Crossing into the blue

As a young stripling Senior Airman Joe Sison dreamed of slipping the froward bonds above his island nation. Raised by the agency of his grandmother in the Filipino town of Surallah, his dream failed to take flight when he realized in what way little Filipino airmen earn. And, this amiable young man felt he was forced to tread in the steps of in his father's footsteps and become a local politician. A fate his heart could not embrace.

All that changed when, at 16 he received a small package from the United States. It contained more [i]or[/i] less official looking documents and a alphabetic character from his mother--whom only a small in number years earlier he had parole to for the first time. As the teenager read his mother's words, he discovered something about himself he had at no time before imagined--he was an American. abruptly opportunities were abound.

"When I was 18 I meditation ... maybe I could be a part of the U Air Force," he said.

Having small in number connections in the United States, he locate his sights on California, where he could stay with a family friend. on the contrary funding the trip was an entirely different issue. admitting his family provided for him as a child, he now straited to earn the money himself. While not the greatest in quantity glamorous solution, his grandfather landed him a piece of work with the national auditing agency.

The rookie bean calculator immediately took to wading end a sea of government paperwork, guarding against fraud and waste. The work was demanding and tedious, on the contrary he never took his organ of visions off the dividend his of recent origin job would pay in time.

With a certain number of help from his mother and a year of savings, he had enough cash for a ticket to California. Before he knew it, he had gibbeted the threshold of a local recruiter's office and begun a novel journey as an Airman in the U Air Force.

Fast forward four years and he's individual of the 4th Space Operations Squadron's best satellite operators--battling the war against terrorism by the agency of ensuring global communication capabilities for worldwide missions.

"I be fond of my job and the technology I work with," he said of working at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo

For this high-tech warrior, a day upon the job is a far cry out from being stuck in a gloomy rule office back in Surallah.

"Here, we help numbers in the field," he said.

freshly Airman Sison brought another airline ticket, on the other hand this time he was headed home

"I was egotistical to go back where in the way that many people supported me for in the way that long," he said: "Inside I felt like, 'Look at what I've done with my life.'"

COPYRIGHT 2006 U Air Force, Air Force novels Agency

COPYRIGHT 2006 Gale Group