Veteran Salute: Growing in leadership over three decades with the Air Force

TOPEKA (KSNT) - With an immediate family full of servicemembers totaling 99 years in the military, Chief Master Sergeant Maurice Smith contributes almost a third to that service record.

For over 30 years in the Air Force and Air National Guard, he'd travel across the globe; training fellow servicemembers, keeping aircraft sky bound and growing in leadership responsibilities along the way.

During the Vietnam conflict, Smith and his team trained up airmen on B57's, one of the first jet bombers in Vietnam.

“The aircrews that flew over there would come to our group there, and we would teach them everything that we knew about the aircraft," Smith said, "so when they went over there they were highly qualified with that aircraft.”

Back stateside, Smith transitioned to the Air National Guard, playing a part in moving his unit from Hutchinson over to Topeka.

“I was on the sight survey team that helped bring the unit over here," he said. "I became a Dock Chief and got promoted to Master Sgt. at that time. As a Dock Chief I was responsible for anything that was flight worthy and they put it on what they call a red cross, I was the only one that signed off that could actually sign off the red cross to make it airworthy. If anything ever went wrong with that aircraft after we released it, it was my name.”

His time in conflicts overseas wouldn't end after joining the Air Guard however.

“I went over just before Desert Storm," Smith said. "I was a technical aircraft superintendent, worked out of the battle staff 12 hours on 12 hours off for the duration of the war. We flew all the refueling missions for the whole war out of ours.”

That's over 45,000 aircraft that were refueled through Smith's battle staff.

“On top of that, I was virtually a superintendent over almost 1,000 maintenance personnel also," the Master Sgt. said, "so I had that responsibility, and I was the youngest Chief out of all of them, yet I was the one they had to come to.”

His time in Topeka nearly five decades ago really stuck with the Master Sgt. Nowadays he's enjoying living local in the capital city.