BEALE AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. -- For Wheatland Union High School’s football coach, it has been, “a year of firsts.”
“First year as a teacher. First year as coach. First year as offensive coordinator,” said Coach Joshua Crawley.
Wednesday marked another first for Crawley, the first time he rode in a T-38 Talon, an advanced trainer jet aircraft operated by the U.S. Air Force on Beale Air Force Base.
“This will be one of the biggest highlights,” Crawley said.
He didn’t just mean the flight. While Crawley was in the air, a sea of Wheatland Pirates rushed the tarmac to surprise him when he landed. Out of three yellow school buses, the Wheatland High School men and women’s football teams rolled out to join Crawley’s family and greet their coach.
Crawley served active duty in the U.S. Air Force for 7 years and now serves in the reserves as a technical sergeant with the 940th Air Refueling Wing (ARW). He got close to taking a ride in a fast jet while, working in avionics on the F-16, and was stationed in multiple places including Guam, Japan and South Korea. Raised in a military family, he moved around a lot. When asked where home was, he said, “I claim here,” and that “Wheatland is definitely home for me and my family.”
Those diverse experiences with the Air Force influenced Crawley as a teacher and a coach and, “helped [him] communicate with different groups of students.” When asked if there was much similarity between the training he received in the Air Force and the skills he teaches on the football field, he acknowledges the differences but that “definitely the resilience and mental aspect overlaps.”
His students echoed this theme of resiliency. Tenth-grader Jaeda Wolfe, after participating in a door-breeching demonstration with Beale’s Security Forces mentioned this focus on mindset and said that during the demo, “it got a little hard but there’s a lot of people behind me, supporting me.”
Eventually, she broke through that door with a battering ram to the excitement of the crowd of blue jersey wearing students around her. This security forces demo was just one of the activities prepared by Team Beale for Crawley and his students.
Also on display was a U-2 Dragon Lady for the students to get up close and personal with the high-flying reconnaissance plane operated by the 9th Reconnaissance Wing. The tour continued to a KC-135 Stratotanker air-to-air refueler operated by the 940th ARW. Students were able to walk around inside the tanker and tour the cockpit and boom operator’s station.
While photos were encouraged earlier in the tour, when the students visited the 548th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group, all their phones, cameras and various smart devices had to be left behind. There, they learned about the multiple roles that Distributed Ground Station-2 (DSG-2) and the 48th Intelligence Support Squadron carry out on Beale.
“Think of it like Call of Duty, you have your advanced UAV guiding guys down on the ground,” said Senior Airman Alexander Murray, describing the multiple layers of reconnaissance provided by Beale through the lens of a popular video game.
The day concluded with a cookout provided by the Beale Military Liaison Council. Airmen intermingled with students, answering questions about Air Force life and career fields, while teams from Security Forces, Ammunition and Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) ran demonstrations.
The sound of students, like Jaelen Wolfe working the battering ram at the door breach demo, rang out over the crowd while other groups gathered around the bombs on display prepared by the 9th Munitions Squadron Airmen and the EOD technicians as they helped students suit up in the heavy EOD equipment.
Some students even took a jog in the heavy equipment. Kane Burton, a junior on the varsity team, said his football training “built up his endurance to pull that much weight.” He added that he had seen these suits before and he thought, “it was as hard as it looks, and I think they did an excellent job with the mechanics.”
At the end of the day, the team was loaded back in their buses and on their way home. When Wolfe heard the plan for the day, she “didn’t think they were being serious” about seeing their coach take flight. For Crawley, he said this year of firsts “shows that you can do both” serve your country and be part of a home like Wheatland.