Just a few years after graduating high school and becoming an aircraft maintenance and repairman, U.S. Air Force Tech Sgt. Ken Kunkel found himself working to keep top secret material out of enemy hands.
"I jumped from 20 feet up in the air (from a Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopter) and landed in a wet rice field," said Kunkel, who by then was serving in various countries throughout Southeast Asia during the the Vietnam War. "I was about 21 years old back then, but to this day both my knees and my back give me trouble because of that jump."
While growing up in Kansas, Kunkel decided to join the Air Force upon finishing high school in 1961. He took his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio before going on to receive his technical training in aircraft maintenance and repair.
Between 1961 and the end of 1966, the Air Force assigned Kunkel to Little Rock Air Force Base. There, he helped maintain the B-47 and B-58 bombers as well as the various missile launch sites in Arkansas.
During his year-long deployment to Southeast Asia from early 1967 to early '68, Kunkel worked on repairing enemy anti-aircraft flak shell and bullet damage to any and all U.S. combat, transport and rescue aircraft - not just for the Air Force, but also for U.S. Navy and Marine jet fighters and bombers in addition to Army combat, rescue and transport helicopters deployed to Vietnam.
The job kept Kunkel moving around from station to station - not only in South Vietnam but also in places like Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.
"At the time, we weren't officially supposed to be in Laos and Cambodia, but that's where we were," he said. "It was hot and humid there except for the Monsoon seasons. That's when it would rain for months."
Besides conducting combat repairs, Kunkel said he was also called on from time to time to help extract top secret combat equipment from downed American aircraft - basically to keep it from being discovered by enemy units of Viet Cong guerrillas forces.
"I had to be flown to areas where we had downed aircraft," Kunkel said. "Once on the ground, I had to cut engine and weapon system out of the damaged planes and helicopters. We had about 20 minutes, at the most, to remove all classified material from the wreckage. We had to do this during daylight hours - and sometimes, we'd have to walk back to camp, carrying these things."
Following his yearlong stint in Vietnam, the Air Force assigned Kunkel briefly to Washington state, then to Ent Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. The Air Force the sent him back to Little Rock for about three more years before sending him on to Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico in 1972 and on to Biloxi, Mississippi, to work on the Air Force's air weather monitoring service and hurricane tracking aircraft in 1973.
After his Gulf Coast assignment, Kunkel then took a four-year deployment to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. There, Kunkel worked on the Air Force's super large C-5 Galaxy cargo transport plane before being sent to his final assignment prior to his retirement.
Besides aircraft repair and maintenance, the Air Force also cross-trained Kunkel for an additional specialty.
"I was also cross-trained in radar," he said.
Kunkel's final deployment took place in Phoenix, Arizona, where he manned computerized radar monitoring equipment between 1978 and 1981. There, he retired from the military in August 1981. But his government service wasn't finished yet.
Shortly after retiring, Kunkel spent a few months driving a truck and hauling grain, in addition to working on farming tractors in Arkansas before going to work for Red River Army Depot. There, he finished 15 years of additional federal service from 1982 t0 1997.
Upon retiring from federal service, Kunkel then started volunteer work at the local Texarkana veterans clinic when it was still on Summerhill Road. He stayed for six years until he received another calling in 2003.
"At that time, I was a member of the American Legion and my district commander told me that Bowie County needed a veteran service officer," Kunkel said. "That's when I got in touch with (then-)Congressman Max Sandlin and he set it up for us. It started on the courthouse second floor but we eventually got it moved to the first floor and we see veterans as well as their spouses."
Since July 2003, Kunkel has served as the county's veteran service officer. Cindy Watson, an Air Force veteran, also serves as a veteran service officer.
"Our office now gets about 1,500 to 2,000 visits a year - and we are now booked into December," Kunkel said.