02/10/2026
On December 28, 1966, I boarded a T-29 at Kelly AFB after completing basic training, bound for Chanute AFB for tech school. As soon as I stepped off the aircraft and began walking across the tarmac toward the bus that would take us to our barracks, I experienced the coldest weather I had ever known up to that point in my life.
I attended school on the midnight to 6:00 a.m. shift—without question, the coldest hours of the day. Each night meant a one-mile march to school, slipping and sliding on ever-present ice, wondering why any sane person would choose to live in such brutal conditions.
I finally reasoned that they must have never been to the South—because if they had, they’d never come back. Some folks do visit the South on vacation and spend the rest of their lives dreaming of moving there when they retire.
And that, my fellow Airmen, is my take on why you rarely hear of anyone retiring and moving North.
