Pre-Mommy Military Life Meets My Children
My pre-mommy military life finally intersected with my current life as a mother in the most wonderful way. Over the Christmas holiday, we traveled up to Spokane, Washington where I was stationed in the ‘90s. My parents still live there, having followed me up there after visiting. Hoping to get to fulfill a wish I’d had for a while, we went onto the air base on our third vacation day. Prior to this day, our children had never been to a military base. They had only heard stories and seen pictures of “the airplane that Mommy used to fly on” before they were born.
We found the building I used to work in, the 93rd Air Refueling Squadron (ARS). A young female captain who is a pilot there now was in the parking lot chatting with a friend. I introduced myself and asked if there was someone in the building who could do a huge favor for me and my family and get us access to a jet out on the flight line. She made a few phone calls and then Captain Gilmer escorted us to a hangar where a KC-135R was waiting for us to explore!
I went first up the ladder into the cockpit. From there, I was able to take a picture of each of my kids coming up the ladder – very cool.
My brother and our au pair also enjoyed the adventure.
My kids took turns sitting in the pilot seats. I showed them where I used to sit and what I used to do. We toured the back of the airplane and talked about the refueling process.
When we had taken our fill of photos, including one of all 3 kids in the two pilot seats, we exited down the crew ladder where we’d entered and took this group picture with our gracious escort.
This was a wonderful day for me, to finally share my previous career and work place with my children. Kotomi said, “Mommy, I didn’t know the plane you used to work in was so huge!” Kiyoshi said, “I loved pretending to fly it!” and Milagro said, “I’m flying a REAL airplane!” What a truly fantastic vacation memory and a real “Captain Mama” moment!
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