First off Nancy mentioned that Bob had several F-14 rides. She didn’t quite tell the whole story. Also being a retired MSgt, let me tell you, those rides don’t come free. They are earned!! Bob was a team leader of a weapons load crew. He worked his way up through the ranks to become the leader/supervisor of a load crew. Every so often the base would have a competition between load crews. Through Bob’s leadership, his crew was so good, they were winning every competition. Each time a team won, they earned a ride in a F14. With Bob’s unselfishness, after 4 rides, he started turning the rides down to offer them to other Airmen that never had a ride. Let me tell you, these aren’t your run of the mill roller coaster ride. And to fly the jet is unbelievable.

Just before he retired, he was selected as supervisor to oversee the shut down of his decommissioned unit. This involved reassignment and disposition of unit asset’s. He was literally the last person in the unit when it was dissolved.

I was fortunate enough to get stationed with him at Luke AFB, AZ a couple years before he retired. We were in different squadrons, so we never worked together. He worked F-14s and I was a F-16 guy. We did get together a lot on the weekends. One picture was him grilling on one of our get togethers. One thing you may notice, in just about all pictures of him, he is always smiling or grinning. I don’t think he had a mean bone in his body.

I remember one time we were on leave at the same time back in Indiana. We were at Lowell’s house (my brother), Bob and I got talking “shop”. No one else had any clue what we were saying 🤣🤣. It was like we were talking a foreign language. Lowell told me this sometime later.

I still can’t believe he’s gone. I did get to talk to him on the phone before he passed. We said how much we loved each other, which unfortunately we never did before. I will truly miss seeing and talking to him. 

Dearest Nancy, although I didn't have a chance to meet him, Sean met Bob by driving him and you, to much needed doctors visits and hospital visits.  Sean says he was extremely nice, and was really grateful for the walker and wheelchair we gave him. 

He will be deeply missed by our whole community. 

Our Deepest condolences, 

Sean and