Today has been by far the most fascinating day. I really just want to start by telling about
the end of my day but I guess I will start at the very beginning...it's a very
good place to start, or so they tell me.
We started out the day out in Airfield Operations. Basically we just drove around inspecting the
fences and picking up FOD (foreign object debris) with our tour guide of the
day, Darwin. One of the other Operations
managers, Dave called up saying he needed some help putting up some signs up
for the SIDA (Secure Identification Display Area) doors at the SkyWest
hangar. When he arrived he asked for me
to help him out, I was a little excited, I got to go on a special assignment. Ok not really, I was picked because I was the
only one who had fingernails that were able to pull the plastic covering off of
the giant stickers. So I went with Dave
and he asked if I had another job I was doing on top of this internship so I
told him I work at a fabric store, and from then on, our little sticker outing
was known as “Arts & Crafts time”. I
didn’t mind being used for my lovely fingernails, it was actually a good
experience and I at least got to walk around (even though it was well over 100
degrees outside) instead of riding around in the car some more. Dave and I went back inside to cool down and
get a drink and I met a few more people while we were inside. Dave even said “We need to get this girl a
job here” (referring to me of course), so maybe there is hope?
Dave handed me off to Troy to take me back to the rest of
the group and we got there just in time to do the daily runway inspection. They close the runways one at a time for a
few minutes so that the fleet of 3-4 vehicles can drive down the length of it to
check for FOD or cracks or other damage that may have occurred. It was pretty cool driving down the middle of
a runway at about 50 mph. No worries, we
didn’t find anything, so we continued to the other side of the airport so that
we could go to lunch. As we were driving
back I spotted some plastic tarp thing that could potentially cause some
problems so I asked Darwin to stop and I would go get it. I got out of the car and told him not to
leave me and as I walked out and bent down to pick up the garbage, he drove off….only
a little bit. I figured, if they leave
me out there, I won’t be stuck out there for long. Surely someone will spot a random stranger
walking around out at the end of the runway…that doesn’t look suspicious at all… Darwin stopped and I walked back to the car
and he was mostly surprised that I hadn’t flinched one bit when he drove off.
Lunch was uneventful.
We usually sit down in the terminal so that we can do some people
watching while we eat, that is always a little bit entertaining. Our “boss”, the other Dave walked by us and
informed us that there is an actual break room that we could use. Who knew? Haha he will be showing us where
that is next time.
After lunch we called Darwin and he drove around to pick us
up. So earlier in the day we were
informed that the Vice President would be flying in and that if we wanted to,
we could help and observe. Of course we
wanted to. The time between lunch and
when we were switched over to the other Dave, the new shift manager for the evening’s
events is a blur, other than we drove really close to the back of some planes
and I got some cool pictures, that is what I remember.
So the time that the VP was to arrive was delayed an hour,
then 2 hours, then back 30 minutes and it just kept going back and forth. So we didn’t really know when to expect him
but we decided to ride around the airport anyway to look for suspicious
behavior in the area he was supposed to be in.
Dave told us when we first got in the car that when he finally did
arrive that we shouldn’t make any sudden movements or get out of the vehicle
and if there were lasers pointing at us that we were probably goners, that’s a
happy thought. Oh did I mention that by
this point we had picked up the head Secret Service Agent and one of the head
police officers and we were driving around the airport with them. SO FREAKING COOL!! The Secret Agent even had that cool little
earpiece thing with the curly cord going down his neck into his dark suit coat
and he had the little microphone hidden in his sleeve that he kept talking
into, like this… |
| Courtesy of the wonderful Google |
And the Police Officer was a big guy…and very attractive… I
thought about snapping a picture of them from the very back seat of the Ford
Explorer but I voted against that because I didn’t know if that would get me
killed or worse, kicked out of the car.
The whole experience was very surreal.
I felt like I was in a movie with the VPresident arriving and the secret
agents scattered around, and the police, highway patrol, bomb squad, and
members of SWAT everywhere. I’ll say it
again, it was FREAKING COOL!
We took a secret agent to the control tower so that he could
observe from there. We drove around and
found some “suspicious looking vehicles” parked in random places. You wouldn’t believe how quickly they left
the premises once they were approached by the Secret Agent and the Police
Officer. Oh and funny little fact, when
the Secret Agent goes to ask people to leave, he will only say, “We have a
visitor coming and we need you to move” or something like that, but I find it
funny that they don’t ever say exactly who is coming, just a visitor…not like
he is the Vice President of the freaking United States or anything, no big
deal. We only have 50+ people here to
protect him and we have a sniper on the roof but no big deal.
We waited and waited and took a break in TacAir where all
the security people were waiting, I tried to snap a picture so that you could
get an idea of exactly how many people with guns there were but it was a little
frightening and intimidating and I didn’t want to get caught so please excuse
the terrible picture.
Right before he arrived we had to inspect the runway and
after we inspected it, nobody else could land or takeoff from it until he had
landed. So we drove down the runway like
we did earlier that day and everything looked good to go. I forgot to mention that by this time, I was
the only intern left. The other two had
to leave and I just couldn’t keep myself away from this, I mean come on, how
many times does something like this actually happen? I’ll answer that for you,
it doesn’t happen often at all, and I was not going to miss it.
 |
| Air Force 2 Landing |
 |
| Deplaning |
We inspected the runway and then we were forced to go back
inside the building away from all of the excitement. There were no regular civilians allowed
outside in the area. I said to Dave, “I
knew I should have worn my Secret Agent suit today” It kind of sucked from
inside, but I watched as Air Force 2 came in and touched down on the runway, it
was beautiful. We were supposed to stay
inside until the motorcade left but we couldn’t actually see the motorcade
which consisted of probably 10 vehicles.
Black Limos, Escalades, red Dodge Charger, Ambulance, Bomb Squad, and
Police Cars, all sleek and shiny and newly inspected by the bomb dogs :) So we got to sneak outside, with permission
from the Chief Police Officer. I’m sure
at some point I saw Biden from a far, but we were too far away to see which one
was actually him. When the motorcade
left, we drove a bit closer and I snapped a couple pictures of that big, beautiful
plane.
What a fascinating, long day. I got there at 8:30 AM and I didn’t leave
until after 7 PM that evening. That is a
dedicated, unpaid intern my friends. This is one exhausted and hungry
girl. I bought a pedometer for the job
because I was curious as to how much walking I do on the days I go up
there. The end count for my day at the
airport is 4 miles. Now I’m going to go
put my blistered feet up and relax.
*peace out girl scout*
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