Preface

Few people knew of my activities during my final years of service with the U.S. Air Force. I was viewed primarily as a chief master sergeant and former senior enlisted advisor for Air Force broadcasters scattered worldwide. Now “homesteading” at Kelly AFB, Texas.

Fast forward three decades: In retirement, my longtime VA psychiatrist and a few nephews read or heard some of my anecdotes from years past, suggesting I write my memoirs or compile an oral history. Hence, the working title: “A Legend in His Own Mind.”

I set out on this project in early 2025, dictating several segments chronicling my background and experiences through 1978. I bogged down. Then, I discovered Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT to be precise. AI opened new vistas, which I continue to explore. Instead of just dictating, we developed a visual “roadmap” of my working career. I hoped to describe the routes, detours, stops, events and “missions accomplished” over a 40-year period.

A dash of nostalgia, a note of history, maybe a little humor, and, hopefully, an unabashed and grateful sense of pride.

I hope to show my path to those final few years at the Air Force News Agency, traveling between San Antonio, Washington, and wherever else this new “information highway” would take me. I need to honor the assistance of others who helped usher Air Force Public Affairs into a new communications environment for the 21st Century. And how computer and communications integration, coupled with AFNEWS’ wartime and contingency planning and operations supported the Air Force’s warfighting mission. Change was inevitable, but it wasn’t automatic.

I hope this recounting contributes to understanding how the explosion of information technology led to consolidated operations in Air Force public affairs. And the transition of enlisted broadcast, print media, combat camera and public affairs specialists into multimedia storytellers.

This is my story.