Salute to Veterans: Air Force gave him an education, worldwide travel

When Judge Brown graduated from high school in Metter, Ga., in 1954, his options were limited. He could have picked tobacco, cotton or peanuts for $3 a day.

Instead he chose the military and hasn’t looked back since. Judge is not a nickname; it’s what his father, a Georgia sharecropper, named him 78 years ago.

Brown retired after 20 years and 9 months in the Air Force. That included more than 200 combat sorties over Vietnam in 1965-69 as the boom operator on a KC-135 Stratotanker refueling plane; he was based in Okinawa, Thailand, the Philippines and Taiwan during those long-distance aerial duties.

“The military was so good to me,” Brown said. “It gave me an opportunity to get an education and provided me all sort of opportunities to see the world.”

After retiring at Castle Air Force Base in May 1975, Brown became a teacher for 21 years, including four years at McSwain Elementary School and stints as a special education teacher at Livingston and Atwater high schools and the East Campus Educational Center.

Brown said he has no regrets about his decision to join the Air Force. A military career means frequent moves; for Brown that meant serving at 10 bases around the world and 900 days of temporary duty at training sites.

When he started in the Air Force, he went through basic training in San Antonio, Texas, and then airman’s airborne radio school at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., where he learned about electronic countermeasures, his specialty from 1955-58.

If ground radar locked onto an airplane, the ECM could jam those signals and elude detection. Despite Cold War tensions, all his radio duties were performed during peacetime.

When the B-36 Peacemaker airplane was phased out, Brown cross-trained as a boom operator, meaning he laid on his stomach in the tail of the plane while other aircraft were refueled in flight.

Brown will get to relive his airborne days when boom operators gather for a reunion later this month in Orlando, Fla. About 75 comrades should be attending the reunion and Brown said he tries to stay in touch with some of them.

When he retired from teaching in 1996, Brown and his late wife, Beverly, started a transport service to take veterans from this area to the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Fresno for doctor’s visits. He kept that up for 15 years, coordinating the efforts of 42 volunteer drivers.

The father of two grown children and six grandchildren; he married his second wife, Jody, in July 2013.

“In the military you had great friends, great people,” Brown said. “I’ve never seen such dedicated, hard-working folks in all my life.”

While he was stationed in New Mexico, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and New York in the Air Force, retiring here seemed like a good decision, since the Merced area is only two hours from many scenic California locales, Brown said.

Brown said he would never have dreamed that Castle AFB would close 18 years ago; he said he is sad when he goes by the former base.

“I believe in volunteering,” Brown said. He’s the quartermaster of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 7792 in Winton and a member of the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and the Air Force Sergeants Association.

The comradeship with members of the veterans organizations is endearing. “Once you start talking it’s like you pick up where you left off 30 years ago,” Brown said.

This story was originally published November 10, 2014 at 4:00 PM with the headline "Salute to Veterans: Air Force gave him an education, worldwide travel."