In Recognition of Veterans Day - Coffee with Vets [Image 13 of 25]

BOISE, ID, UNITED STATES

09.27.2019

Photo by Thomas Alvarez 

Idaho Army National Guard

Billy Gibson, 83, U.S. Air Force, 1955 - 59.

Gibson is originally from Norborne, Missouri, a farming community northeast of Kansas City, along the Missouri River.
He initially considered joining the Marines but decided on the Air Force instead. During basic training, he remembers going on a field exercise which was called a bivouac at the time, sharing his tent with another airman.

“The crazy part of it was they marched us two and a half hours in the rain and then we had to set up our tent,” he recalled.

After basic training he was assigned to Luke AFB, Arizona and worked in the body shop repairing trucks. He spent all four years of his Air Force career at Luke.

He went back home to Norborne after the Air Force and worked on the farm another 10 years. He eventually married, then moved to Idaho. He first lived in Twin Falls, then Filer, Buhl and Hagerman. He quit irrigation field work and went to work for a company that manufactured potato diggers. He said the training he received in the Air Force helped him along the way. He spends some of his time building models at the Veterans home.

“I like working with my hands,” he said.

• Date Taken: 09.27.2019
• Date Posted: 11.08.2019 10:29
• Photo ID: 5897828
• VIRIN: 191101-Z-XK920-0013
• Resolution: 2700x1800
• Size: 2.31 MB
• Location: BOISE, ID, US