhahran, floated in the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, shopped in Frankfurt, walked by a lighthouse on a cold rainy beach in Maine and seen Killer Whales from a ferry up the pan handle of Alaska.
I have hiked to glaciers in Iceland and Alaska. Hiked on a medieval castle in Suwon Korea. I have been to Ely Cathedral and the Grand Canyon and the Yukon. I have sunburned on Ft. Walton Beach and I have been snowed in on my honeymoon in the Smokey Mountains. I have been to Estes Park and Yellowstone and Denali and Arches National Park.
I have eaten lobster in Bangor, bulgogi in Seoul, goat in Kuwait City, a latte in Pioneer Square Seattle, fried banana in Tegucigalpa Honduras, a buffet in a Las Vegas casino, salmon in Seward Alaska, a plowman's lunch in London, and a Country Captain Chicken MRE in Balad Air Base Iraq.
I have ridden on a C-17, C-141, C-5, C-130, C-12, KC-135, HH-60, and an F-15. (Yes. I puked. The guy took the plane upside down and went from 24K to 14K in two seconds. No tryin' to deny it. BUT... I was able to use the barf bag. I consider that still keeping my dignity. I got out of that plane on the ground. Thumbs up. No mess. "I'm k...Expand for more
ing of my castle.")
And little stops. Ireland, Scotland, Okinawa, Panama, Sicily, Crete.
I have been to the altitude chamber at Fairchild AFB and I know my hypoxia symptom. (Want to know what it is? I "wax eloquent". It's all documented.)
And war stories. Brother!
I was one of the guys on scope the night we invaded Iraq. Maj. Terry Cline, Capt Paul Hutchison, Fred Luce, Kristen Whitaker, Doug Johnson and me.
No long check in comm there. It was like drinking from a fire hose!
Stuff like that. Cool stories I'll have for life.
And yet...
I still have my hair.
It still ain't gray.
I still have good blood pressure.
I'm still married.
To the same woman. (20 years in March 2007).
Still have every squadron hat they ever gave me.
Still stay in touch with my room mate from tech school.
I can hear and understand everything that pilot just said. Don't ask me how. I've just been doing this since allot of airmen were in the first grade.
Never been DNIC.
Only been on quarters for two days in all my twenty three years and they were not two days next to each other.
I can still write numbers backwards.
I feel like Frodo Baggins getting on the boat and taking that last look back.
I'm not a lucky man. "Lucky" ain't the word.
The correct word is "blessed".
I have lived under what the Bible calls "grace".
"Unmerited favor" and I have gotten an ocean of it.
I hope the same for you and I'd shake your hand and say it to your face if I could.
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