Behind the scenes

I always get nervous before interviews. Usually my nerves are eased about two minutes into the interview, when I find out that the person I'm questioning isn't going to bite my head off and they're actually kind of stoked about having their name in the newspaper. I must have walked around the building twice before I finally decided which door I should use to enter.

I feel like an outsider when I walk through a military building. They're so official looking in their uniforms and I stick out like a sore thumb in my civvies. One of the things I don't like about the military so far (there aren't many, I enjoy the life of a military spouse) is that I can't blend in. If I mess up and do something dumb people will know it because I can't blend into the camoflauged crowd. I can't look like I belong because I clearly don't. Today when I walked up to that big brick building and put my hand on the door knob I half expected an alarm to go off, "Civilian alert! Civilian alert!" and find myself face to face with an M-16. My husband told me that I can pretty much go anywhere as long as it's not past the red line or warning signs and I won't have a gun in my face unless I cross the flightline unattended by a badged personnel. But still. I worry. I don't know these things.

When I peeked my head in the door, I heard a voice say, "You look lost." I thought, oh no, I'm in the wrong place!

"I'm looking for ..." I looked down at my paper to read the name of the master sergeant I scheduled the interview with.

"Ah! You're the reporter. Come on in."

The men I interviewed were very friendly and helpful. They were also very patient with my lack of knowledge about military acronyms and terms. I learned a lot and it was really fascinating.

Until today I never stopped to wonder how an altitude indicator in an aircraft knew how high the plane was flying. I interviewed the Precistion Measurement Equipment Laboratory (PMEL) Chief and the Test, Measurements and Diagnostics Equipment (TMDE) Flight Superintendent" this afternoon. I went into the interview not having a clue about what their flight did and came out with a bunch of information and interesting facts, things I had never even thought about before. I studied up on the flight in the Air Force Instruction (AFI) 21-101 before I left for the interview, but I had to look up every other acronym and could barely understand the military jargon. The interview, as well as the tour through the laboratory, helped me to assemble the information into layman's terms so I could better understand it in my head.

"You ever notice the gap between your car door and the frame?" the chief asked me. "It keeps your door from hitting the exterior of the car. That gap had to be specially calibrated in a lab. You ever notice the little stickers on the gas pumps that say 'calibrated by the department of agriculture'? Somebody has to go out there periodically and calibrate the pumps to make sure that when you buy a gallon of gasoline, that you are actually buying one gallon of gasoline."

When I see a jet flying in the sky, I wonder how it got up there, who manufactured the parts, who assembled the parts and who is flying it, but I never even thought about the instruments of the plane and the gaps and spaces, the weights and measurements. Now I know. The TMDE Flight calibrates the Test, Measurement and Diagnostic Equipment used on this base as well as equipment for other Air Force bases, Army National Guard, Navy, Coast Guard and government contractors.

The master sergeants gave me a tour around their laboratory and explained some of their processes. I saw missile test stations, aircraft jacks, barometers and all kinds of other things. The room, they said, has to be kept at a constant temperature of 73 degrees plus or minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit with a relative humidity of 20 to 50 per cent. "This, for example, is four inches long," the PMEL chief said. He pointed to a rectangular piece of steel in a box full of measurements that he said they couldn't touch with their hands because the grease from their hands might rub off on the measurements and make them lose their accuracy. "We know this is four inches long plus or minus one thousandth of a milligram at 73 degrees. If the temperature changes more than plus or minus six degrees, then we have to use a formula to figure out the new length of it. It's like how your front door expands and shrinks depending on the temperature."

Their job is very meticulous and exact. The 46 personnel in this flight are made up of "a bunch of nerds - computer geeks, programmers ..." as the chief said.

I walked away feeling confident and a little smarter for having visited the flight. I gained a new appreciation for the geeks and nerds that work behind the scenes making sure everything is safe in the Air Force and everywhere else. But I'm still going to be nervous when I go for my next interview.