ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
the same. I never came back at all. I stayed in California. I was a helicopter mechanic and I knew there were no helicopters back home to feed my addiction. Many years later, I fi nd myself here talking to you, my fellow mechanics. I’m here to confront all of you
about your addiction. I have come to admit my own addiction, but I know many of you are in denial and can’t see the truth. I’m here to share my experience so that maybe some of you will see yourselves in me. Aircraft maintenance is a disease and not your fault. You can’t help it. My past is probably typical of
many of your own pasts. I have been homeless for many years of my career. It seemed as if I was never at home due to some mechanical crisis or another at work. I never had any time for my wife or family and I convinced myself that it was ok because I was
working. I wasn’t like those other addicts that drank or did drugs. I was respectable, I had a “job.” I have to admit that in the past,
I have been indiscriminant and shared dirty toolboxes with other mechanics. I’m not proud. This, along with all the hours I spent indulging in my addiction, probably lead to my contracting the non-sexually transmitted disease that seems to be prevalent in our industry: aviation- induced divorce syndrome (AIDS). My fi rst two wives couldn’t put up with my addiction and left me. I realize I was no trophy husband. They couldn’t put up with the stares and disgust from people when I would go out into public. They would point out that I was always dirty, greasy and smelly. I couldn’t help it — I had a fuel cell change that day. Some people fi nd the smell of Jet-A off ensive. I don’t get it. Most of my clothes had stains
Terry Peed | Contributing Author
“Go on, try it, you’ll like it.” So I took a little peek. Wow! My mind raced. My eyes burned. The gas fumes and the oil burned my nostrils but I didn’t care. The adrenalin had taken over and I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.
I guess it became a full-blown addiction when I went into the Navy. It happened to many young men and women in those days. Overseas, exposed to things we’d never seen back home. Many of us never came back
June | July 2016
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