Local pastor recalls time spent in Air Force during Veterans Day celebration

Rev. Billy Weems served as the keynote speaker at today's Veterans Day Program.

By Danielle Wallingsford Kirkland

Veterans of the United States military were honored today at Collins Intermediate School during the annual Veterans Day program.

Billy Weems, Methodist pastor and a former member of the U.S. Air Force, was the event’s key note speaker.

Weems began by expressing sorrow that World War I never proved to be the war that would end all wars.

“…Our troops and our airmen, our coastguardsmen, our soldiers, our sailors and our marines have been sent time and time again to take care of business for our country, and today we continue in a war on terror that brought tragedy once again to American soil,” Weems said.

Weems said Jihadist regimes are “hell bent” on destroying the United States.

“To deny that, in my eyes, is nothing less than treason,” he said, adding that in his own heart he waters the situation down to make it less than it is.

“I want to remind us that we hate the acts of terror and we fight the terrorist, but we cannot hate the enemy… we are called upon by our Christian faith to love one another. Jesus said to love your enemies … if one smites you on the face you turn the other cheek,” Weems said.

Weems went on to define what a veteran really is.

“I thought about that since I was asked to speak today,” Weems said. “I came up with a definition that is not my own. A veteran is someone who at one point in their life wrote a blank check wrote out to the United States of America for the sum and up to and including the giving of his or her life for their country.”

But the bulk of Weems’s speech was dedicated to stories of his experiences as a U.S. airman.

Weems said he joined the Air Force when he was a senior at Courtland High School at the age of 17. He said the recruiter had an easy time convincing him to join, because he had not wanted to be drafted. He desired what he called a “cushy” job. One that allowed him to live in a building that had air in the summertime and heat in the winter. However, he found himself becoming a security policeman.

“If you don’t know, that is the infantry of the Air Force,” he said.

He had expected to spend the summer after high school at home before he reported for duty, but things did not go as planned.

“Early in May I got this nice phone call from my recruiter to inform me that the Air Force was aware I was to graduate on May 25 and they thought May 29 would be ample time for me to celebrate my senior summer so I should go ahead and report for active duty and I did so,” he said. “My senior trip, young people, was a lovely vacation at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where the temperature usually reaches and stays around 100 during the day. It was very nice. We needed no sauna; we wore them on our back.”

He said he still remembered his first night on base, where he and the others landed at midnight.

“We got to this lovely place that will live in infamy until the day I die,” he said, referring to what he called “hell’s kitchen,” where he received his first Air Force meal.

Marching along in a single file line, he and the others entered the kitchen.

“We sat down to this nice plate of stuff,” he said. “They said it was bacon and eggs, but we learned pretty soon to call it what it really was – SOS (shit on a shingle).”

Four minutes after sitting down, Weems said they were marched to their barracks where their training instructor introduced them to the realities of the Air Force.

“He was a gentle kind spirit,” Weems joked. “He really was I’m sure. I know he loved us because he kept telling us 'I’m your mama' in at least four languages, one of which we cannot say in public.”

Their first duty was to decide on a beneficiary should something happen to them and to quickly write a will.

“As a 17 year old I thought that weird, but the reality of the situation was that we were at war,” he said.

Though Weems volunteered to go to Vietnam, he never made it in country. Instead he was shipped to the Philippines. Upon first getting off the plane, Weems said he was hit with the heat and humidity that was the jungle.

“That was my new world,” he said.

Weems said he was only scared two times. Once was when Israel was being attacked from every neighbor and security went to a higher level of DEFCON.

“We were called in to squadron headquarters,” he said, adding that they were told to pack their duty bag, not duffel bag, and then ordered to report back to armor to draw weapons.

“I was afraid because I knew that if they sent us in we wouldn’t last very long,” he said.

The other time Weems said he felt afraid he was serving as security alone on a far outpost

“All of the sudden flares started popping,” Weems said. “I heard screaming and voices and I saw people running towards me. When I could make out a silhouette I put my sights on him and I flipped the safety off.”

Before help arrived, the enemy disappeared, Weems said.

“They vanished into thin air,” he said. “The next morning we found out they had tunneled all over Clark airbase. Anytime they wanted to they could hit the base and do what they wanted to do.”

In the two years he served in the Philippines, Weems said they lost eight men.

“That’s not a lot compared to what was going on in Vietnam,” he said. “In fact nobody knew about it, most of that was so classified it never got off base.”

Weems soon returned home to the United States.

“I came home in a 1974 to a world that was changing when I left, but it had completely changed by the time I got back,” Weems said.

Weems recalled proudly wearing his uniform any time he got the chance before he left for war. But when he returned he was told to remove the uniform and dress in civilian clothing. And on his first date after he returned he was shamed for serving in the Air Force.

“This young lady was looking at me and saw my hair and said ‘you just got back from Vietnam you baby killer’ and she got up and walked out. I never got the chance to tell her I wasn’t in country,” Weems said. “I realized pretty soon it wouldn’t have mattered because she didn’t care.”

Weems said events in honor of veterans were not held during those days.

“Many of you Vietnam era guys know what I’m talking about,” he said. “If anybody welcomed you home it was your mama and daddy. It wasn’t a parade.”

Despite not having a warm welcome home after serving his country, Weems said he was thankful for his time in the Air Force.

“I gained something that is so a part of me that it will never be gone,” he said. “The time I spent in the Air Force taught me that I know how to be a member of a team. I learned self discipline and how to do what needs to be done when the time comes to do it. I learned respect for my nation.”