Feeling a little sad tonight

[Basil]

I was sitting here tonight just surfing around looking at random stuff, when I got it in my head to see if I could locate my first boss in the Air Force, TSgt Ike Morgan.
Well, I found him, but not in the way I was hoping.

As I said, Ike was my first boss in the USAF when I was assigned to the Computer Repair Lab at 24th NORAD, Malmstorm AFB, MT (back in 1974). I was a young whippersnapper Airman and Ike was a seasoned Tech Sergeant. I went on to have a 24-year career in the AF, but when I look back I realize that Ike was hands down the best boss I ever had. He was more than a boss - he was a real friend and a mentor. He must have had the patience of Job to deal with a young wet-behind-the-ears Airman like me. I still have and cherish the APRs he wrote on me when he was my supervisor.

I had talked with him a couple times after I left Malmstrom AFB, but I wish we could have connected more over the years. I have many fond memories of Ike - working for him in the Computer Lab, going to lunch with him at the "Chow Hall" - and those fun "crew" parties at his house with he and wife Lonnie and their great kids! Ike was a heck of a good man and I was proud to have called him, not just boss, but friend. (I knew he was older than me, but I didn't realize how much older)

 

[JPSmit]

84 years is a good run and it is clear he paid it forward in his life.

1. The older I get the more I realize the importance of leaving a legacy in the lives of others - and it seemed he did so in spades.

2. The older I get the more I realize the importance of connecting with people and how quickly time passes.

Sounds like quite a character.

 

[Basil]

Yeah 84 was a good run. I was actually a bit surprised to learn he was that old. I knew he was older than I was but I always assumed he was maybe only 6-8 years my senior.

With some bosses you dread going to work, but with Ike, I actually looked forward to going on shift. He expected a lot from his airmen, but he always treated us with respect - praised in public but criticized in private.

Agreed about the importance of connecting / staying connected with people. I'm still in regular contact with a couple of the guys I used to work with in my early AF career. Also, two of my best friends, with whom I communicate regularly, were friends as far back as grade school and junior high. Ike was one that I sort of lost track of after a few years, but now wish I had stated connected.

 

[mikephillips]

Finding and reestablishing contacts are the good things about social media. My best friend through college and I lost contact with each other for a long time after leaving school the start of the 80s, we both moved a couple times. Then in the late 90s when social media was new I ran across his profile online. We were on opposite sides of the country but talked online or other every week, just keeping caught up on life, until cancer took him at the start of the pandemic last year. I am so glad we had what time we did to just be pals again, even at a distance, and to share where life had taken both of us.

 

[Banjo]

84 years is respectable. and he got 33 years worth of retirement! not bad! sounds like he was a very good man.

 

[AngliaGT]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Madflyer]

A life lost is always a sad day when ever it happens but a life well lived is even a greater lost. I have long said each person touches the lives of at least ten people on any day that do the same to ten more. At 84 truly a life well lived.
I left the Army in 1969 and still talk with a few of the guys from my time in Nam. It's that hard to take a few minuets just to say still thinking of you.
MF