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Deployed boom operator completes 100th combat mission

  • Published
SOUTHWEST ASIA --   Completing 100 combat missions is a significant feat for any member of a flight crew. For Staff Sgt. Thomas Sinclair, deployed here with the 908th Expeditionary Air Refueling Squadron, this accomplishment was even more special as he became the first boom operator to achieve 100 combat missions by combining flight time in both the KC-135 and the KC-10.

Sergeant Sinclair completed his 100th combat mission May 7 aboard a KC-135, nearly two years after his first combat flight on Jan. 15, 2002.

"The past few days I have been all smiles, and my morale is at an all-time high," said Sergeant Sinclair. "Since I was 3 years old, I always dreamed of flying airplanes and being in the Air Force."

This dream almost went unfulfilled. When Sergeant Sinclair joined the Air Force in 1992, he was assigned to the transportation and vehicle maintenance career field. Instead of flying in airplanes, he drove vehicles.

"I can remember driving flight crews out to their airplanes and thinking, 'I wish I was going with them,'" said Sergeant Sinclair. "But then I met a boom operator at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and I knew that I wanted to be one."

Six years after he first signed up, Sergeant Sinclair got the chance he had been longing for and was approved to cross-train and become a boom operator. He completed the training courses and was soon flying missions aboard the KC-135.

Sergeant Sinclair also has flying time on the KC-10 and is now looking forward to the future of air refueling.

"I love to fly," he said. "There is not a day I'll complain about flying too much, even if we're just flying training patterns."

Sergeant Sinclair is also studying numerous publications and manuals so he can become an instructor at the boom operator course.

For now, though, he is happy that his 100th combat mission is finally under his belt.

"I am honored to have achieved this milestone," he said. "Now I just look forward to getting my next 100 combat missions. I love being a boom operator and will probably be one until the day I retire."