Mark A. Metler

I spent 21 years in the U.S. Air Force, 11 of those in C-141 Special Operations. I have flown all over the world; I have been shot at, cut, bit, burned, stabbed, run over, and uncomfortably close to several large explosions. (For those of you who have yet to see the rest of the world, I recommend the Travel Channel). Life is good in America every day.

My lovely and durable wife Jenette and I have 4 kids; son Shannon is a Marine Biologist; his wife Jennifer is the Librarian at Coastal Carolina University. They are the proud parents of Charleigh (our second granddaughter) She is a precious gift.

Christina is a neonatal ICU nurse at MUSC. She and her husband Klaus are the parents of our other grandchildren, Isabella and Sophia. Klaus is a bigwig with a Danish shipping company called Kvoorgzbroztiffemuugen (or something like that).

April is a highly talented poet, artist, and freelance photographer living in Chicago. She is also the manager of a Segway tour operation. April spreads sunshine everywhere she goes.

Mark Christian is a former baseball all-star. MC is mixing it up a bit between travel and careers these days.

I have come out of retirement on a contract basis to troubleshoot valves at the Duke nuclear plants. I see quite a few old friends there.

Between outages I fly around in my own Cessna 150J.

It has come to my attention that the link that used to go to an Airman magazine article about C-141 SOLL II has been disabled. Oh well, what you don't know can't hurt me.

TGIF... On Fridays, I was a popular guy. Cheerleaders, members of the PEP club, athletes, and others of elevated student stature would track me down, get me out of class if necessary, and give me "special attention". Now, now, now. While I possessed the social skills of a roach, I could draw. So they would use me, to my delight, to draw out the banners for the football game, basketball game, or whatever game. I was cool with being used that way.

Bill Lee