People make Air Force life so great!

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Jeff Kubiak
  • 86th Flying Training Squadron commander
LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFPN) --  Like many of us, I have spent my entire adult life in an Air Force uniform.

At several points throughout my career, I’ve made the decision to stay in the military when offered an opportunity to leave. I have to admit there were occasions when I made the decision to stay without really knowing why.

With a few more years behind me, however, I think I more clearly understand. When weighing the demands of the military lifestyle against the rewards, the rewards won.

The demands placed on individuals and families by the military lifestyle are predominantly external, relatively constant, and easily understood by even those not in the military: hazardous duty, deployments, frequent moves, and long hours.

The rewards of a military lifestyle change over time. Entering the Air Force with the promise of valuable training and a secure paycheck may be enough to offset the demands of a young career. The long-term rewards, those that keep people re-enlisting tour after tour, are somewhat more subliminal and personal.

The ongoing sense of service to the community and nation is a very powerful reward. However, I think the greatest reward of a military career is the opportunity to cross paths with a tremendous number of really high-quality people. These high-quality people show up in hundreds of different places.

They include an amazingly human immunization technician who touched so many lives that when he died, there was not a dry eye in the packed chapel during his memorial service.

They are doctors who make house calls to tend to your sick child in the middle of the night.

They are neighbors who come to your house when you are up to your eyes in boxes to offer a loaf of homemade bread or to watch your children while you continue packing or unpacking your life.

They are people who are there to console you when tragedy strikes and there to help you celebrate life’s most special occasions.

At each stop in my Air Force career, my family and I have had our lives vastly improved by people willing to give us the shirts off their backs. In more than 19 years and seven assignments, we have accumulated several lifetimes worth of good friends and good times.

Moving every couple of years is still painful. However, in addition to sincerely missing the friends we have made and are forced to leave, we also have learned to look forward to meeting the great people who will make our next location a home.

I can’t imagine what our lives would be like, or who we would be, without the supportive, caring, quality humans we share our lives with. Although we eventually are separated from our new friends, our lives are permanently connected to theirs, and that’s an incredibly powerful reward. It’s all about the people.