James Cremer

It has been fun coming to this site and reading all these bios but it is about time I quit procrastinating and get on the ball with mine. I guess the one thing that struck me was all of the moves, job changes, soul searching… etc that many of you have experienced. I have not had has many changes by comparison but I will give this a shot anyway lol.

In the summer of 1988 I took a trip to Santa Fe and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. I was placed in the job of crew chief on the F-15 fighter. I was put on delayed enlistment for about six months (a waiting list) until I left Los Alamos for basic training in February 1989.

I completed basic training in April and left for tech school in Chanute AFB, IL for two months. Not a whole lot to say about this time period other than you are very busy, drill instructors yell a lot but the days did move fast so that was a good thing.

In tech school I received my first duty station orders and I was going to none other than Holloman AFB, NM…..umm okay!?! One of the reasons people join the military is so they can experience different places in the world. I did not expect to be back in NM so soon. I arrived at Holloman AFB in July 1989 and was assigned to the 8th fighter squadron. During my time at Holloman, I thought I might as well take advantage of being so close to home and drove to Los Alamos

on many weekends and holidays. It was on one of these trips home that I met my wife Tiffany in January 1991. She transferred to Los Alamos from Virginia and graduated with the class of 1991. We dated for a year and a half. I drove from Alamogordo to Los Alamos every weekend for that year and a half as well. I logged a lot of miles during that time. It was well worth it!!!

This was of course is when Operation Desert Storm started. Myself and the three squadrons of F-15s, ground crew, and pilots did not deploy. Rumors of going over there in the months prior had been rampant but never came to pass. I dated Tiffany for the next year and a half when I learned that the Air Force was going to move the F-117 stealth fighter to Holloman from Nevada and that the F-15 was going to the Guard and Reserve bases. The F-15 crew chiefs would have to move to other F-15 bases as the stealth fighter crew chiefs and other ground crew were coming with it. Tiffany and I had to come to a decision either to get married or end the relationship as my next duty station will not be anywhere close to New Mexico. So we married in April 1992 and left for Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina in July.

Seymour Johnson AFB was a good tour of duty over all. I was assigned to the 334th fighter squadron and worked on the F-15E strike eagle which was a dual role fighter/bomber and updated from the fighters we had at Holloman. The base was involved in deployments for Operation Southern Watch which was for three months at a time in the Middle East. I deployed twice for this, once in 1993 and the other in 1994. Things were status quo until 1997 when I was offered a position in the Maintenance Operations Center which is basically a command post for the flight line. I got to see a different side of how the fighter squadrons work and it was a great assignment. I had a crossroads of sorts in 1998. My enlistment was coming to an end and I was not preparing to enlist for a third time. I had achieved what I had wanted and would do it all again, but as they say it was time to move on. It was about this time that my first child was on the way. Tyler (9) was born at the end of the year and we couldn’t have been happier. It was during all this that a little luck, timing, came into play. A position with the Department of Justice in the Dallas/Fort Worth area was available. So in 1999 with the new baby and Honorable Discharge in hand, we moved to the great state of Texas. This job is in many ways is similar to the experience I had in the Maintenance Operations Center. My full title is Operations Assistant and my work deals in many forms of communication to help catch and put away the bad guys. We settled down here in DFW and everything is great. Our second child Lauren (6) was born in 2001. We bought our first home in 2003. The kids are a blast. Tyler is really into Legos, Pokémon cards and video games. Lauren likes anything pink, fluffy, or is a doll. Both kids enjoy swimming very much. Tiffany is busy with work as a home based reservations agent with American Airlines since 2005. She has recently won the Outstanding Employee for 2008 award for continuously going above and beyond in customer service. Although at the time of this writing we have to see how another round of job cuts turns out L.

One of my interests that developed in the last fifteen years is my fascination with weather. I guess the Los Alamos nerd reared its ugly head in me after all J! If a hurricane is in the Atlantic Basin or a tornado outbreak is occurring in the U.S. you will find me glued to a computer looking at forecast models, satellite loops, radar, etc. My wife always jokes with me and calls me chicken little when a thunderstorm is in our area.

I still listen to metal to this day and I have attended many concerts with my partner in crime Sean Hall (class of 89). We have stayed in constant contact with each other since High School and he now resides in the Austin, Texas area with his family. Sean, and myself had driven to San Antonio to see Iron Maiden for the 7th time and took his son along who is now a teenager for his first metal concert. It was cool to pass along the experience that had started back in 1985 to the next generation.

Well I think I hit all the main points of the last twenty years and I look forward to seeing you at the reunion. If anyone is in the Dallas/Fort Worth area or just wants to chat, feel free to contact us at tcremer@verizon.net

See ya soon!