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View at Picasa Ashley's 5th grade band! Ashley playing flute near right-edge of frame.

View at Picasa Ashley's 5th grade band, featuring low-brass

Click below to open the new 2012 outdoor album and see the photos of Jonathan and his team! Good luck to the 2012 Steamers in their upcoming CDYSL campaign! Next game is May 6th, away, in Bethlhem, NY fields at 2:45pm

CPSC U16A 2012 OutdoorApr 29, 2012Photos: 43

I can vividly remember 3 points in my life where I was happiest. And let’s not forget I have 2 beautiful children, family all around me now (thank God) and finally have my religion back where it belongs (IN my life). But two other times in the past 20 or so years is when I felt happiest. And yes, the third IS now believe it or not.

It’s not important really how I came to this realization, but for me it’s important that I figured it out and that I NOT forget it. Ok, so enough intro….the first time I felt trully happy in my life was when I was an Air Traffic Controller. I should have given it more of my all, but I was too young to realize how GOOD I had it. 18, 19, 20 years old, and pushing $30million airplanes around the sky? TELLING them where to go and how to do it, not asking?

Yeah, it was all good, but for me it was the first lesson in this blog post; I was happy because I was helping others. Take for example my favorite ATC story from my life…(and my closest friends have ALL heard this one. LOL) I was a freshly signed off PAR controller, which for you non aviation types is Final Control; the last 10-15 miles of the approach right down to the runway. No fancy ILS, we TALK the plane down and tell them where they are every 5-15 seconds, depending on how soupy the weather is. Inside 5 miles, it’s every5 seconds you’re making a transmission to them.

On this particular night, KNBC (MCAS Beaufort, SC) needed to stay open late for an arriving L-1011 carrying the entire crew of one of our squadrons. All of the enlisted ground support folks were on that plane. And guess what? ALL the families were downstairs WAITING for their soldiers to come home.

GySgt Kuiper and Mr. Smith asked for volunteers to stay late, to run the PAR. Gunny was in the Tower, Mr Smith was on the scopes in RADAR, and me on PAR; assisting Mr. Smith on Flight Data. (I wasn’t signed off yet on Data, but he was teaching me.) As the night went by, the weather REALLY moved in, fog. BAD, DENSE, UGLY fog. In our RADAR room, we called it “WOXOF” and basically meant us, the pilots, no one could see shit.

Someone, and I don’t know who, KNEW that this company’s minimums to land a plane that size was something like 1/4 mile visibility and “faked” the weather report. It’s not that it wasn’t safe, if the plane didn’t or couldn’t see land, the pilot would pull up and divert to either Savannah or Charleston. Luckily for me, and my “skill” they didn’t have to.

So long story short, there is a river, Broad River, that is exactly 3.25 miles from the approach end to runway 5. As luck would have it, the wind was favoring that runway that night. Great, I’d have to deal with the left to right cross wind of Broad River too!

The first approach was horribly bad, I forgot all about the wind and I initiated the dreaded “too far right for safe approach, climb and maintain 1,500′ and fly the runway heading.” I Called Mr Smith seated behind me and give the plane back to RADAR. ugh, try one failed. (By the way, the RADAR room I am talking about is vividly pictured in the movie “The Great Santini.” I’m not kidding, it was MY RADAR ROOM! LOL)

On try two, same thing, river winds push the plane to the right, goes too far right, even with a turn AFTER the river and I cant get her back on course, big ass plane burns more gas and goes around again….I HEAR the pilot tell Mr. Smith “enough fuel for one more try, and then we go to Charleston.” Gunny calls me up to the tower, he wants to show me something…

I head up stairs…he has the entire approach trail on the tower scopes, and SHOWS ME where i made my mistakes, gives me some pointers to get this damn plane on OUR ground and not in Charleston! And oh, yeah, BTW Binner, there is 300 families downstairs waiting on this plane. GEE THANKS GUNNY!

I take a walk, go downstairs, omg I SEE the families now, shit. I go talk to my buddy in weather…GOOD guy and we talk about the wind on approach. He shows me readings from another weather station down range a bit. I now have the ENTIRE picture on what I need to do, or as clear as I can make it.

I head back to RADAR, the plane is just making his crosswind turn. Almost time for me to take over. I take multiple deep breathes, try to steady my hands and my speech, and start talking. Except this time, I don’t WAIT for the wind, I CRANK that plane 5-degrees LEFT into the wind at 4 miles, BEFORE the damn river.

Immediately at 2.5 miles, I crank it back 5 degrees to the RIGHT, and pray I caught it right. I did. At 3 miles, on glidepath ON COURSE. At 2 miles, on course, slightly below. Over landing threshold, ON COURSE. There is a long pause, the pilot keys the mic and keeps it keyed…I can hear him asking the co-pilot if he sees those lights down there. I dunno if he actually saw them or not, but they landed. My eventful night is over.

Now at the time I was too young to understand this overwhelming sense of relief, of joy, of happiness to SEE all the families about 40 mins later downstairs, now all in tears and hugging their Marines. I smiled and quietly left the facility and walked back to the barracks, smiling the entire way. I still get teary eyed writing about it today.

Ok, I promise this next “job” will be shorter. lol After my time in the service, I went to work for Beaufort County 911 Dispatch. Seeing a pattern here? There are WAY too many incidents, and some I am sure I cannot talk about anyway, and an immense feeling of JOY to be helping people. Except at this point in my life, early 20′s, I can sort of understand why the job makes me so SO happy. Lord knows it wasn’t the pay; a paltry $7.74 per hour. But the job itself was very fulfilling for me. Dispatch for Fire, EMS, Police and Sheriff’s radio; and answering calls.

That job made me smile every day. I loved working the Sheriff’s radio, it was the busiest and kept me moving. I started to realize helping people is what I wanted to be doing.

Now to all my friends from various jobs in HHI, please don’t be upset when I don’t mention those jobs. I LOVED some of the people I worked with, still keep in touch with them today, and you are all very dear friends to me. But for my own overall well being, those jobs were not it. And yes, it’s taken me this long to figure that out.

So, fast forward to present Day, 2012, and my present position. The VA recently, in the past year or so, came up with “I CARE.” I’ll be the first to admit it’s going to take all the staff some time to adopt it, and some folks really should retire because they cant see past themselves to full adopt it. But for me, and where I am today, I believe in it and fully follow it. Now, I KNOW some Vets will scream out “THE VA SUCKS!” and for some of you, it may be true. But I haven’t seen it here where I am, and for those not getting the care they need I am sorry. It’s not supposed to be like that. But, back to MY story.

“I CARE” stands for: “Integrity, Commitment, Advocacy, Respect, and Excellence.” Kinda sounds familiar to my jarhead brothers and sisters and I doesn’t it? It is this job, the work I do, and the ways in which I do it, that have made me realize THIS is where I need to be. Now I fully understand that I won’t become “rich” from this job, but I make enough to live. And my definition of “rich” has been drastically changing this past year.

So for me, riches means being able to help others; in my case having the know how and education to be a computer tech and help the VA. Seeing the systems I help keep track of, inventory, move around, fix, refresh, re image, and whatever else needs to be done, help people. What I needed to become whole was a job I can feel good about.

To all my family, friends, and close friends, thank you. Thank you for being there, being around me, keeping me sane when I was a flaming ass to some of you. I love you all. And I hope you understand it takes a village….well, in my case it takes a village and a career path I love, even though I may complain about the hours (LOL), it took this job and where I am today to become the person I wanted to be.

Vivat Jesus, Semper Fi, and “I CARE.”

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View at Picasa Seneca Niagara Casio, All the kids in front of the sign. :)

View at Picasa overall view from the front area of Our lady of Fatima, near Niagara Falls, NY

View at Picasa live exhibit at the Rochester Museum we visited on our way home.

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View at Picasa Ashley and Jonathan at the falls

View at Picasa Niagara Falls, US Side, NY

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