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Back from Iraq, reservist reflects on 27-year career with plans to re-enlist
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Peggy and John Geiss pose with Jet, her quarter horse. John Geiss, an Air Force Reserve master sergeant with the 910th Airlift Wing's Security Forces Squadron at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna, gave his wife the horse to keep her company while she was holding down the home front during his six-month deployment to Iraq. He returned home last weekend.
The military man said he’s never regretted his time in the reserves, even the hard days.
CANFIELD — Air Force Reserve M/Sgt. John Geiss gave his wife, Peggy, a horse and a bunch of projects that needed to be done around the house to help keep her mind occupied during his recent six-month deployment to Iraq.
John Geiss, senior noncommissioned officer of the 910th Airlift Wing’s Security Forces Squadron, returned to the Youngstown Air Reserve Base in Vienna late Sunday, along with 19 other members of the squadron.
Deployed June 11, they spent half a year helping provide security for Kirkuk Regional Air Base in northern Iraq.
Though Peggy Geiss sometimes felt overwhelmed, “I learned to do a lot of things. I even learned to use some tools,” she said with a laugh during an interview at the Geiss’ home a couple of days after their reunion.
“I had a lot to deal with — the house, the children, the animals, my job” and the projects, she said. “It was always something. I think I handled things pretty well, but I couldn’t wait for him to get home.”
Her husband is home on two weeks of what’s called “reconstitution time” after his deployment before he has to return to duty for 10 days to catch up on training he missed while in the Middle East.
Peggy Geiss said the horse, something she had wanted since she was a little girl, and its companion goat, named Jet and Afterburner, respectively, by John Geiss, were what kept her going.
“Being down at the barn were the most relaxing times I had while he was gone,” she said.
One of Peggy Geiss’ keep-busy projects was to have a new furnace installed in their century home. Her husband suggested she call a friend, Ralph Pesek, of Lake Milton, owner of Pesek Heating and Air Conditioning, to do the job.
Pesek went further than just installing a furnace. He involved the Lake Milton American Legion Post, which donated money for the materials, and ETI Technical College, whose students tore out the old duct work and furnace and installed new as a class project.
“I really appreciate the people who support the military,” he said.
John and Peggy Geiss, who have been married three years and have previous marriages, have four children: Craig Geiss, in the Air Force stationed in Japan; Charles Geiss, a 2008 Canfield High School graduate, at home; Joe Costello, of Canfield; and Angelina Soto, a junior at Canfield High School. John Geiss’ mother, Thelma, who served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, lives in Austintown.
John Geiss, 56, military through and through, began his Air Force Reserve career at age 29, primarily because his twin brother, Jim, who was then a member of the 910th, had “spoken well of it.” Jim Geiss had served two years on active duty with the Army before spending 18 years in the Air Force Reserve.
John Geiss, who graduated in 1971 from Austintown Fitch High School and in 1984 with a civil engineering degree from Youngstown State University, had a civilian career with several companies, including 12 years with the Lyden Co.
Peggy Geiss, the daughter of Paul and Dorothy Oblinger, grew up in North Jackson and graduated in 1978 from Fitch High School. She works in the office at Saxony Securities in Canfield.
John Geiss was a civil engineer in the Air Force Reserve for 24 years before deciding to switch to the Security Forces Squadron, which he says emphasizes physical fitness.
“I wanted that challenge,” he said.
A one-weekend-a-month reservist, John Geiss has been activated many times for periods of a few weeks, and now, with the just-finished six-month assignment in Iraq, three times of more than 120 days.
At Kirkuk, it was his unit’s job to reinforce and maintain fighting positions and the 16-mile perimeter of the base, which includes guard towers, gates and fencing.
John Geiss said living conditions for Air Force personnel are good, considering it is a war area. They had phones and television and other amenities, such as washers and dryers, a post exchange/base exchange, Pizza Hut and Burger King. He worked six 12-hour days a week and had one day off.
On the downside, he said the air could get foul because the base has six oil refineries around it, and trash on the base is burned in open pits. Also, he said, during the summer, the temperature can reach 120 degrees, which adds to the discomfort of having to work wearing 60 pounds of gear.
Then again, he said, “I’ve been on deployments where we lived in tents and showered once a week.”
And, he said, though it was about as safe as you could be, given the circumstances, military personnel are confined to the base. It is almost like being institutionalized.
“I missed the freedom of being able to go when and where I wanted,” he said.
John Geiss said his primary contact with Iraqi citizens were with those who worked on the base.
He said they are hard workers and grateful to have jobs, given the economy in Iraq.
“I honestly think the Iraqi people are starting to get fed up. They don’t want gun shots in the streets and they want their children to be able to go to school. It’ll take time, but they are good people,” he said.
John Geiss, who has turned down promotion to avoid a desk job, plans to re-enlist on his birthday in February. It will be his last tour because the Air Force requires retirement at age 60, when he will have served 31 years.
“I’ve had a lot of long, hard days during my 27 years in the military, but never a bad day,” he said.
alcorn@vindy.com