The song is suppose to go “I’m leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when I’ll be back again.” Not “Almost being ran over by one.” LOL

I was stationed at Kadena Air Base Okinawa, Japan ’98-’00. Kadena had two runways. Being so close to the ocean, snails were a common nuisance every single morning. One part of my job was to sweep the snails and other FOD (Foreign Object Debris) so they won’t get sucked up into the engines of aircraft with the sweeper truck. If something were to get sucked up into an aircraft engine, it could cause the engine to explode. We rotated every week so not one person constantly did it.

I had always had nighmares of something bad happening while doing this job because sometimes it seemed like it took forever. One morning, it was especially bad with the end of the runway completely covered with snails. I had been out there at minimum of two hours. When doing this job, there’s a lot of turn arounds, driving in circles to get every bit of FOD sucked up. On one of the many turn arounds that I had to do I noticed a 747 barreling down the same runway that I’m on coming straight for me. I hit the toggle switch picking up the sweeper head and brooms and hit the gas. Let me tell you, a sweeper truck doesn’t have get up and go like a mustang does. I barely made it off the runway without being tagged by the 747 airliner. As soon as I was clear I radio’ed the Tower that “Sweeper 1 was off the runway.” Tower repsonded, “Um Sweeper 1 would you be able to come to our location at your convenience?” I did and they apologized and said it would never happen again.

Looking back, it was like a scene out of an action movie. I could see it in my side mirror as I was trying to escape a really bad situation.

One time a few of us were scuba diving. That’s a story for another time.