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A lifetime of service

  • Published
  • By Annette Crawford
  • Air Force Recruiting Service Public Affairs
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas --  It's a common practice among Air Force members, both active duty and civil service, to brag about how long they've been assigned somewhere, and it's no different in Air Force Recruiting Service.

But for anyone who thinks they hold the record at AFRS, they better check with John "Jack" Burns first. He'll retire July 1 with 60 years of service to the U.S. Air Force - 41 of those with recruiting.

Born and raised in Youngstown, Ohio, Burns enlisted on Oct. 10, 1955 - before Alaska and Hawaii became states. It was also before Lackland became the sole Air Force Basic Military Training base; he completed his training at Sampson Air Force Base in Geneva, New York.

His first assignment was at Kinross AFB in the upper peninsula of Michigan where he served as an administrative clerk. Then it was off the U.S. Territory of Alaska at Eielson AFB.

"Recently I viewed photos of Eielson AFB and the only building I recognized was the huge flight hangar.  Unknown to us at the time was the highly top secret U2 spy airplane would land at night and parked in that hangar.  During my two years assigned to Eielson and for many years after, base Airmen never knew of this highly classified mission," Burns said.

After reenlisting in 1959, he served at Selfridge AFB, Michigan, and then to Minnesota, where he met his wife, Mary.

"I met Mary when I first got assigned to the air base in Duluth, Minnesota, in April of 1961," Burns said. "Mary was a nurse who worked at St. Mary's Hospital Emergency Room. We were married in 1964 and had a wonderful 49 years and seven months of marriage until she passed in 2013."

Later assignments included Etain AB, France; Royal Air Force Alconbury, England; and Minot AFB, North Dakota, before he volunteered for a one-year tour in Vietnam. He was assigned to the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Construction Directorate adjacent to Tan Son Nhut AB on the outskirts of Saigon.

When he returned stateside to K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, Burns volunteered for special duty with AFRS. He was selected to be an administrative supervisor in Pittsburgh in August 1971, starting his extraordinary 41-year stint with the command. Six years later, he was handpicked for the position of executive assistant in the command section at AFRS, Randolph AFB, Texas.

"Back in 1977, Headquarters AFRS was located at the back of the base where the base gym is now located.  We were housed in five World War II open bay barracks," Burns said. "When we moved the headquarters to its present location in July 1978 we were impressed. I have probably worked in 20 different offices in the headquarters since 1978, all in the Operations Division."

Burns retired from active duty in December 1981, and then began his civil service career in November 1982 with the Military Personnel Center at Randolph. He rejoined AFRS in March 1984 and initially worked in the enlisted accessions branch. A year later he moved to officer accessions. In 1995, the line officer and health professions officer accessions programs were combined, and in 2003, he was assigned exclusively to processing applications for all health profession programs.

"My strength is not high-tech but I'm on Facebook, and the amount of data I have entered in the line officer and health professions data bases is really impressive even if I have to say so myself," he said.

"Sixty years of service is hard to fathom for most of us," said Col. Robert W. Trayers Jr., chief of the Operations and Marketing Division at AFRS. "After a distinguished active duty career and retirement, most move on to other things. Not Jack ... he loves his Air Force too much to leave."

Trayers said it's been an honor to serve alongside Burns and hear some of his great stories.

"We always say that the Air Force keeps right on rolling when any of us leave or retire, but there is no doubt in my mind the Air Force is losing a treasure next month," Trayers said.

But as many years as he served in recruiting, Burns consider the most exciting day of his career was in the summer of 1956. He was only 17 years old.

"I was a clerk working for the chief of maintenance in the fighter interceptor squadron. This lieutenant walks in my office and says to me, 'Come with me. We are going for a ride.' He gets me issued a parachute, get on a runway taxi and arrive at the T-33 trainer jet. Off we go into the wild blue yonder," Burns remembered.

"For two hours and five minutes we are flying all over northern Michigan. We get up to 32,000 feet. When we dropped down to 28,000 the lieutenant has me in control of the aircraft. That lieutenant's name was Pete Knight. On Oct. 3, 1967, Pete Knight set a world aircraft speed record for manned aircraft by piloting the X-15 to 5,520 miles per hour - a record that still stands today," he said.

"He flew 257 combat missions over Vietnam and flew more than 7,000 flight hours. I was Col. Pete Knight's co-pilot. It does not get any better than that."

Burns' plans for retirement include traveling back Ireland; he and his wife visited there for two weeks in 1999. He also hopes to visit family and friends all across the United States.

His eldest daughter, Ann Stefanek, will do the honors of retiring her father in a ceremony at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, Texas, July 10. She is a senior civil service public affairs executive in the office of the Secretary of the Air Force. She served nine years on active duty and recently retired as a colonel from the Air Force Reserve.

His daughter, Diana, is a vice president at Randolph-Brooks Federal Credit Union, and son, John, is a senior information technology executive at USAA in San Antonio.

"My family and I are so proud of my dad for his six decades of service to this great nation," Stefanek said. "His quiet commitment and steadfast service have been an inspiration to us and the myriad Airmen he has helped over the countless years in recruiting. While never officially holding a 'Recruiter' job title, his children, a host of my ROTC brethren and many OTS selects are a testament to my dad's guidance and counsel."

Stefanek said her father helped navigate many people through their "firsts" in their military journeys.

"My dad's heart has always been in mentoring young people, in the military and the Randolph community," she said. "I don't think he will ever realize just how many lives he has touched."