David Long:  

Life At the age of 15 my first real job was Burger Chef on south third street in Terre Haute (yes flipping burgers) and pumping gas at Stuckey's, and I also drove farm equipment for Paul Morse of Lewis when he needed me. At the age of about 17 I worked for Vigo Tractor installing grain bins and I also worked for Gene Roe clearing trees for what is now Woodgate subdivision. I have two older brothers that had been in the military, my brother Art was a Marine he was there when the flag was raised on Iwo Jima and was a Terre Haute city cop for 20 years, my other brother Don was in the Air Force for 22 years, both brothers were older Art 21 years older and Don 16 years older so that is why most of you never new them. My dad was born in 1898 and died when I was 10 so that left my mother and myself she died in 1998. So I decided the Air Force had better schooling to prepare me for the future what I didn't know was that I would have 38 years of schooling. What a ride it has been it's like you are on a never ending vacation and you are not sure that you want it to end. But as we all know everything comes to an end. Workplace In 1972 I also started another job as a Supervisor in the packing department at General housewares corporation, that is where I met my wife Pamela Kirby from Paris Illinois a cousin to Carl Switzer (Alfalfa) of the little Rascals we were married in January 1973 we have 2 daughters Lisa and Kimberly they are both in their 30's we also have 2 granddaughters Alexis 15 and Allison 12 they were both born on the same day 3 years apart they both play musical instruments, are both softball champions and they are now working to be tennis pros. After about 10 years of Supervision at General Housewares I decided to make a move to the Machine Shop as a tool and die maker I enjoyed it very much and I took several classes through Vincennes University as the technology was so advanced from high school on this new equipment all types of mathematics was required to run this equipment, after 14 years the New York management decided to layoff employees back to 20 years seniority at General Housewares. Military In 1985 I decided to go to the Air Guard full time great move at the time I still had my job as the Support Equipment Supervisor along with crewing the Aircraft I had already maintained the F-100D&F super saber jets and now we had the fleet of F4-C Phantoms for a few years we sent most of them to Greece and then received the F4-E Phantoms they were also phased out after a few years then in 1990 we received our F-16A&B Falcon Fighters, each time we received new aircraft it was off to several new schools and then our F-16C&D fighters arrived that we have now. I had the opportunity from a command change in 1995 to change jobs once again but it meant giving up maintaining the Aircraft which was tough to do, I was 45 years old still enjoyed going on 2 to sometimes 5 trips a year if you were lucky my favorites were Tucson Arizona or Fairbanks Alaska. I did change to the Powered support Equipment which consist of maintaining gas turbine and diesel engines electrical power units, rectifiers, compressors, it was a pay raise but the worst was yet to come another 6 months back at Sheppard AFB Texas I came back to Indiana and worked for a year before making another trip to Sheppard AFB in 1997. I worked in that position until October 2003 at the request of the Commander I was asked to become the Resource Advisor for the 181ST Maintenance Group which I accepted the position and I will fill that position until 30 September 2007, I have already signed my retirement papers. The 181ST is changing it's roll to an Intelligence wing, what this really means is no more aircraft, all of our Aircraft will be transferred to Atlantic City New Jersey before October 1, 2007, The new assignment would have you fighting a war from an enclosed building with no windows large viewing screens and a nightmare of computers watching someone fly aircraft by remote control...Expand for more