John Bates:  

Life is good. God has been good to us. Four years of college at Central Missouri State was amusing. Those of you who attended CMSU with me, including Tommy Jouras and Holly Montag are valued past friends who have my admiration and loyalty. It was also the place at which I discovered of the love of my life, Debbie. Forty-one years of marriage, two kids and four Grand kids later...Deb is the reason I get up in the morning...because she has a gun. Debbie was a cop for various police departments for 40 years. Divorce is NOT an option! After we got married, I went into the Army Reserve as a Second Lieutenant and spent the next twelve years with various reserve units. As a soldier, I am sorry to say that I saw war. As Forrest Gump would say, "That's all I have to say about that." From 1977 until 1983 I worked for two local Police Departments. I was a fairly good cop, but I totally hated it. I was a 3rd generation police officer (Grandpa-KCMO PD, Dad-KCMO PD), so I was fairly sick of it when I started. All it took was a "near-fatal event", as the report said, and I was out the door. I left the tough stuff to Deb. For the next 23 years, I was an Air Traffic Controller in the Federal Aviation Administration. I went from one city to another working towers and centers. If you heard about the crash of United Airlines Flight 232 in Sioux City, IA on July 19, 1989, an alum of Southwest High, me, was working the Air Traffic Control Tower that day. It was a horrible event (112 dead, 186 survivors), but proved to me that God watches over us. The crash I saw? No person could have walked out of those burning cornfields, but 186 did. The power of God is amazing. I even got a "Gee-whiz, Good Job Award" for my part in the rescue and was in the movie, "Crash Landing: the Rescue of Flight 232" That is my back you see 8 times in the tower scenes...I got paid a buck. I did, however, get to eat lunch with actors Richard Thomas, Charlton Heston and James Colburn who starred. Side note about the movie: With the exception of the actor playing the Supervisor, the actual controllers recognized for their "valor" were the other actors in the scene. I was proud to be a part of it. My last 10 years in the FAA were at Kansas City Center...in Olathe. The last two as a "Supervisory Air Traffic Control Specialist". That means that I got too old to have the crap scared out of me working 130 planes an hour. As a SATCS they only put me to work controlling planes during Pilot's strikes and when the airports were shut down due to snow. The second worst day of my career was 9/11. I was at home, recovering from a separated shoulder, watching TV when the attacks began. As the second Boeing 757 struck the Trade Center, the phone rang, and the Center called me in. The events, to the best of my knowledge, are still classified "Confidential", but let me say that it was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. Once again, I got a "Gee-Whiz Good Job Award" for my limited part of the 9/11 story. I did, however, work more planes in one hour than I ever did during any major traffic rush...or emergency. Some 185 of them. I was NOT in the movie. To hell with that mess. In 2006, I retired from the FAA and went to work for two years for the University of Oklahoma as a Professor Emeritus in the Aviation Education Department. What does that mean? It means that I sat in front of a radar scope, as I did for 23 years, running Air Traffic Control problems at the Monroney Aeronautical Center in Oklahoma City. Only this time the planes were computer simulations and I instructed FAA air traffic controller t...Expand for more