The Air Force Life (Final Article)
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Stokes in Afghanistan about to go on his night patrol.
A 41 year old father of 5 girls from the ages 1 to 17. Three different military tours, two in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Stokes is a fighter pilot for the United States Air Force. But when he’s not on active duty with the military he flies for United Airlines and owns a business in the Midwest. He has trained his entire life to do what he does overseas so all his friends and family support him and he doesn’t look for sympathy. Chris does what he loves and ironically doesn’t mind going overseas to fight.
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Stokes flew an A10 and F16 fighter planes. His job was to give support to the troops on the ground. His squadron also saw more action on Friday’s than any other day because Friday was a Holy day. They would do their religious activities then go out and attend to their war duties.
One of the short stories Chris shared was when, “we were on a mission watching over bad guys from the sky, they had to abort the mission because we ran out of gas and had to leave before we could help the good guys. We couldn’t shoot the bad guys or who we thought were bad guys because they hadn’t done anything bad yet, they could have just been farmers loading up a pick-up truck for all we knew, but we weren’t believing that, because we heard they were talking on their cell phones telling everybody they were gonna attack the Americans. So we could have blown them up but we didn’t because they weren’t doing a hostile act. But we ran out of gas and had to leave.”
According to Chris, “it’s kinda fun going over there. It’s the biggest challenge in life, but I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.”
Chris was lucky in that when he went overseas he was able to talk to his family more then usual. He would Skype with his kids almost everyday and eat together over Skype and even play peek-a-boo, which made things easier. His wife Alisha didn’t really change her routine when Chris went overseas. She would stay busy and focus on work. But once they had kids, she had to explain to them where he was at and why he wasn’t home. They understood for a couple days then they would start to miss him again and ask, “where’s daddy? When is daddy gonna be home?” He always told his wife that “he’s safer over there than you are driving down O street.” Obviously it wasn’t true, but to make her feel better that’s what he’d say.
During his last tour he had access to a computer everyday. He got to send out emails to not only family but also friends. Chris would email all his friends and family almost everyday. When he emailed them they weren’t short, couple line emails, but he took the time to write five page stories, talking about what he’s doing, any missions he’s been on and sometimes just general things.
In one of his emails, he told a story about one of his missions when his fighter jet had a malfunction. But he decided to keep flying above the convoy to keep them covered. He didn’t realize till he was five miles from landing how bad his plane was malfunctioning. In his emails he went into great detail about what his thoughts were and what he was doing in those moments. “ I had to land with the right engine on full power, and I couldn’t shut the plane down until the de-arming crew detached all guns, bombs and ammo off the plane.” He was afraid the plane malfunction would set off the guns and deploy the bombs.
The tours that Chris went on weren’t very long, but he did experience three different tours. Ken Koop who has known Chris for 13 years now says, “It was difficult at first to see him leave. Often we would think about him and hope all was going ok and that he was ok. I wanted him to be safe and to serve. It was a tough situation because both items are not necessarily the same.”
Chris did have light symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder but not significant problems. He and his wife Alisha, noticed some differences in moods or feelings, but were able to control it and work through it to make things better. Chris said it was, Chris said, “not so much a traumatic experience but more of constantly under stress, and having high adrenaline levels all the time, day in and day out, and what that does is form a chemical imbalance in peoples bodies and getting use to it, then going home and having it just drop.”
Lieutenant Colonel Chris Stokes isn’t on active duty anymore. He isn’t going back overseas anytime soon or possibly never again. He’s at the age where the younger men and women are taking over his job. He is still part of the Air Force and still currently has what is known as a desk job. When he’s not working for the Air Force he keeps himself busy with owning a business in Kansas. He also started OmaLink, a small business in Omaha and Lincoln but recently sold it. Chris also flies for United Airlines. Finally, he still keeps very busy with family and friends.
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