On a warm, sunny afternoon at the Aviation History & Technology Center, four Campbell High School JROTC cadets arrived with questions.
Waiting for them were men with decades of answers.
Gathered around picnic tables beneath the wings of historic aircraft, the group settled in for a series of conversations about military service—what it taught them, where it took them and what remained long after the uniforms had been put away.
The idea was simple. One at a time, each cadet would sit down with a veteran, ask a few questions and listen. The rest of the group listened, too.
And as each conversation unfolded, stories followed.
Augustus “Augie” Conner & Boone Barnes
Cadet Captain Augustus “Augie” Conner began with retired Air Force Major Boone Barnes, who served from 1975 to 1995 as a C-141 navigator.
Augie started with a big question: After 20 years of military service, what was one lesson that had stayed with Boone throughout his life?
His answer was refreshingly simple.
“Stick to your goal,” Boone said. “And if you stick to your goal, you’ll eventually accomplish the mission or what your objective was.”
As a navigator, Boone was typically one member of an eight-person crew, each person relying on the others to do his part.
“The crew worked together to get the mission accomplished,” he explained. “Working with others is definitely something that you learn while you’re serving in the military.”
When Augie asked what he hoped younger generations understood about service and sacrifice, Boone returned to something equally straightforward.
“Serving in the military is an honor, as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “You’re serving the country. You’re serving your fellow Americans.”
Stay the course. Work together. Remember who you serve.
Twenty years of military service had given Boone plenty of stories to tell. But when a young cadet asked what had lasted, the lessons themselves weren’t complicated. Veteran - JROTC Interview
Mia Giordano & Bob Higgins
When it was Cadet Captain Mia Giordano’s turn, she discovered an unexpected connection with Bob Higgins.
He was a Campbell kid, too.
Bob graduated from Campbell High School in 1963, when the school stood where Campbell Middle School does today. Two years later, at age 20, he enlisted in the United States Air Force.
Although, as Bob tells it, there was a little outside encouragement involved.
“I probably would not have if I didn’t have encouragement from the government,” he told Mia.
Then came the explanation.
“And that encouragement was what they called the military draft.”
It was 1965. Bob believed he would likely be drafted into the Army or Marine Corps, so he chose the Air Force instead.
What began as a practical decision by a 20-year-old ended up shaping much of the life that followed.
Bob trained in aircraft avionics, an education that served him well when he later went to work for Lockheed Martin. Today, retired from the company, he is still surrounded by aircraft as a volunteer at the Aviation History & Technology Center.
When Mia asked what he wished more people understood about military service, Bob mentioned opportunities and benefits—and couldn’t resist having a little fun with the latter.
More than 50 years after leaving the Air Force, he told her, the VA provides the hearing aids his wife informed him he needed. Then there are all those veterans discounts.
“If you added up all the discounts over the years,” Bob joked, “it’s probably more money than I made the whole four years I was in the service.”
But beneath the humor was something harder to measure.
“Serving my country, just being a veteran, and having camaraderie with other service members and veterans is another just great thing in my life.”
Those four years gave Bob an education, helped launch a career and set in motion a path that would eventually bring him right back here—surrounded by aircraft, sharing his story with another Campbell student. Veteran - JROTC Interview
John Alaniz & Floyd Brightman
Next, Cadet Second Lieutenant John Alaniz turned to retired Navy Chief Petty Officer Floyd Hathaway Brightman Jr.
Floyd served in the Navy from 1963 to 1985. When John asked what he hoped younger generations understood about military service, Floyd talked about something tangible: opportunity.
Whether someone serves four years or 20, he explained, the military provides training and the chance to learn a career.
Floyd knew that firsthand. He trained as an aviation electrician in the Navy.
And when that career ended?
“I was dumb enough to put an application in over at Lockheed,” he joked.
Apparently, it wasn’t such a dumb idea.
Lockheed Martin hired him, and Floyd spent another 24 years on the flight line as an avionics systems specialist. When he retired in 2012, he came to the Aviation History & Technology Center as a volunteer.
The Navy had given him training. That training helped give him a second career. And eventually, that career brought him right back to the aircraft he had spent so much of his life around.
But when John asked about his years in the military, Floyd didn’t talk about the airplanes.
He talked about the people.
“The camaraderie with the people I was working with,” he said.
Then, with the kind of dry humor that can make an entire picnic table listen a little closer, Floyd summed up more than two decades of military life.
“It was fun 95 percent of the time. The other five percent is pure terror.”
John thanked him for his service.
Floyd immediately turned the sentiment back toward the young cadet sitting across from him.
“Thank you for what you’re going to do.” Veteran - JROTC Interview
Kaylee Martinez & Brad Hawkins
The final conversation took a slightly different turn.
Cadet Sergeant First Class Kaylee Martinez sat down with Brad Hawkins, director of the Aviation History & Technology Center, and asked why preserving and sharing veterans’ stories matters in the first place.
For Brad, history offers something more valuable than a record of what happened.
It gives us the opportunity to learn.
Lessons from 85 years ago—or even 10 years ago—can help us look at the present differently and understand perspectives beyond our own.
“The other important part about history is not just necessarily the facts,” Brad said. “That tells us what happened. But preserving the meaning of history allows us to understand why it happened and why it should be remembered.”
Then Kaylee asked what he hoped students like her would take away from visiting the museum and meeting veterans.
Brad needed only one word.
“Inspiration.”
Young people today have opportunities previous generations could only have imagined, he said. Technology and access to knowledge have opened possibilities that once seemed out of reach.
“We have an ability to take inspiration from some of the veterans that you’ve seen here, some of the stories that you hear,” Brad told her.
The people behind those stories, he reminded Kaylee, were everyday men and women. Their experiences are something the generations who follow can learn from—and build upon. Veteran - JROTC Interview
That afternoon offered a small glimpse of what that can look like.
One question at a time, the cadets invited the veterans to tell them something about their lives.
And everyone listened.
Not to a speech or a history lesson, but to people remembering where they had been, what they had learned and the moments that had stayed with them.
There is a familiar phrase we offer veterans, especially this time of year: Thank you for your service.
It matters.
But sitting around those picnic tables, listening as one story led to another, suggested there may be room for one more thing.
A question.
Tell me about it.
Because sometimes the best way to honor someone’s story is to give them the chance to tell it.
History Takes Flight
Beside Dobbins Air Reserve Base and Lockheed Martin, the Aviation History & Technology Center brings our area’s aviation and military history to life on a 15-acre campus featuring 15 historic military and civilian aircraft. More than a collection of airplanes, the open-air center gives visitors an opportunity to explore the people and stories behind them—and the history that helped shape our community. Veteran - JROTC Interview
Aviation History & Technology Center
555 Perin Road, Marietta
Tours are available.
A Special Thank You
Smyrna Vinings Lifestyle thanks the Campbell High School JROTC program and cadets Augustus “Augie” Conner, Mia Giordano, John Alaniz and Kaylee Martinez for helping us honor our local veterans through these conversations.
Follow the Campbell High School Spartan Battalion on Instagram: @chs_spartanbattalion
Special thanks also to Ramona McCary for helping coordinate the veterans and interviews.