For Veterans Day 2025, I’m updating and recycling a post from 2017.
In 1984, a Tennessee Air National Guard KC-135 tanker squadron deployed to Elmendorf AFB, Alaska. My unit, the 43rd Tactical Fighter Squadron, took full advantage of the training opportunity and scheduled aerial refueling on every mission. The tanker deployment commander invited our wives to fly along on some of those refueling missions: there’s Donna, second from the left, with other squadron wives, aboard a KC-135. During their ride-alongs, our wives took turns in the boomer’s compartment, taking photos of their husbands refueling. Here are two Instamatics Donna took that day:
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In the first photo, I’m leading a four-ship in a tanker rejoin (I’m second from left). Immediately after Donna took that photo, I cleared my wingmen to the tanker’s wings and closed in to the contact position; that’s me on the boom in the second photo. After all four us topped off, we flew to a nearby working area for a 2 v 2 air combat training fight, then on to King Salmon Air Force Station in southwestern Alaska, where we landed and debriefed. Later that day we took off from King Salmon, refueled again (this time on a different tanker, sans wives), had another 2 v 2, and landed back at Elmendorf to debrief. It was a long day, and I didn’t get home until seven or eight that evening.
When I pulled up in front of our quarters on base, there was a blue crew van at the curb. All the lights were on and strangers in flight suits were in our yard, grilling burgers and drinking beer. Donna had invited the whole damn tanker squadron over and our house was full of pilots, navs, flight engineers, and boomers, most of them speaking with Tennessee accents. In the morning there wasn’t a drop of booze left in the house. Good times.
It’s not all bad, being a veteran.
My family is full of them. Woodfords fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Some of those who stayed behind in England came over as Redcoats; those who emigrated to America, my branch of the family, fought against them.
Later generations of Woodfords fought in the Civil War. Fay Woodford, my grandfather, was a doughboy in France during WWI. Mom’s family, the Caldwells, had a military tradition as well, mostly Navy; her father, my grandfather Estes, was a sailor during the Great War. Dad’s older brothers went off to WWII after Pearl Harbor so he did too, forging a letter of permission from my grandmother because he was only 16. He was a Navy gunner in the Pacific and was there for the Battle of Okinawa. Dad mustered out at the end of the war, taught school for a while, said “fuck this” and went back in, this time as an Air Force officer.
Even though I grew up in it, the military and my family’s ties to it weren’t things I thought about until high school. I liked the life of a military brat, but I was becoming politically aware, and later, in college, I vowed to break the chain. I was going to be a college professor. That didn’t work out, though, and after a year of teaching school I too said “fuck this” and joined the Air Force. Here’s a sketch of my military history, if you’re interested.
Like most Baby Boomers, I was raised to believe my country did the right thing in WWI and WWII, that we fought the good fight against enemies who, had they prevailed, would have made the world a far more horrible place. I still believe that today.
I believe my own Cold War service was necessary and good, that my country once again did the right thing opposing and containing communism, and that the world today is a better place for it. I was absolutely opposed to the Vietnam War, and had a lot of misgivings about joining the USAF while that war was still on. I was on board for Desert Storm, even though participating at a remove, doing my part to keep the lid on North Korea as a fighter pilot on Okinawa while others fought in the desert. I’ve been against nearly every military action my country has carried out since Desert Storm. Things are more muddled now. North Korea and ISIS aside, there are few clear enemies, and no point to the endless suffering we’ve caused in different parts of the world.
Overall, though, I was happy in the Air Force. It was a rewarding career. I’m proud of what I did for my country. I’m proud of the military, in particular its leading role in racial integration, and the culture of professionalism and selfless service it embodies. I’m proud to have been part of a profession people look up to.
As in most Western countries, our military is firmly under civilian control, and one thing we’ve never had to worry about in the United States is a military coup, or the hereditary military dictatorship that follows. I wish I could say our military is not corrupt, but corruption has long been a part of military procurement, encouraged and abetted by politicians and contractors on the take. I wish I could say our military takes sexism and sexual abuse as seriously as it takes racism, but I can’t. I wish I could say today’s volunteer force represents a cross-section of American society, but it has become increasingly separate and insular. Now, in the second Trump administration, I wish I could say I was confident military leaders, Air Force leaders in particular, would resist stupid and/or illegal orders from the commander-in-chief. But I can’t.
Sacrifices? In my case, they were few and trivial. There were times I worked harder than I ever thought possible, and for little reward, but who hasn’t? Over the years friends and squadronmates died in aircraft crashes, but apart from those traumatic moments I was happy.
And in that spirit, I wish all my military brothers and sisters a happy Veterans Day.