From The Sticks to Egypt

MSgt Antonio Salvo was raised out “in the sticks” in Northport, Long Island. He enlisted in the Air Force, with his first duty station at Westover, Massachusetts, working in the control tower, later transferring to radar approach control. On the side, he earned his private pilot's license.  

Tony volunteered to go to Vietnam, in January of 1970, and extended for six months to avoid going to Oklahoma! After leaving Vietnam, he was stationed at RAF Lakenheath, England, traveling the Continent while on leave and getting married. His next orders were to Webb Air Force Base, Texas, out in the middle of nowhere. Then Tony got orders to Turkey, where they used conventional approach control that was more complex than radar. Then he got orders back to RAF Lakenheath, where his daughter and son were born. After 12 years in the Air Force, he got out, planning to be an FAA traffic controller. However, there was a federal job freeze in 1980, so, he re-enlisted in the Air Force and was stationed at Tyndall Air Force Base (TAFB) assigned as a supervisor at the control tower, later moving to supervisor of radar approach control, to Chief of Stan/Eval for the traffic control unit, then to Chief of Air Traffic training.  

In 1990, Tony volunteered for Operation Desert Shield, serving in Egypt as Chief Controller for Cairo West, the Air Navigation Center, the Cairo International Approach Control and the military center downtown. Tony was “assigned” to the United States Embassy, ordered to wear civilian clothes, told to grow his hair and a mustache and blend in with the crowd, to not look like military personnel. He had a special ID card from the Egyptians and got a passport in two hours at the United States Embassy!  

One evening, he received a “strip” which said, "The Jeddah FIR is closed." It meant that Iraq was under attack, the beginning of Operation Desert Storm. There were three carrier battle groups in the Red Sea with airplanes launching like fireflies everywhere you could possibly see. A couple of weeks later, he received a “special strip” with the call sign “Aspen” which was a special airplane. When the airplane showed up on the left side of the scope, cruising above 75,000 feet, it was off the scope in three radar sweeps. The scope showed 120 miles. Cruising at 2,200 mph, it was an SR-71.  

Eventually, Tony flew home to Panama City, taking a supervisory position in radar approach control, and retiring on August 1, 1993, with 24 years of active service.  

Then, for the University of Miami, Tony went “diving with the sharks,” which he claims are just like dogs, each with their own personality, then worked on TAFB for Lockheed Martin until 2013 when he finally retired for good.  

Not one for sitting still, Tony has been Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) District 17 Commander for seven years, with this being his last year.  He now wants to live his life with his wife, Sheila.