Airman talks military life with students

Airman Mindy Marr, just home from Air Force tech school in Mississippi and Texas, shared details of her life in the military with Julie Holden's third and fourth grade class at Sisters Elementary School on Friday morning.

Hair in a bun, clothed in her camo uniform and armed with a bright orange bag of Tootsie Pops for the kids, Marr answered a colorful barrage of questions from the roomful of students on everything from what she wears to bed at night to what she eats for dinner.

She graduated two years ago from Sisters High School and completed basic training in Texas.

Her mother, Marsha Marr, is the owner of Miss-Sew-It-All and her brother, Josh, also a Sisters High School graduate, is a Marine currently deployed overseas.

"Basically I fix airplanes," she explained. "I don't shoot missiles or drop bombs. I'll be leaving for Japan in a couple weeks and will be doing pretty much the same thing there. I do a lot of the electrical work, and my other buddies fuel the planes. Some of them work on bombers and some work on fighters. I work on C-130 cargo carriers, the big planes that carry supplies and vehicles and food. I sleep a lot and am tired most of the time."

With suckers offered as prizes for any questions asked, the room was a forest of eager raised arms. Students were curious about Marr's daily routine, learning to translate Japanese and what it's like being a woman in the military.

"I really wanted to be in the health field, but I wanted to get out of Sisters badly and this was the only field open at the time," she said. "I hope to go back to school and work towards entering the health area sometime in the future. The food in the military is not the greatest. I usually don't eat breakfast because I work in the middle of the night. When I am hungry I have salads or powdered eggs or MRE, which are pre-made meals that come in a little black box and last for about 20 years."

During her down time, she likes to go out dancing and have fun with her friends and sometimes go bowling.

In Japan, Marr will be stationed at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa, where she will continue her aircraft maintenance work.

"I'll do more advanced training in Japan and will be deployed to Italy and Germany and Australia too, because I am a specialist in certain jobs involving the airplanes. For the most part I like my job, but with all the expensive equipment around you sometimes it's a little scary. One time I was working on a plane and it wouldn't start when I pushed a button. I thought I'd broken this million dollar plane but I was just pushing the wrong button."