Lincoln Man Followed Family Into Military

TRAVEL GAVE VETERAN INSIGHT INTO WORLD

LINCOLN — Chuck Wood described himself growing up as an “army brat.”

“My dad was in the army, my uncles and granddads were in the army or navy,” Wood said. “We had a long history in the military.”

Naturally, Wood was inclined to go into the military. “I didn’t want to go on ship and grew up as an army brat, so I decided on the air force.”

Wood joined the U.S. Air Force in April 1972. He spent six weeks in basic training. “It was about the same stuff as the army. I completed basics at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.”

In July, he was assigned to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., to train as a personnel specialist. Then he was sent to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth on his first assignment and remained there for four years.

Wood was reassigned to Rhine Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany.

“I was there three years,” Wood said. Then it was back to where he started at Lackland Air Force Base where he was reassigned as a basic training officer.

“It was a good deal and I enjoyed it,” Wood said.

As much as he might have enjoyed being a basic training officer, it wasn’t to last. He volunteered for recruiting service and after a 10-month stint at Edwards Air Force Base in California, he was sent to McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kan., where he spent the next 11 years.

“Growing up with a parent in the

service gave me an insight into the world I would have never had,” Wood said. That world consisted of living in Japan, Chile, Philippines, Germany and many places across the United States.

He recalled a childhood incident when the family was in Japan.

“When I was three yearsold, we lived near a port town, a vacation spa area. I remember that place to this day, because I ran away from home, went down to the coast to swim in the South China Sea. I wanted to go down to the big water,” Wood chuckled.

When the family lived in Chili, he learned to speak Spanish and attended two Catholic schools. “I learned quite a bit from that experience.”

The family spent a number of years in the Philippines. “I had Filipino friends, ran around in rice paddies and rode water buffalo.”

Wood was in high school when the family lived in Germany. He played baseball and saw a lot of the country traveling to and from the games. “When we were there, as a family we visited Austria, Italy, Switzerland and other places. I saw castles, the Alps and Hillary’s Eagles Nest. It was amazing to see and experience all the history.”

He wanted the same for his children and had a chance to do just that when he was stationed in Germany for a time. “As good as it was as a kid, it was even better as an adult.”

Wood said Germany has a lot of farmland and is “just beautiful.”

Wood was married in February 1974 to Joyce Fulfer of Lincoln. The couple was married at the Presbyterian church in Lincoln.

When his dad, Clyde Wood, retired from the service, he moved his family to Lincoln.

Wood had other military reassignments during his time in the air force as senior liaison officer, recruiting flight supervisor and as Noncommisioned Officer in charge of military entrance operations in South Dakota. He also worked at air force bases in Nebraska and Iowa before retiring after 20 years in December 1992.