Catching Up With Ellsworth Weather

When I was honorably discharged from the Air Force in June of 1991 I never looked back. My four years in the Air Force wasn’t the happiest time in my life, but I don’t regret it either. I’m very proud of my service, and if I had to do it all over again I would, though I admittedly would do a few things differently.

My nephew Kyle enlisted in the Army last fall. I gave him a few pieces of advice… mostly along the lines of don’t do what I did. Negating basic training, and Tech School I spent my entire enlistment at Ellsworth Air Force Base (near Rapid City, SD) One of the biggest regrets I have is not having kept in touch with any one from my time at Ellsworth.

I call my parents every Sunday afternoon, and last Sunday my Mom told me that Kyle would be coming home around the 4th of July before being deployed to Iraq. I’m incredibly proud of him, and am equally worried and terrified for him at the same time. And that got me thinking about the advise I had given him… make a few close friends, and stay in touch with them. So I thought that maybe it was about time to take some of my own advice.

I sat down in front of my computer, pulled up google, and began putting names in. After about 45 minutes of searching, I found one of my supervisors, Richard Korich, and sent a quick email to him. A couple of days later, he very kindly emailed back, and also forward my email to my former station chief, Matt Ulrich who in turn sent me a very nice email. Matt has set up a website for the unit (Detachment 17, 26th Weather Squadron – it’s a private website so I’ll not link to it here) and he also sent me updates of every one that he has so far heard from.

It’s been a great experience finding, these people who, at the time, were the next best thing to family as I had in my life. I only regret that I didn’t realize it at the time. But now I do, and it’s fun catching up with some of them. I hope to continue doing so, and there’s even talk of a reunion next summer, which come hell or high watter I will definitely be attending.