Walking away a 23-year career in the U.S. Air Force where everything is regimented and transitioning into the civilian life is a bit terrifying for Ceres native William Alexander Brandt.
“It’s the most exciting and terrifying thing that I’ve done after 23 years in the military, Brandt told the Courier. “With being in the military you know your exact place in life, and you know what’s expected of you. The easiest way to describe it is, at minimum, as long as I showed up in the right uniform, at the right place, and the right time everything else fell in after that. Civilian life is much less rigid or defined.”
The son of Lee and Shelia Brandt of Ceres retired from the Air Force with the rank of Master Sergeant at his fifth and final assignment at Hurlburt Field, Florida where he has been since February 2020. There he worked on the Lockheed MC-130, a special-mission aircraft operated by the Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC).
His March 12 retirement party was scheduled months in advance of his October retirement because three-quarters of his squad were going to be deployed and wanted to be present. The occasion gave one speaker a chance to herald Brandt’s extraordinary achievements in the Air Force while his parents and twin sister Brianna Nevarez beamed with pride.
“We were in total amazement at all the things our son was involved in,” said proud mom Shelia. “I can’t even tell you all the things that he was involved in and different procedures that he implemented that saved the Air Force money. Everybody just spoke so highly of him.”
Also proudly observing was his wife Lauren. The couple plans to leave their temporary stay in Maryland and settle in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania area where they plan to raise their three-year-old daughter, Elenor.
Brandt said that he worked on “pretty much every heavy aircraft the Air Force has other than bombers.”
“Alex had many different deployments that he was not able to tell us about,” said Shelia Brandt. “As the years went by whenever we would ask how things were going he would just respond ‘just fine,’ never telling us about the different assignments he was on. Alex is a very humble individual and never places himself above others.”
Brandt, now 41, attended kindergarten through sixth grade at Carroll Fowler Elementary School, Mae Hensley Junior High School and Ceres High School where he graduated in 2003. Months after graduation he signed up for a six-month enlistment in the Air Force and went to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. From there Brandt attended Tech School at Shepherd Air Force Base in Texas until January 2004 and was assigned to work on the Boeing E3 AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) at Tinker AFB in Oklahoma. As a mechanic Brandt took some contingency trips aboard the AWACS which traveled everywhere that President George W. Bush.
“I went to a bunch of different places just in presidential support, a lot of what the AWAC does in peacetime.”
Those trips included one to Germany for a G8 summit and another one in Peru.
“Normally after those summits we would stay and help with counter drug operations.”
Brandt re-enlisted on the promise that he could be assigned anywhere but Oklahoma.
“It was definitely not my favorite of my assignments,” he said. “It was a culture shock going from California to Oklahoma.”
He left Tinker in January 2009 to serve at other bases including Mildenhall, England (working on KC-135 aircraft); and at Ramstein Air Base in Germany working on the Lockheed C-5 Galaxy and Boeing C-17 Globemaster III. At Ranstein he also worked on aircraft of allied nations.
From November 2015 to February 2020 he was assigned to the Contingency Response Wing at Joint Base McGuire-Dix in Lakehurst, NJ.
Brandt said growing up in Ceres he dreamed of being a NASA shuttle pilot and attempted to get into the U.S. Naval Academy but those efforts for a congressional nomination were thwarted when then Rep. Gary Condit became immersed in the Chandra Levy scandal in 2001.
“Shortly after was the whole 9/11 and patriotism was super high at that time and I just came in wanting to serve. Relatively it was the easy button to keep doing it but it was something I enjoyed. I love the community in aircraft maintenance. I love the inclusiveness. I love to travel. I loved the variety of the work that I got to do and the people I got to meet, the opportunities that I got that I wouldn’t have had I decided to stay in Ceres.”
Shelia Brandt said while her son loves his native California, he won’t even consider moving back due to its political climate.
