Page 116 - The History of Veterans at Highland Springs

WAYNE YOUNG
HIGHLAND SPRINGS RESIDENT, AIR FORCE BY PAT YOUNG, WIDOW
Wayne Young was a sophomore in college, working in oil fields at night. When the load became excessive he decided to join the US Air Force, so drove to Little Rock, Arkansas where he enlisted. Unbeknownst to him, he was joining at a time when the GI Bill had been briefly discontinued. Wayne spent his basic training at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, TX, where testing resulted in his assignment to the Presidio of Monterey, CA, where the Army Language School was located. He was given a crash course in the Russian language and assigned to the Security Service.
His next AF tour was to Red Cliff base in St. John’s, Newfoundland. Red Cliff was considered a “hardship” assignment and therefor was a one-year tour instead of the longer tours outside the U.S. After the year in Newfoundland, however, he was sent to Bingen, Germany for another 9 months. He then returned to San Antonio, TX, where he finished his tour of service at Kelly AFB. He left the Air Force after four years and 3 months.
Wayne then attended the University of Arkansas. Upon graduating from the U of A he began work at Sandia Corporation in Albuquerque, NM. He and his wife raised two daughters there before he retired and they moved to Bastrop, TX. Both daughters had moved to Texas by that time. They had seven years of ideal retirement before Bastrop County was hit by the largest wildfire in Texas history, completely destroying their home along with many others. They moved to Melissa, TX, near their daughter and son-in-law in Plano. Upon writing to government agencies for copies of important documents destroyed by the fire, they learned the office building which had housed military service records from the time of Wayne’s service had burned many years earlier. There was no way to prove that Wayne had ever been in service to the country.
Wayne continues to be nonexistent to the Air Force to this day. We knew little of what he did in the Air Force since he was in the security service and could not talk about his work. Even so Wayne and his family remain proud of his service to his country. Strange that two fires, far apart in place and time, determined him to be a forgotten airman.
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