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PEORIA, Ill. - On Aug. 17, 2013, Chief Master Sgt. Stephen James Eakle will retire after 41 years of service in the U.S. armed forces. Eakle enlisted in the Illinois Air National Guard in the June of 1972 and served in several diverse career fields such as security, training, medical, and logistics.
His career culminated in him becoming the highest ranking senior noncommissioned officer at the 182nd Airlift Wing when he accepted the command chief master sergeant position. He first took his place as the enlisted adviser to the installation commander from 2000 to 2005 and then a second time from 2009 to 2013.
Eakle is a highly decorated member of the U.S. Air Force, was known for his brawny voice and formidable presence, and was never shy about promoting pride in his unit with his saying, “Doing it the Peoria way.”
After his draft number was issued and not selected, Eakle volunteered to join the Illinois Air National Guard and enlisted as law enforcement specialist in the Air Police. In 1977, he also began a career in the civilian police force as a patrolman. His next career move in the military was a transfer to the Small Arms Training Unit to teach weapons techniques and tactics, where he eventually became the noncommissioned officer in charge. In the mid-1980s, Eakle was selected to become a first sergeant for the installation’s Combat Support Squadron, and then became an noncommissioned officer administrator in the Tactical Clinic in order to bring field skills to the medical environment.
In 1991, he was asked to return to the Air Police, now Security Forces, to serve as the superintendent of the squadron, was then asked to return back to the medical unit in 1997, and in 2000 was asked to become the Command Chief Master Sgt. for the wing. In 2003, Eakle was selected to deploy to the area of responsibility as the Command Chief for the 486th Air Expeditionary Wing. In the midst of his extensive military responsibilities, Eakle retired from the civilian police force as a captain in 2004. He temporarily retired the command star in 2005 to take up an Active-Guard Reserve tour with the Logistics Readiness Squadron, and then was reappointed as the wing Command Chief shortly thereafter - a position he remained in until his retirement.
When asked what he will do when he is fully retired in August, he responded with a chuckle, “Anything I want to do that my wife will allow, and you can put that part. Uh, actually, more motorcycling, more sailing. I’m going to do some concealed carry classroom work and tactical firearms instructor work, possibly some motorcycle safety instructor work, but that kind of thing. We have a house in Kentucky - as you know - which we live at now, so my weather is much better, my winters are much milder … I owe my family a whole lot more time than I’ll ever be able to repay them, and hopefully I’ll be able to do some concentration on that, which is why you hear me talk often about while the mission is important, your family is vital. And that’s not a lesson I always subscribe to, and so I’ve got some red ink in my ledger that I need to turn black, and hopefully I’ll be able to accomplish that.”
As the wing’s command chief, Eakle made it his personal mission to “represent the wing command to our enlisted corps, and to represent the enlisted corps to the wing command” through effective communication and to evaluate the impact and consequences of Air Force and Air National Guard programs on the enlisted corps.
In the course of his career, Eakle had the unique insight of experiencing the wide spectrum of both good leadership and bad. Of what it takes to be a good leader, he said, “Number one, over-arching, absolutely, if you had to do one word: integrity. Now, because I have the luxury of doing other words: you also have to have passion, and it’s important to have those feelings – and, you know, control them – and then do it with integrity. But passion for what you do. You also have to be humble, and you have to realize there’s other ways to do things. You need to make sure you do a check with both your subordinates and your leaders to find out are you on the right path …”
Four decades of involvement in the military brought a wide range of experience for Eakle. When asked of his best memories in the service, he began with a story. It was 2003 at Al Minhad Air Base in the United Arab Emirates when the air base was bare and the civil engineers had not yet arrived to start construction. The maintenance team that Eakle was living with were working unusually long hours and living out of tents that were not fortified against sandstorms yet. Thus, when a sandstorm hit, living in the tent was not much different than living in the sand itself. One day the maintenance team was out working after a sandstorm when the wing’s aircrew, on their rest cycle, gave a special gift to their comrades.
“Long story short, is these aircrew guys went into people’s tents, took everything out, cleaned them all out, and then put everything back in,” Eakle recalled. “So, you walk in and, like, ‘The cleaning fairies were here!’ And those are the types of things that are my best days … It’s the things our guys do over and over and over again … My best days are all related to the accomplishments of our people doing stuff that’s not unexpected from us, but it’s certainly unexpected from a lot of other people out there.”
In those 40 years were painful memories as well. Within his career, Eakle experienced the loss of three fellow unit members.
“Well, importantly, there are two [bad memories],” he said. “There was the day that Maj. Brown and Doc Allen were killed in an A-37 crash. And then there was the day we were notified over in Minhad of the loss of Jake Frazier in Afghanistan. Those two days are that worst memory … and for fairly obvious reasons.”
During his extensive career, Eakle got to witness the evolution of the Air National Guard. When he enlisted in the early 1970s, many people were joining the National Guard in order to avoid being deployed to Vietnam, and that brought a culture of minimal effort to the services.
Once that era of military history ended and the draft dodgers left the Guard, what was left of that generation of enlisted personnel remained a strengthened core staff who embodied the three Air Force core values before they even existed on paper. He also witnessed the growth of the Air National Guard from a Cold War mentality of “we would go do something if ‘the big one’ went” to a vital part of the military infrastructure as an “intricate part of the daily defense posture of this nation.”
Eakle plans to remain active in the military community, even in retirement, through organizations and events such as the Enlisted Association of the National Guard of the United States, the association for retired command chiefs, the 182nd retirement dinners, and the annual TACP Association 24 Hour Run. “I owe the 182nd Airlift Wing in all of its forms for 40 years - Tactical Air Support Group, etc. – far more than I ever did for this wing,” he said, “And I don’t know how I could ever repay what this place has done for me over the course of my both civilian and military career, but I’ll try.”
Author’s Note: I first met Chief Eakle when I was in Student Flight, circa 2004. I and another trainee were standing in a hallway awaiting our next training session. Chief Eakle came up to us very cordially and asked, “Hey guys, is it payday?” “No, sir,” we answered, “I think we get paid next week.” The sky suddenly turned dark and Chief Eakle calmly but effectively told us in that trademark burly voice, “Well, then why don’t we take our hands out of our pockets. Thanks.”
| Date Taken: | 05.20.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 05.21.2013 14:29 |
| Story ID: | 107319 |
| Location: | PEORIA, ILLINOIS, US |
| Hometown: | GRAND RIVERS, KENTUCKY, US |
| Web Views: | 100 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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