Good Samaritans help with PCS nightmare

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Kevin Brown
  • 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
ROYAL AIR FORCE MILDENHALL, England (AFPN) --  For most servicemembers, it is routine to move every three to five years, but for one newcomer it was an experience he will never forget.

First Lt. Ryan Smith, of the 351st Air Refueling Squadron, had just finished the co-pilot initial qualification course at Altus Air Force Base, Okla., when he decided to take a road trip from his home in Arizona to his port-of-call in Baltimore, Md.

It was supposed to be his first odyssey: A drive across the country, making numerous stops to visit friends and relatives, drop off his vehicle for shipment and finally catch a plane headed for here. Instead, his car was stolen and all of his belongings were gone with it.

“I stayed the first night at a motel outside of Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., because the billeting was full,” Lieutenant Smith said. “I packed my car with all of my belongings, so I was ready to meet my friends, and when I returned, there was nothing left but a pile of broken glass.”

Fortunately for Lieutenant Smith, his car was old and not valuable to him.

“I wasn’t too upset until I started realizing that everything that I needed for my move was gone with it,” he said.

Lieutenant Smith said he had “miserable visions of inprocessing overseas without any clothes, uniforms or papers.”

He spent the rest of the day tracking down some new copies of his orders, another plane ticket and some clothes. He then picked up a rental car and continued on.

Two nights later and several states down the road, Lieutenant Smith received a call on his cell phone. Evidently, someone had found his burned car in New Mexico.

Fortunately, two good Samaritans, Bob Avery and Jeanette Perkins, had found the lieutenant’s paperwork earlier that day.

Mrs. Perkins picked everything up, reassembled two suitcases worth of clothing, a few books and a six-inch stack of papers and records, and she took it to Mr. Avery’s house, Lieutenant Smith said.

After Mr. Avery recognized the military nature of the lost belongings and paperwork, he began tracking down Lieutenant Smith.

Mr. Avery notified the police but did not get any answers, so he called Vance AFB, Okla., since it was written on a lot of the paperwork. Base officials were eventually able to contact Lieutenant Smith.

In the meantime, Mr. Avery found the lieutenant’s address book and the number listed for his grandfather. By the time Lieutenant Smith heard from someone at Altus AFB, Mr. Avery had already worked out the details with the grandfather to have everything mailed to Pennsylvania, which was the lieutenant’s last stop before Baltimore.

“Mrs. Perkins washed all of my clothes (because they were muddy and smelly from sitting in the rain), dried and sorted most of the paperwork, and packed it all up for mailing,” Lieutenant Smith said. “It was waiting for me just in time for the plane ride across the ocean.

“Moving to England and inprocessing at RAF Mildenhall was very painless compared to what it would have been,” he said. “Mr. Avery and Mrs. Perkins helped me personally through their unprovoked acts of kindness and generously assisted the Air Force itself through the few days’ time they put toward alleviating a weary lieutenant’s PCS nightmare.” (Courtesy of U.S. Air Forces in Europe News Service)