Sayles, Wayne, Capt

PLEASE DESCRIBE WHO OR WHAT INFLUENCED YOUR DECISION TO JOIN THE AIR FORCE.
After graduating from High School, I worked double shifts that summer at a local Stokely-VanCamp canning factory making $1.60 per hour. In one of my jobs there, I worked next to my High School football coach and Civics teacher. He was an Air Force veteran who had been stationed in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, presumably during WWII. He highly recommended the Air Force for its educational opportunities and its general treatment of personnel. By the end of that summer I had contacted a local recruiter and enlisted with a guaranteed tech school assignment in the electronics/communication field. That one-year school was an invaluable base for the assignments that would follow.

WHETHER YOU WERE IN THE SERVICE FOR SEVERAL YEARS OR AS A CAREER, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DIRECTION OR PATH YOU TOOK. WHERE DID YOU GO TO BASIC TRAINING AND WHAT UNITS, BASES, OR SQUADRONS WERE YOU ASSIGNED TO? WHAT WAS YOUR REASON FOR LEAVING?
After Basic Training and Tech School I married my high school sweetheart and was stationed at an "isolated" communications relay in Gander, Newfoundland. It turned out to be something less than isolated. In fact, it was only five miles from the Gander International Airport. When I reported, I learned that I could bring my wife there and live in the civilian community nearby. Of course, it would have to be at my own expense since I was only and E-3. I was granted some additional leave, flew back to Wisconsin and picked up an assortment of "donations" from family and friends, and headed cross country by auto to Newfoundland at the age of 19. It was an adventure, but we made it. The tour was one year, but I extended for an additional year and left with my wife and two sons. I spent the next two years in a mobile communications unit at Fort Bragg, NC and Orlando, FL where a daughter joined the family. Following that I spent two years at Incirlik Air Base in Adana, Turkey. It was an accompanied tour and enjoyable. I was promoted to Staff Sergeant by then and was thinking about a more stable and lucrative way of life. I left the Air force at the end of my second enlistment and went back to my home town where I went to a local Teacher's College on the GI Bill. At the end of one year, I realized that the Air Force was actually a better path for me. I reinlisted and started gathering additional college credits at night and summer school sessions. In 1971, I was accepted into the Bootstrap Program and received my bachelors degree from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. From there, I was sent to Officers Training School where I was an honor graduate. That led to a new world and new adventures.

IF YOU PARTICIPATED IN ANY MILITARY OPERATIONS, INCLUDING COMBAT, HUMANITARIAN AND PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS, PLEASE DESCRIBE THOSE WHICH MADE A LASTING IMPACT ON YOU AND, IF LIFE-CHANGING, IN WHAT WAY?
While stationed in Orlando Florida with the 716th Combat Control Squadron, I was assigned temporary duty to the Dominican Republic as a member of the American peacekeeping effort in Santo Domingo, The country was in the midst of a revolution and we were sent there to provide reliable communications Erin the island to those directing our involvement back in the U.S. I was a Sergeant in the Air Force at that time and a member of the communications maintenance staff. We communicated with the U.S. via a mobile tropospheric scatter system. I was only in the Dominican Republic for 90 days, but happened to come down with malaria during that time and spent an ugly week convalescing in an Army Hospital tent. My most vivid memory of that time was being part of a mail run to the center of town and being caught in a cross-fire. Fortunately we all survived. Other than that, I found the D.R. a lovely place for the most part.