retairforce92's photostream

I am 57 y/o born on March 13, 1953 at a US air force base in Spokane WA. My father was a 30 year career Air Force man.

Growing up our family moved all over the world from CA. to Europe. During my elementary school years, we spent 4 years in the United Kingdom. I also went to four high schools, 1 year in Bremerton WA, 1 1/2 years in Sevilla Spain and 2 in Germany, 1 1/2 years in Kaiserslautern and 1 1/2 years in Zweibrucken Germany which is where I graduated.

Those were some of the worst times but yet they were some of the best times. It was tough because just when you get settled in, you move on and had to start all over again. Those were the worst times. The times were that we got to travel and learn about the people and the cultures of the country we lived in and those that we got to visit when we vacationed.

When I graduated from Zweibrucken Germany, my father was sent to Los Angeles CA as a recruiter for the Air Force. I began college in LA, but I got caught up in fast pace and all that was available in the United States, becoming restless and only lasted a couple of months in school. My father thought that I should join the the Air Force since Vietnam was still going on and a four year tour of duty, then perhaps I would find myself and would figure out what I wanted to do after I grew up some more.

On my 19th birthday I took the Oath to join the United States Air Force as one of my father's newest recruits. I helped him meet his quota that month. :) I was put on an airplane at LAX and flown to San Antonio, TX for Basic training in the United States Air Force. During that time I wasn't sure that I wanted my freedom that bad after all, but somehow I made it through boot camp and was sent to Sheppard AFB in Witchita Falls, TX for my career training in the medical field.

When my training ended, I was given my first real assignment ans was going to be working for what I considered the first time. I washed dishes and bused tables at a restaurant for a few months before I entered the Air Force.

Before I knew it I was landing in Germany and on my way to Wiesbaden and the USAF Medical Center there. The hospital was unique because unlike most military clinics or hospitals, it was not actually on the base. It sat alone on it's own compound near downtown Wiesbaden. The compound not only contained the Medical Center, but the nurses quarters, separate barracks for the enlisted women and men, a dinning hall, post office and movie theater. I worked there for three years and got to do a lot of traveling throughout Europe when I tool Leave (that is extended time off in military Lingo). We get 30 days a year.

One of the happiest things in my life occurred while I was stationed at the Medical Center. I met my wife Elaine. She was a military dependent or as a term of endearment, called BRAT of a military member who was stationed at the United States Air Force European Headquarters in Wiesbaden. We dated for a year and a half while she finished High School prior to her father being reassigned to Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX.

We continued to write, we had to use pen and paper and put a stamp on an envelope then because the Internet had not been invented yet. When I got my orders to return to the United States, I was sent to Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland AFB which happened to be in non other than San Antonio, TX.

Elaine and I resumed our relationship from approximately 20 miles between the two bases and on August 30, 1975 we were married. That was the beginning of a long and happy marriage that will become 36 years in Aug 2011.

On November 20, 1979, Elaine and I were blessed with our first child, a girl. This occurred while I had orders to be reassigned to March AFB in Riverside, CA to work at the USAF Regional Hospital. We were delayed a few weeks and in December packed up and in two cars, headed to Southern California, daughter in hand.

While our little family was living in Riverside and I worked several jobs in the hospital, Elaine became pregnant with our second child. It so happened that I was working Labor and Delivery and the maternity ward when ours son was born on June 6, 1982. Needless to say, Elaine and Robbie got VIP treatment during their stay. Now our family was complete. A girl and a boy, what a better way to call it quits, that is as having children goes. :)

Two years later in July 1984 our little family packed up again and the Air Force sent us to Lakenhealth England near Mildenhal near Cambridge. We decided to live off base instead of on base so that we could enjoy living among the British people. We rented a home in a the Village of Isleham (eyes-lum) and quickly became part of the little village.

Lynette was put on a bus and taken to Lakenheath Air Force Base for school, until one day at the age of five, some words popped out of her mouth that shocked us. She learned these words from riding on the bus to school because it carried everyone from pre-school to High School, so we took her out of the American school at the base and enrolled her in the local British village school. Robbie was only two at the time, so he stayed at home with mom for the first couple of years.

1987 rolled around too quickly and we had to say goodbye to all our British friends, some of whcih became a second family to us, as well as one American family that lived in the house next door. We once again were heading back across the pond as they say, back to the United States.

So, when we arrived back in the US of A and after visiting our families, we drove to Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio. Actually, the base is in Fairborn. In Jan of 1991, I was deployed to a medical hospital in support of Operation Desert Storm, the first Gulf War and this was the first time in my entire Air Force career that I was taken away from my family. It was a difficult time in our lives, but I was proud to be a part of liberating Kuwait from Iraq. This war ended quickly as the Iraqui's left Kuwait and were stopped from entering Saudi Arabia. President George H. W. Bush called the troops back home which brought me back to my family in Apr 1991 although it took longer for some Army and Marines to return to their loved ones due to the amount of personell and equipment that had to be brought back.

Upon my return home, my family planned a trip to Cincinatti for us to see a Dodgers vs Reds baseball game. During our stay at one of the local hotels, my son Robbie who was 4 at the time and I received an elictrical shock from an electronic door that burnt the bottoms of his big toes and injured the ulnar nerve in my right arm which led to loss of grip, the inability to hold a pen with my index finger, etc. so I left the Air Force in Jun 1992.

San Antonio Texas, watch out, the Sweidels' are coming your way. Elaine began to work for a major Financial Institution that only military or ex military could join. That company is USAA which has grown enormously since 1992. Approximately, five or six months later, I was hired as well. Elaine was handling automobile policies and I was handling the claims when one of our members were involved in an accident. Elaine is still working at USAA as a manager today and after about ten years I ended up having to stop working due to some medical problems.

Now, I am a home body and a lazy one at that. Yes, i do some laundry, dishes, yard work, etc, but not as much as I probably should. I sleep a lot which I believe will prolong my life since I am at rest and my heart shouldn't be beating as fast. Yea, right.

I bought a camera more than a couple of years ago and really only took pictures for family events and vacations. It is a Nikon D60 which is a pretty nice camera with so many features, but I didn't really know what to do with them. I was looking at the Cornell University Ornithology Lab Facebook page and saw so many beautiful pictures of birds, so I began taking pictures of birds and posting my shots on the site. Again, these pictures were all shot in auto mode. The quality of my pictures I considered to be as good as most of the pictures I saw, but there were a lot that were far superior as well. At the time, I just thought, wow, those are pretty nice pictures of the ones that had a copyright or were posted by professional photographers. Then one day, I saw a picture of a bird that just lit me up. I was smitten. It wasn't just that the bird was beautiful, but also the way it viewed. The colors, background, everything about the picture made my face light up. I commented on how beautiful the picture was and I received a response from the photographer. I noticed that this photographer had a few links to different sites as well and I began to visit them. The pictures were like none I had ever seen. I don't know what others would say, but to me, I loved each and every one of them. One of the sites was a blog site which pictures were posted, with a blog about the day and music that went with both that inspired this photographer.

I began commenting on the blog site after each day when I read the blog and looked at the picture and listened to the music or video attached to the blog. They are always inspirational to me. One day, I received a message from the photographer to be Facebook friends. Boy was I excited. My own professional photographer wanted to be Facebook friends with me. I jumped at it and immediately clicked YES!

After some communication back and forth and me admitting I only shot on Automatic, I was given some advice on how to start using my cameras features. Now I have my own instructor, what more could a guy ask for.

Well, I gotta tell ya. In my opinion, I have been blessed with a new found friend. I get inspired every day by reading the blogs, looking at the beautiful pictures, and the occassonal emails of encouragement. I would like to share with anybody who see's my profile the link to Roni, or Reflections by Roni, eventhough she already has hundreds of followers and it most likely means that I will hear less often from her, but I don't want to be selfish. I believe God has put her on this earth to not only be a wonderful wife to her husband and mother to her boys, but to inspire and bring out the creativity in all of us that have lost our way, or have thought about giving up because we thought that there was nothing left for us to do. Please visit Roni at the link below. You won't regret it.

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