Pictured: Chad Lubben in front of the Lobo – the base mascot – before his flight in an F16 fighter jet. (Submitted photo)

Chad Lubben is one of the youngest veterans we have featured in this series of articles on our local servicemen and women. He is an active member of the Air National Guard and is over halfway through his second six-year term. 

Chad, a son of Char and Cal Lubben of rural Leota, graduated from Southwest Christian High School in 2011. He grew up on the family dairy farm, along with his siblings – twin brother Cody, and sisters Tina and Calissa. 

Both of his grandfathers were in the military. When Chad told his Grandpa Ed Lubben (featured last November) that he was joining the military, Ed was  not pleased at first. That was because he was drafted and envisioned his grandson’s tour of duty to be similar to his own.

But there are many things that have changed about the U.S. Military over the past 50 or 60 years and the draft is only one of them.  Chad volunteered for the Air National Guard when he was 19 (?) years old. He was going to school at Ridgewater in Willmar, studying auto body repair. After a year of that, he talked to a good friend who was a Marine about joining the military. That friend’s mother-in-law was a military recruiter out of Minneapolis. 

Chad’s friend told him that if he was going to sign up for military service, joining the Air Force would be his best choice – because the Air Force takes really good care of its people. So that is exactly what Chad did. 

He went to basic training at Joint/Lackland Air Force Base (?) in San Antonio, Texas, in October 2012, for eight and a half weeks. 

“Basic was definitely an interesting experience,” Chad said. “The physical part was not so bad,” he said. “It was mental.” He explained that the military puts recruits in a stressful environment so that they are familiar with the experience. Then they know if a person can hold up under the pressure. 

One thing that he remembers about San Antonio was how hot it was. He called home on Thanksgiving 2012 and the temperature outside was 110 degrees. 

The last week of basic training was the most interesting for Chad. They referred to it as “Beast Week.” They went out into the woods for a week and were given a real M16 and gear. Prior to this they had drilled with dummy guns. One part of the training was to enter a gas chamber with their chemical gear. This exercise was designed to teach them to trust their gear.

After basic training, there was a graduation ceremony and his family came down to Texas to watch the ceremony. After a short break, Chad returned to Texas – this time to Wichita Falls, where he attended a 13 week tech school to study aerospace propulsion. When he graduated, he was a jet engine mechanic.  

After his graduation from tech school, Chad came back to the Sioux Falls Air Force base for 120 days of “on the job” training. There are always planes flying at the Air Guard, so there was always plenty of work to do.

Chad said that the basic difference between being a regular mechanic and an Air Force mechanic is the number of checks and balances to make sure that the equipment is functioning as it should and the paperwork that has to be filed to document all the work a mechanic does.  The principles of mechanics are basically the same – whether you are working on a tractor engine or a jet engine. 

Of course, an airplane engine – especially on a jet with only one engine – must work properly. If it is not working, the results could be catastrophic. They are also very expensive. Chad works mainly on one type of jet engine – the GE motor, which costs about $5 million.