TOPEKA (KSNT) - Serving for nearly a decade as a Tanker abroad and at home, John Keithley still reflects fondly on what he describes as the best job he ever had.
“The sprockets are somewhere between 500 and 800 pounds," Keithley said, "the track itself weighs two and a half tons. I don’t know why I still remember all this stuff after 40 plus years, but I just do.”
Once a Tanker, always a Tanker for John Keithley.
Back in the late 1970's, joining up with the Army doubled as a way to visit his birth country and show off his engineering prowess.
“It’s one of those opportunities of a lifetime, I didn’t want to look back and say I wish I had," he said.
Making the grade as Keithley puts it wasn't easy. A lot of his fellow classmates in tank school didn't cross the finish line.
“You do suffer from a bit of elitism," Keithley said, "the world does look different from the back or the top of a tank.”
Back when Keithley served, it took a village to make those machines mission ready.
“For every tank that goes out there, there’s at least 10 other soldiers that support," Keithley said. "Fuel, ammo, supply, technical logistics.”
His duties gave Keithley a unique perspective not many had a front row seat to.
“Sometimes we would have to rotate with other units, go up to the east western border for border guard," he said. "That was interesting, getting to see what communism looked like from the free side of the fence.”
While the job came naturally to him, it still held heavy risk.
“You can do the work to where it almost seems or feels routine," Keithley said, "but you always have to keep in the back of your mind like riding a motorcycle that this is dangerous and it can kill you if you make a mistake.”
Making that dangerous work feel second nature made all the difference whenever the signal was sent out.
“When they took the hostages in Iran in 79, my unit, we had a sister unit next door so technically we had 100 tanks sitting in one parking lot," Keithley said. "They sent us out in the woods and we stayed there for 21 days, because they didn’t know if they were going to send us. It’s been army, military protocol when stuff goes bad sometimes the best thing to do is to ship in a bunch of tanks and attack helicopters and make a statement about a show of force.”
These days, Keithley is keeping that Tanker spirit alive and well, as a hobby he restores motorcycles and convertibles.
