By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

HARRISON — Flying an airplane — a person might feel a little closer to God.

In the case of Harrison resident Peter Rearick, who is retired from the United States Air Force, there was a moment in the skies above Iraq that stands out in his mind as spiritual. It was a brief acknowledgment of God’s presence and protection during a crisis in which he had to do his job.  

Also, he experienced thankfulnessto come out alive.

“I was a flight engineer on a C-130,” Rearick said. “It’s another big transport plane with four engines. My job is to sit right behind the pilot and the co-pilot and just make sure the airplane is working right. [I] keep an eye on the engines and the fuel and the generators and all that stuff and the pressurization system, which is important. When you are flying up high where the air is thin, it is good to be able to breath. You don’t want to stop breathing when you’re flying the airplane.”

“That brings me to my story,” he said. 

“In ’06 or ’07, we were flying over Iraq doing our usual mission: Just delivering people and cargo wherever it needs to be delivered in Iraq. We were cruising along at about 18,000 feet — which is a normal altitude for us. It’s high enough so that the bad guys with the little shoulder-launch missiles can’t reach us. It’s all good. You can’t stay up there forever. Eventually, you have to come down. Hopefully, no bad guys underneath you with missiles.”

Hedescribedthe job of the pilot to bring the plane down to the ground.

“The pilot pulls back the throttle and pushes forward the yoke, and the plane noses over into a steep dive,” he said. 

“You know when you are at the top of the roller coaster and just going over the top, and picking up speed. It’s like that except it’s a lot higher and a lot faster; and I think a whole lot of fun,” Rearick said, of his job in the Air Force. 

He built up the background by describing the plane which was more than 50 years old.

“The C-130 is an old airplane. It was built in the early 1950s so the pressurization system isn’t much more advanced that you see in WWII,” he said. “There a dozen different switches and buttons and knobs to deal with.”

He returned to his specific story. 

“We are coming down past 10,000 feet. Okay, we are depressurized and I am throwing all the switches, Everything is shut off. We are breathing normally,” he said. 

“We get some flashing lights and alarms. Uh oh! It is the missile warning system. Now, most of the time, it is false alarm. We get a lot of false alarms in the plane. When you get the warning, you treat it like it’s real just in case,” he said. “Oh great, up past 10,000 feet. The air is getting thin here; and I’ve got all the pressurization systems shut off.”

“I was just reaching up for the panel. And, at that moment, God popped into my head. Nothing really like a vision or a messagefrom God. It was a quick moment of the realization of God. I knew God was there. He was looking out for us. Everything was going to be fine. By the time, my hand actually reached the panel, the prayer was over. I was totally focused on doing my job,” he said. 

“We fly around, look around. Okay, we don’t see anything coming after us,” he said.

The pilot takes a different approach and lands safely, Rearick said. 

“That moment when I was reaching for the panel — that sticks in my head. I think of that as the shortest prayer in my life,” he said. 

“I don’t know what everyone here believes about God. It is none of my business,” he said. “I am sure there are a lot of people out there praying for people like me. I just wanted to say ‘Thank you.’ ”  

SHARING STORIES OF SERVICE 

On a Sunday afternoon in early November, a group of veterans gathered at the Harrison Historical Society Museum and shared stories. 

“I was obviously in the Air Force,” Rearick had said as he stepped to the podium and pointed to his uniform.  

He joked about some of the nicknames other branches of the military call the Air Force. 

“The Zoomies, the Chair Force — it’s all true,” he said. “We are not like the real military but we get paid well.”

Rearick was active during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was in the Air Force from 1989 until 2009. He retired after 20 years. 

“I am waiting until COVID-19 blows over so that I can take advantage of the GI Bill and pursue an education. I want to get my commercial pilot’s license,” he said.

On Nov. 7 at the Harrison Museum, former military personnel told tales of wartime woes as well as humorous stories. 

A couple gentlemen had similar stories of their families receiving mail from the government saying that they had been drafted— even though they had already been in the military for a few years. 

Norton Little was in the Air Force during the Korean War. He was stationed at Air Force Base, K-13, which was located in Suwon. 

“I got a letter from my mother one time when I was there. She said, ‘We got a notice that you’ve been drafted,’” Little said. “I had already been in the service for two years then. I don’t know if I ever found me or not. I survived that.” 

“Fortunately, I didn’t have to dig any fox holes or get shot at,” he told his fellow veterans. 

“One of the things I remember vividly is during the month of February when we were there [in Suwon] in the mess hall, we started getting rice every meal. This went on pretty near the whole month. We didn’t know why. Later, we found out that the warehouse in San Francisco had caught on fire and had burned up the supplies that were destined for the troops in Korea.  In the meantime, they flew in rice from the Philippines to feed us, to keep us going,” Little said.  

“We were glad that after a month or so they were able to get supplies to us” and the troop were able to eat something other than rice, Little said. 

Brian Spaulding was another person whose family got the notice of his draft well after he entered into Navy life. 

“I volunteered in ’56 on my birthday,” Spaulding said. “I ended up almost being drafted while I was in the reserves in Augusta, working for a radio station. Many times, I volunteered for fellows who had other things on their honey-do lists. I missed a few of the Reserves meetings. The captain said, ‘It’s time. Go into the service.’ I went to see the Navy fellow, and promptly enlisted.” 

“Six years later, I was on leave to see my son be born, and I received a letter from Augusta that I had been drafted,” he said. “They were six years too late!”

COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS

Spaulding recalled a story of mechanical mishaps and weather-related delays.

“One story I will share with you is: about how the Air Force treated me to a flight to Pearl Harbor before Christmas in 1974,” he said. 

“I came back from Clark Air Force base in a C-5, a B-I-G cargo plane. We were headed back from Clark Air Force base in the Philippines to Charleston for Christmas. They had the C-5 all loaded. We had quite a few Christmas presents, bow ties, packages tucked into the nooks and crannies there,” he said. “At two o’clock in the morning, we blew a tire… The plane doesn’t carry spare tire. I always wondered about that.”

It was a bit of fiasco to get the tire changed, involving scrounging up some 2-by-4s and plywood. 

Also, an altitude switch had to be fixed because the plane would be flying over the Rockies. At that point, Spaulding phoned his wife to say he would be gone in three days but it took twice as long.

“The next morning, it promptly snowed again, and we couldn’t take off for the same reason,” he said. 

The plane was held up for a week before it headed to the United States. 

Spaulding joked with the crew chief that: A sailor shows up with his sea bag. One month turns into three months turns into nine months. The crew chief pledged that the passengers would arrive home before Christmas. 

“It was supposed to be an uneventful trip. The crew chief told me when we flew over the Rocky Mountains, the gyroscope spun around like we were upside down and at the same time, the cockpit illumination light went on,” he said. 

In the end, the promise to get him home in time for Christmas was fulfilled.