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Growing up in Georgia, William Mason figured he’d be a police officer, firefighter or an astronaut.
But then “Top Gun” grabbed him while he was attending Auburn University. Mason wanted to fly Navy jets off carriers, just as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) did in the movie. He was following Maverick’s call: “I feel the need … the need for speed.”
After graduating with a biology degree from Auburn, where his father was a professor, Mason became a Navy pilot.
He’s now a colonel in the Air Force Reserve and the new commander of the 931st Air Refueling Group at McConnell Air Force Base. Those are the folks who fly KC-135 tankers around the world, carrying out the mission of refueling other aircraft while both are in the air.
“We don’t do anything anywhere without tankers,” Mason said.
He flew different aircraft as a Navy pilot, including the one that serves as a communication command center in case of a nuclear attack. He never flew jets off carriers, but for a good reason.
Mason was just finishing flight school when his oldest child, Guy, less than a year old at the time, came down with a serious illness. Flying off carriers meant being away from home longer, so he scratched carrier aviation.
“So my dream of flying F-18s off a carrier ended early,” he said, “but it’s all worked out.”
After the Navy
Mason ventured into other Navy career paths that kept him flying for more than 14 years. Then he had to make another career decision as his years of service piled up.
“The Navy is a little different, pilot-wise,” Mason said. “You reach that mid-career point, and you don’t get a lot of opportunities to fly. I was headed off to a desk job.”
So in June 2001, Mason decided to leave the active Navy and fly for American Airlines. He had just finished American’s two-month training school and was about to take an assignment when the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks rocked the nation and knocked the airline industry into a free fall. He and the other pilots in his class were laid off right after 9/11.
He considered going back on active duty with the Navy, as many recent retirees of all branches did after 9/11. The Navy’s offer: “You can go out on a carrier and be part of the ship’s crew, but you’re not going to fly anymore.”
About that time, a buddy from his Navy days called and told him the 9/11 aftermath had left the Air Force Reserve short of pilots, especially for tankers at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City. Mason joined the Air Force Reserve and was flying KC-135s by the following summer.
He soon joined his Reserve unit in flying missions supporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A changing role
Mason, 47, began his McConnell assignment July 31, his third stop as a commander of a Reserve unit.
For most Reserve and National Guard units of all branches, these are no longer the days when being a guardsman or reservist meant duty only one weekend a month and two weeks each year.
They were the backup. Now they are very much a regular, active participant.
“I don’t know if the community really understands,” Mason said.
Shortly after moving to the Wichita area with his wife, Stacey, and three children, he told one of his neighbors he was in the Air Force Reserve.
“I saw them the next day and they asked, `Why are you in uniform?’ ” Mason said.
He was going to work. The 931st has more than 600 members in 30 states, including about 400 in Kansas. But more than 130 of those, including Mason, also work as full-time civil servants during the week at McConnell, going about the business of running the unit. And it is a busy time.
“We’re doing the same mission daily that active duty does,” Mason said. “We’re all over the world. We’re not just flying missions on the weekend. We’re no longer the old Reserves.”
It’s not just the folks flying. The engineer, medical, security and other units within the 931st are on the same pace.
Reserves more active
To some extent, it has been that way since Desert Storm in the early 1990s, but it has intensified since 9/11 and even more so in recent years.
Immediately after 9/11, most Reserve and Guard air units were mobilized, including the tankers. In 2004, there was another shift when the tanker Reserve units returned to a normal rotation of being deployed for a few weeks every two to three years. And it stayed that way until about five years ago, Mason said.
But active-duty tanker units, such as the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell, were being stressed so much by the two wars that the Air Force started depending more on its Reserve units. The frequency and length of deployments increased, Mason said.
Instead of deploying every few years for a few weeks, the 931st members now average being deployed every 15 months for three months. Some non-flying units are gone for a year.
Relieving the stress
As a Reserve unit on an active base, the 931st shares McConnell’s 63 tankers with the 22nd. Nearly 25 percent of the tanker flights out of McConnell are handled by a combination of reservists and active-duty crews.
Sharing also means getting the most out of the tankers because they’re used more, Mason said.
But that comes with a price. You can’t replace parts on people like you can on the 50-year-old tankers. The frequency and length of deployments have taken a toll on the reservists and their families.
“And when they’re home, they’re constantly doing things,” Mason said. “... We’re starting to see some of that (stress) with our reservists. We’re getting to the point where we have pilots retiring when they hit 20 years. That used to be unheard of in the Reserves. They’d stay until they were forced out.”
To help alleviate some of the stress, the Air Force Reserve has a “Yellow Ribbon” program that periodically brings reservists and their families together for a few days for a retreat so they can readjust to each other after a lengthy deployment.
But that doesn’t address immediate needs after a deployment. One of the advantages of being on an active base is that the 931st can tap into an array of social services offered at McConnell.
“If we have 110 people coming back tomorrow from deployment, they’re in a room the next day getting help with whatever they need,” Mason said.
“We have mental and medical folks talk to them. We have financial talk to them to make sure the pay is right.”
It’s all to keep a busy unit running as smoothly as possible. Mason doesn’t deploy with 931st units, so his only flying time these days is what he can fit into his schedule.
“Maybe once a month,” he said. “Not nearly as much as I’d like, but the time just isn’t there.”
