Employee celebrates half century of service

  • Published
  • By Jeanne Grimes
  • Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center Public Affairs
TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla. (AFPN) --  You might say the Air Force and Steve Espinosa grew up together.

For a fact, the two have shared more than five decades together. In uniform and as a civilian, Mr. Espinosa has served the Air Force for 54 years, nearly as long as the service has existed.

A small-parts sheet-metal worker at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center here, Mr. Espinosa began his association with the Air Force on May 18, 1950. The Air Force, incidentally, will mark its 57th birthday Sept. 18.

The country still drafted young men into military service when Mr. Espinosa was growing up in Kansas.

“I was working at a machine shop in Ottawa, Kan., and it went out of business,” he recalled, adding he soon found machinist’s work in another shop. “While I was there, I saw this Army sergeant come in and talk to my boss and then point at me.”

The sergeant came with an offer.

“He said, ‘I’ll give you a choice. You can go into the Air Force or the Army, [but] the Air Force has got all the careers,’” Mr. Espinosa said.

He chose the Air Force and headed to Kansas City for in-processing. From there, he went to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, for a two-week orientation and then to Sheppard AFB, Texas, for basic training.

Air Force officials tested recruits to match jobs with the individual’s skills.

“I was supposed to be [in] administration, but because I’ve got a missing finger, they redlined me,” he said, waving his right hand. “So they sent me to electronics school at Keesler [AFB, Miss.]”

Mr. Espinosa left the Mississipi base for here where he worked on the F-94 radar. He subsequently worked on gunsight development for the F-84 at Brookley AFB, Ala.

“They said, ‘It looks like you’re going to Korea,’” he recalled, “but they sent us to Japan. We lived in the barracks where the kamikaze pilots had stayed.”

By then, Mr. Espinosa had worn the blue four years. He re-enlisted and served at McGuire AFB, N.J., then Suffolk County AFB, N.Y.

Then they told us, ‘You’re going to maintain these [F-106] aircraft at Minot, N.D.’” he said.

He endured four years of weather extremes at the North Dakota base before being told his unit was shipping out to Saudi Arabia.

“But they changed their minds, and I went to Vietnam instead,” he said. “It was so beautiful there -- palm trees and the blue sea and the green grass that was cut just like a golf course. It was a paradise, and I loved it. I wanted to extend another year.”

He did not get the extension and was ordered to Patrick AFB, Fla. While there, he applied for another tour in Vietnam.

“They sent me to the Philippines,” he said. “I was supposed to take electrical parts to an area close to Cambodia; they told me I could go with an Army convoy ... but I broke my foot.”

The injury was a lucky break for Mr. Espinosa, who learned later that many on that convoy were killed.

“The Lord had something to do with it,” he said.

When his foot healed, the Air Force sent him back to Saigon.

“I wanted Tan Son Nhut Air Base,” he said. “They sent me to the Mekong Delta in the south, and I worked on ‘eyes and ears of the world’ -- radar and radio.”

As his second Vietnam tour wound down, Mr. Espinosa put in names of bases where he hoped to be assigned.

“But they sent me to Altus [AFB, Okla.] instead,” he said.

It was there he drew his line in the Oklahoma soil, holding out for a Europe assignment in exchange for re-enlisting. When he got word he was headed for an Alaskan island instead, he put in his retirement papers.

He took a job in shipping and receiving, and was there about a year when he spotted an item in the newspaper which said Tinker was opening jobs.

“I took the test and came over here,” he said. “They were the hardest jobs you could find -- the motor pool, warehouse and wash rack.”

The work was challenging, but Mr. Espinosa was patient. Eventually, a job opened in sheet metal, and Mr. Espinosa received a promotion so he could accept it.

In his locker, Mr. Espinosa keeps a paper sack filled with mementos of his lengthy career including certificates and letters -- for 30 and 40 years federal service -- and commanders’ coins.

May 18, 2011, will be the 60th anniversary of Mr. Espinosa’s odyssey with the Air Force. Will he try for that or will he retire?

“I would rather be working here with friends than staying home,” he said. “I just like to be with people and work with them.”