Buzz's Bedtime Stories

Tonight’s episode of “Buzz’s Bedtime Stories.” The tale tonight is how I was hired at the Clinton White House. Start a fire, cuddle up, and brew some tea. In the fall of 1995, I was the operations officer for a C-141 squadron in Northern California. Travis AFB. I was loving life. I had 220 aircrew members working for me, we flew all over the world, all 7 continents, and I’d recently met my girlfriend/soon to be wife in Japan. Typically, my phone rang all night. I loved it. One day, the phone rang in my office and the guy on the other end said he was calling from the White House and he wanted to chat about interviewing me for the military aide job. Air Force flying squadrons are a lot like college fraternities and I laughed and hung up thinking it was the boys down the hall. The phone rang again and it was, in fact, the White House. I paid attention the second time. I didn’t even know there was a military aide position that carried the nuclear football. I flew to DC and interviewed for 3 days. At one point, Leon Panetta asked me why I wanted the job. I told him I didn’t. They’d invited me. I called my girlfriend, now wife, and told her I was going to say no. Nichole told me, “you can’t so no to the White House.” She was right. Panetta hired me anyway. The following morning I met Bill Clinton for the first time.