Goodbye sergeant, hello mister

  • Published
  • By Airman Samantha S. DeVries
  • 366th Fighter Wing Public Affairs Office
MOUNTAIN HOME AIR FORCE BASE, Idaho (ACCNS) --  After 20 years of service, the base bids farewell to Master Sgt. Yancy Mailes, 366th Fighter Wing historian.

Almost.

In October 2003, the Air Force began converting its history program from military positions to a fully civilianized force. Sergeant Mailes will be one of the last enlisted historians to retire, only to return soon after as Mr. Mailes.

"I'll be one of the last enlisted historians -- maybe the last -- in the Air Force," he said.

While the Air Force history program began seeing changes in 2002, the announcement was made in 2003 with the conversion following shortly after.

"Some people were just so hurt -- they felt betrayed and just cross trained and left the career field all together," Sergeant Mailes said. "I found out [about the conversion] as I was driving here. I got a phone call that the career field was converting, and I would have to make a decision on whether or not I was going to retire or cross train."

After deliberating with those he loved, he made his decision.

"My wife Lisa and I talked about it quite a bit, and I thought that even though I was really aggravated in the beginning, it was really a blessing in disguise, which it's turned out to be," he said. "I get to retire as a master sergeant and come back to do what I love and continue to serve my country, just in a different capacity."

After 20 years of service, it only made sense.

"I've been a historian for 12 years," he said. "I've been in the Air Force 20 years, but for the first eight years of my career, I was a weapons loader. In 1996 I cross trained into the historian career field. Although I really liked my job as a weapons loader, I just didn't really see a future in it for me. I spoke to my wife and basically said I'm going to get out unless I get this job. It just seemed very interesting to me."

The civilian side of the history program will have differences, but will in many ways stay the same. All historians will still be deployable and with currently a little more than 200 historians in the Air Force, it will be a one-to-one conversion, but it still may not be exactly the same.

"You and I are on call 24/7, 365 days a year," he said. "As a civilian, you fall underneath the union and depending on what type of personality you are, you can stick to what the union says, which is basically getting paid to work eight hours a day without any strange shifts. But if you want to -- in my opinion -- serve your country honorably, you work until the work is done."

And that is how Sergeant Mailes plans to approach his new career.

"I will be Mr. Mailes, but I will have the work ethic of 20 years of being in the military," he explained.

As for the deployment requirements, Sergeant Mailes is more than willing.

"I am a willing applicant to go back to Iraq," he said. "It was one of the most enjoyable and fulfilling deployments I've had."

While the hours and uniforms differ, the job description will remain the same. According to the sergeant, the job of a historian is to collect the unvarnished truth of what's happening.

"We're involved with having knowledge of not only what occurred within the unit we're assigned to, but also knowing the history of the base we're at," he explained. "We're almost like a knowledgeable gossip."

Historians also educate base and local populaces through various projects, but the main duty is to write the annual history of the base. One copy is stored here while another goes to Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., where it is stored forever. So as the conversion nears completion, Airman can rest assured that historians will not just be a part of history -- they are here to stay.

"In the beginning, the enlisted historians really viewed this conversion as a hostile takeover," Sergeant Mailes said. "But in today's Air Force, with all the cutbacks and mergers, if they hadn't converted the historian career field, we would have gone away completely. It really is a positive thing."

So as the base bids farewell to Sergeant Mailes, Mr. Mailes is gladly welcomed back.