AN ERA HAS PASSED
Written: 20 JUNE 2003

20 June 2003 became the date when the Norwegian Defence decided that I've fullfilled my duties and served the King and Country as needed. It's finally over after 711 days in my green uniform. It's a bit sad, though It'll be great to get on with my life. My last commands as a sergeant have been given, the last trip to Jessheim on the first Tuesday of the month has been completed in style and the last golden drops from the beertap in the lounge have run down my throat. The environment has been great and has made it much easier to survive out in the middle of nowhere.

I thought I'd summarize my military career so that I have it black on white when my grandchildren ask me in 60 years!

It started at recruitschool at Værnes. Exciting in many ways, cause this is without doubt a turningpoint in a boys life. After recruitschool I applied for a short version of officers training school at Stavern in southern Norway. We have a totally different system in Norway compared to the States. If you want to be an officer in Norway you have to do one year of training, and then one year as a sergeant before becoming a 2nd lieutenant (then you can start at the academy and so on). Nobody stays as sergeants more than one year. I finally ended up at Air Station Gardermoen just outside Oslo. It suited me perfect as this was close to home. I sat 6 months in the administration at the 335 squadron, where I came in contact with alot of the pilots flying Hercules. This gave me a unique insight in what a job as a pilot is about (even though they're Air Force pilots)

The last year I've been a Sergeant at the Air Terminal at Gardermoen as a sort of an administrationfigure. I didn't really think this was my kind of job in the beginning, but it's truly been a great year. Not only have I've been involved in close to 50 different types of aircraft (list) this last year, but I've also gotten to do a bit of traveling with the Air Force:
Aberdeen, Paris, Kajaani, Ramstein/Kaiserslautern, Eindhoven, Brussel, Svalbard, Berlin, Moskva and Ankara and just about every place in Norway you can land a C-130.