Initially a celebration of the end of World War I, Nov. 11 is now observed as Veterans Day, a time to celebrate the people who serve in the military.
“Anybody who makes that commitment deserves your respect. They’re just doing their job,” veteran Don Coffey said.
Coffey is one of two local veterans who agreed to sit down with us ahead of the Veterans Day holiday Tuesday to reflect on their time serving our country.
Senior Master Sgt. Don Coffey flew all around the world with the Air Force, yet one sight sticks out in his mind.
“The prettiest thing I ever saw was the lights on the (Wynnewood) refinery coming home to Tinker,” Coffey said.
After graduating from Pauls Valley High School in 1966, Coffey planned to join the Navy to avoid the draft. Enlisting provided more options for individuals than if they were drafted. He chose the Air Force so he could learn a trade.
“It wasn’t a popular time to be in the service, but it was the best thing to happen to me,” Coffey said.
Specifically, Coffey served as a crew chief, overseeing a small team that inspected and serviced fighter planes.
“If anything goes wrong, it’s on you,” he said. “We did everything to keep the planes maintained, but it’s not as scary as you think. We just go by the checklist, and if something is wrong, we call the right specialist.”
He spent a year in Vietnam, having extended his tour twice.
“We didn’t have time to be homesick,” Coffey said. “We were either working on one plane or taking a quick nap.”
While serving in Vietnam, Coffey would have to check planes returning from battle. “They (pilots) would do everything they could to get back. They would want to see the base before they punch out,” he said. “Then we had to inspect for shrapnel and other battle damage.”
Once, a plane returned with a shattered center windshield.
“He couldn’t see out of it. He was very happy to be out of it,” Coffey said.
He spent four years based in England but flying to places all over Europe.
He would fly on the planes that refuel the fighter jets, as said planes were taken to new locations.
“I would lie down and watch them (the planes),” Coffey said. “We had a close relationship with the boomers (boom operators).”
After leaving active duty in 1974, he continued with the Reserves and worked as a civilian at Tinker until 2003.
During his time in the service, Coffey visited around 40 countries.
“There was something good and something bad about every single one of them,” he said.
He was born in Pauls Valley, but his family moved away and returned when he was a freshman. His wife is from Wynnewood, where the couple lived for many years, including when he would commute to Tinker. They now live in Sulphur, but Coffey still takes photos of local sports teams. He has been honored twice as a Veteran of the Game by Wynnewood High School and the State Bank of Wynnewood.
Staff Sgt. Damon Brown helped develop the Army’s Tactical Explosive Detection Dog program.
Before TEDD, when the Army needed dogs to sniff for improvised explosive devices (IEDs), they would have to borrow dogs and handlers from the Air Force or Navy. TEDD allowed the dogs and handlers to be members of the Army unit already.
Brown organized the initial training of 120 soldiers for 120 dogs in the program in Indiana. The dogs and handlers would then continue training in Yuma, where the desert environment was more similar to the Middle East.
Brown was also stationed at the Central Command in Kuwait to process the dogs going to and from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern countries.
He worked on the after-action review of the program that was used to create the Army Regulations for the program, a rare feat for someone with the rank of staff sergeant.
Brown also spent a number of years driving the Army band and chorus throughout Europe.
“I’ve been to places I didn’t know existed,” said Brown, who grew up in the small town of Houston, Missouri.
Brown served a total of 22 years in the Army and saw 36 countries.
“Not all of them were nice,” he said. “There was immense poverty behind the Iron Curtain. I saw how the other world lives.”
He visited Belarus in honor of their Independence Day, which celebrates the Soviets liberating the country from Nazi German occupation during World War II. Dandelions, commonly considered a weed in the U.S., are a significant symbol in Belarus, where it is cultivated in plots throughout the towns.
During even-numbered years, the Army band played for the D-Day anniversary in Normandy. (The Air Force did odd-numbered years.)
He attended the 60th D-Day Anniversary in 2004, which featured veterans from that battle reenacting the jumps they made on D-Day. After their jumps, the veterans needed a ride, so Brown had the band get off and wait while he took the 80-something-year-old veterans where they needed to go.
The Normandy visits also had personal significance for Brown, whose grandfather was stationed in North Africa during World War II and later went through Normandy after the initial invasion.
Brown was able to show his family where said grandfather would have been during that time.
“It’s amazing we got anyone alive across that beach,” he said.
Brown and his wife now live in Pauls Valley, and he is a maintenance technician teacher at Mid-America Technology Center.
