Service Before Self

By Don J. Fessenden

Service before Self: The autobiography of Master Sergeant Don J. Fessenden (U.S. Air Force Retired)

(Orphan, High School Dropout, College Scholar, Firefighter, Nurse, EMT, Lawyer, Educator, Patriot, Dreamer, Father, and Husband.)

"A patriotic life dedicated to service and defined by how he successfully overcame the challenges of childhood poverty, never having a father, being an orphan, and being labeled a high school dropout, as well as living through extraordinary hazing while in the USAF Pararescue pipeline, and much more."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669863700

Book preview

SERVICE

BEFORE SELF

The Autobiography of

Master Sergeant Don J. Fessenden

(U.S. Air Force, Retired)

DON J. FESSENDEN

Copyright © 2023 by Don J. Fessenden.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 03/23/2023

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

843362

CONTENTS

Introduction

1.What’s In a Name?

2.St. Louis, Florissant, St. Charles, Missouri If We’re Poor, I Must Be Adopted

3.My Little Red Wagon

4.The Iditarod

5.If You Mess with the Bull, You May Get the Horns

6.Ice Skating Is Always Better with Skates

7.Disposable

8.Haysville, Kansas

9.A Real Sports Town

10.You Win Some, You Lose Some

11.Why Chocolate Cake Never Tasted the Same

12.War Is Hell

13.The Sleepover

14.Tornado Alley

15.Corporal Punishment

16.A Bloodbath

17.Almost Homeless

18.Plan B

19.The Journey Begins

20.Basic Training

21.Queer or Steer?

22.Welcome Home

23.The Physical Ability and Stamina Test (PAST)

24.Casual Status

25.That Others May Live

26.Inspection Ready

27.Quitters Hill

28.High School Dropout

29.What’s a Boxer’s Fracture?

30.Casual Status and Depression

31.Stop, or I’ll Shoot!

32.The Chair

33.One Door Closes, and Another Opens

34.Article 15

35.Animal House

36.Duty: Lakenheath RAF

37.Mrs. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde

38.Never Break the Sterile Field

39.Late for Work

40.Face Painting

41.Welcome to the Mildenhall Galaxy Club

42.Not Just a Job but an Adventure

43.In Times of Peace, We Plan for War

44.Chemical Warfare Exercises

45.I Must Have a Guardian Angel

46.Runner’s World Magazine 10K

47.Living above an English Butcher Shop

48.The Fort Worth Stockyards

49.Buying My First House

50.Meeting Charles Barkley

51.Graham’s Nightclub

52.Meeting Mr. Rocco and Mrs. Camille Trimboli

53.Aunt MaryAnn

54.The Fort Worth Botanical Gardens

55.Desert Shield/Desert Storm

56.The Day I Found Out the Meaning of Life

57.The Commissary

58.Water Baby

59.The World’s a Coloring Book

60.Candice’s First Day of Parochial School

61.Who Wants to Be a Really Rich Person?

62.Candice’s First Cart Accident

63.Our First Championship

64.Rider University

65.Bryan Adams at Reunion Arena

66.7-Eleven and the Gusher

67.Carswell Air Force Base Closes

68.Wichita Falls, Texas (Sheppard AFB)

69.Eject! Eject! Eject!

70.Judge Ito

71.The Worst Two Weeks of My Life

72.Security Force Says Internal Bleeding

73.Waking Up on the Bathroom Floor

74.No More Shift Work

75.Gangbanging in Little Rock

76.Epiphanies

77.Germany Rotation

78.Khobar Towers, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia My Mission: Weight Loss

79.Duty Calls

80.The Blue Lagoon

81.Goodbye, Saudi Arabia

82.Thank You for Your Service — No, Thank You for Your Sacrifice

83.Stolen Valor

84.The Red-Light District

85.Humanitarian Mission to Croatia

86.Berlin

87.Paris, Go!

88.Hot for a Remote Assignment

89.The Sinking Ship

90.The Space Shuttle

91.Medic to the President

92.I Just Can’t Live Here, So We’re Leaving You

93.Academic Instructor School (AIS), Montgomery, Alabama

94.A Lame-Duck Chief

95.Me Too

96.No Integrity

97.NCOA Retirement Ceremony

98.The Olympian Reality Game Show

99.Enterprise Rental Cars

100.Go Back to High School or Work at Walmart

101.First High School Coaching Job

102.Behind Enemy Lines

103.The Wardlaw-Hartridge School

104.Becoming a Bear

105.St. Luke’s

106.Calling It Quits

107.War of the Roses

108.Target

109.TheMMQB.com

110.The Weekend Warrior

111.California Dreaming

112 Norwalk High School’s First AFJROTC Department Chair

113.Pushed Under the Bus by AFJROTC

114.When I Retire, the Thing I’ll Miss the Most

115.Words of Wisdom for Candice and Anyone Else Reading My Book

116.Challenges, I’ve Had a Few

117.Our First Date

118.A Ferry Ride

119.Asking Janice for Permission

120.The Proposal

121.Hell Week in St. Augustine

122.My Family Tree

My Top Ten Favorites

Attachments

Autobiography Photo Gallery

For Candice, you have always been my inspiration.

Love, Dad

Introduction

After playing a round of golf with my daughter Candice at the Mid Ocean Country Club on the island of Bermuda, I decided to make my very private life public through short stories. I will open Johari’s window to the world through my short stories. Throughout this book, I’ll make disclosures that may surprise anyone who personally knows me.

My first disclosure is that I hate to read, and my spelling and grammar have always been atrocious. So if you’re an English teacher trained to correct every writing error you find, please leave the red pen on your desk. It will be a much more entertaining read if you can do that.

Also, while my life is still under construction, an autobiography must have a beginning and an end. Brevity is key. I began writing this over four years ago to fill 100 pages, and when I wrapped up this book, the page count had grown to more than 350. However, most stories are, on average, three pages long.

I will be retiring soon, taking my inspirational classroom show on the road and sharing many of the stories in this book with any school district that will provide me a platform. My wife Jackie believes several of my stories could help others facing similar unique teenage challenges who may feel all alone.

However, it may be a race because, unfortunately, the older I get, the more I seem to forget. You’re about to learn a lot about my life in short stories. My life has been anything but ordinary, and after fifty-eight years, I’ve been able to compile more than enough stories to fill several books.

You’re about to learn of the many challenges I faced right from the day I was born, from growing up and never knowing my father to leaving the hospital after my birth without a given first name, how Mom placed my little brother and me in an orphanage, being a child of welfare, and being a high school dropout—just a few of the challenges I faced and overcame on my life’s journey.

I believe, like most, that life isn’t fair and that we all need to take personal responsibility for our own lives, something you will see I did. Instead of holding your hand out and asking for help, push up your sleeves and get busy working hard on building your best life. I hope you enjoy my stories, are entertained by the book, and find much success in your own lives.

1

What’s In a Name?

I earned a bachelor’s degree in social psychology, and during one class, my professor asked all of us to place a value on our names. I’m sure he thought the question and the following answer would be both simple and similar. When it was my turn to share, I had fun with his simple question.

So I began to tell him and my classmates that I believed a name wasn’t that important. Why? It was easy because my birth certificate lacked a first name. When I was born, my first name was Donallen, a name I hated, so I changed it by just dropping the Allen.

As for my surname, my father was absent at birth and my entire life. So my mother gave me her last name, which was also the surname of my brothers and sisters, a name I have embraced but always knew wasn’t mine. I told him that I believed our names allowed us to be identified. What’s more important is what you do to bring honor to your name.

2

St. Louis, Florissant, St. Charles, Missouri If We’re Poor, I Must Be Adopted

I told my mother I must have been adopted very young because I can’t be poor. My mother said I always thought I was better than everyone else. It made her laugh, but now I’m sure it probably hurt her very much. She worked as a waitress for most of her working life to provide the best life she possibly could for me and my little brother Rob, something that I appreciate much more now than when it was happening.

My mother would do anything to provide for Rob and me. Unfortunately, kids don’t appreciate the sacrifices and humiliation a parent is willing to endure to keep them fed. I’ll never forget standing in line for government cheese, powdered milk, and food stamps. I felt so ashamed, and it’s a memory I’ll never forget.

I’ll also never forget how she taught me to make the best grilled cheese sandwiches from the cheese. She also taught me how to make cinnamon and sugar toast, the best dessert a poor kid ever ate. These are two skills I’ve passed on to my daughter Candice. It’s still hard to believe we were poor; today I wear my humble beginnings as a badge of honor.

3

My Little Red Wagon

When I was around five years old, my mother did what most parents do and punished me and my brother Rob for something we had done while living in St. Louis, Missouri. Our address was not one sought out by anyone with means, but it was our address, and after numerous threats to run away from home when punished, my mother told us to go ahead. At five years old, I, with my brother, packed a blanket, food, and drinks in our little red wagon, and off we went. My mother had no idea we had run away.

As the cars kept driving, we embraced our freedom; with no one to tell us what to do, it was truly liberating. One block became two, and after hours of walking, we found a shade tree and began having lunch. After finishing our lunch, we continued down the street, and at some point, we came to a park with a playground. Life was good.

We ran from the swings to the slide and back, and the time passed quickly. It’s funny, but with all our liberation, as soon as the sky began turning dark and the streetlights were coming on, it always signaled that it was time to get home. Our only problem was we had walked for hours and had no idea where we were and no idea how to get home, so we hit the road in search of the life we had run away from, knowing that when we got home, we would get it. In our home, that usually meant a belt or brush on our backside, but at this point, we were getting hungry and could wait for the punishment.

So as we walked down the sidewalk, a car approached, and in the dark, we could make out the driver until the lights on the top of the car began to flash. Yes, it was the police, and at age five, I got to have my first ride in the back of a police car. I have no idea when our mother found us missing, but she had reported us missing hours before these two police officers found Rob and me.

We were hungry and couldn’t wait to get home to our mother. We had no idea of the lesson my mother was about to teach us, and as we pulled down our street, my mom was waiting on the sidewalk. As the tears fell from our faces, the two police officers went up to my mother, and after a few minutes, they returned to the car. They told us that our mother had told them to take us to jail.

What? I remember thinking she didn’t want us, and as we began driving down the street, I couldn’t believe it. When you’re five years old, the back of a cop car feels enormous. After three or four more turns, we ended up back in front of my house, and the police told us that if we ever ran away again, we would go to jail, as well as how we should listen to our mother.

We were hungry, but our mother sent us to bed without dinner as soon as we got home. Missing dinner hurt more than the belt or brush. It worked because we never ran away again. My mom was very good at changing behaviors.

4

The Iditarod

When you grow up as economically challenged as we were, you learn to find entertainment in things that don’t cost money, like going to the mall. As a kid, I loved going to the mall. It was where you could find many things you needed but were ignorant of until you discovered them for the first time. I vividly remember our first trip to the mall and how Mom used our harnesses for the first time.

Mom looked like one of my favorite mushers at the Iditarod as she controlled her two prized sons into the mall. I’m sure she thought her way of controlling us was brilliant. Unfortunately for her, she underestimated my ingenuity and desire to be free.

As we ran through the mall, I remember hearing my mother screaming at the top of her lungs for us to return. Her screams fell on deaf ears. While she was preoccupied with window shopping, I could figure out that I could unleash Rob, and he could, in turn, do the same for me.

It wasn’t long until Mom found us playing cowboys and Indians in the Walgreens toy department. With calmness, Mother Teresa told us it was time to go home. She rigged the leashes so that we couldn’t escape, and as we headed to the car, we thought that Mom had forgotten about our great escape.

As soon as we were all in the car, Mother Teresa became the Ghost Rider, and her punishment tool was her favorite harder-than-hell brush, and as she began alternating her blows, she provided commentary, making sure there were no mixed messages. Some may think our mother was abusive with her physical forms of punishment, but I don’t. This form of punishment was accepted in society and even the norm, at least in our house. I learned several lessons that day, but my biggest lesson was never to underestimate my mother.

5

If You Mess with the Bull, You May Get the Horns

Okay, I’m not a bull, but growing up on the wrong side of the tracks influenced how you handled different situations. If you have ever driven through a trailer park, you have probably seen its community pool, playground, and, my favorite, speed bumps. Our trailer park was definitely on the wrong side of the tracks. However, our trailer was across from the playground, which was extremely convenient for my mom to keep an eye on my brother and me as we played.

One day we were at the playground playing when I got into my first fight; it happened to be with a kid a couple of years older than me. Then I heard a familiar voice, that of my elder brother Pete yelling out to Rob, telling him that if he didn’t help me, he would beat his ass. He was using my face as his punching bag.

What happened next was life changing, Rob pulled the kid off me, and we began beating the shit out of this poor kid. The word got out quickly that we were a crazy family, and if you picked a fight with one, you would get both of us. The funny thing is we never got into another fight for many years. Regardless of our town, our family gained a reputation as bad boys. I don’t think we were bad boys; we just did what was necessary to survive.

6

Ice Skating Is Always Better with Skates

I wish I could remember exactly how old I was or the elementary school’s name, but what happened there may be why I don’t remember. It was a sunny winter day, and as the snow melted, we headed outside for my favorite class: recess. I remember running to the tetherball pole, and I slipped on a large patch of ice. Instead of continuing to the pole, I stopped and decided to create my own game. It’s just how my mind works.

The game’s rules were simple: run as fast as possible, hit the ice, and slide as far as possible. My friends went first and stood at the point they had reached by sliding. Then it was my turn; I ran as fast as possible and hit the ice. The next thing I remember was waking up in the nurse’s office. My head hurt, and I had an egg-shaped knot on the back of my head. The nurse asked me several questions to get a sense of my level of consciousness.

I didn’t remember much and headed to the hospital in the back of an ambulance; X-rays followed, and I got to spend a night in the hospital for observation. When Mom arrived at the hospital, her worry was replaced by displeasure because she would lose a shift at work. My accident brought more hardship to my mother; of course, it was an accident, but she didn’t get paid unless she worked. That night in the hospital seemed to last forever. When you’re being treated for a concussion, your sleep must be interrupted every fifteen minutes.

7

Disposable

What would cause a parent to give up their children? I can honestly say, as a parent, that there is nothing that would have made me give up on my daughter Candice. The day she was born was the day my world changed and the day she became the center of my world.

Unfortunately, my mother didn’t feel the same, and I’ll never forget the day she dropped Rob and me off at the Presbyterian Orphanage of Missouri. While I remember that the home employees were all very nice, they weren’t family. I couldn’t understand why our mother would leave us with strangers. I guess she had her reasons, but I will never understand how a parent could do that to their children.

Unfortunately, the rules of an orphanage are similar to the rules of the jungle; the strong survive, and the weak get picked on. In the jungle, the alpha fights the new member. However, in our case, we made it very clear to everyone that we were brothers, and if you fought one, you would have to fight the other. So we never had to fight during our stay at the orphanage.

The one fond memory I had during our stay at the orphanage was that every Friday night, we would get to go roller skating, and it was where I got my first kiss. The girl I had kissed had black hair. She said I kissed like a fish! My response wasn’t as hurtful; I asked her how many fish she had kissed. Okay, I can’t remember what I said to her, but I hope it was just as hurtful. I’m sure it was probably as sloppy as she had said, but I’ll never forget her comments as long as I live.

We spent around a year incarcerated at the orphanage. The only people who would think it was incarceration probably had never been a resident of an orphanage. The doors were locked, our movement was monitored, and we ate meals together like those in prison. Although I don’t remember when my mom picked us up, it wasn’t a happy reunion. I will never forget feeling disposable.

8

Haysville, Kansas

The Luck of the Draw Changed My Life Forever

While my mother did the best she could, she was rarely around, and because of her absence, my relationship with my brother Rob grew. Unfortunately, our lives ended up very differently. Mom did her best to get us into sports; I’m sure she wanted us to find role models in our relationships with male coaches, even if they were short-term. The first organized sports team that Rob and I had played was in football. We both tipped the weight scales at a young age, which gave us an advantage in football.

When Mom signed us both up to play, she made it clear to the organizers that we were to be placed on different teams. They did—a decision that, in my opinion, was responsible for changing our lives. It was the luck of the draw; I was a name on a three-by-five card selected by my first football coach. I won the coaching lottery.

Although I can’t remember his name, he was the biggest reason why I was able to become a success in life. He introduced himself to us as a former college player and coach. I believe he was a master of behavior analysis and motivation. Our first