Retired Air Force veteran reflects on years of service, community leadership

Retired Air Force veteran reflects on service

Retired Air Force veteran Jim Salgado reflected on following his father's leading example and where his journey took him, including the MacDill Air Force Base.

TAMPA, Fla. - A retired Air Force veteran was inspired to join the service after his father's leading example in World War 2.

"I grew up watching my dad, a World War Two medic," said Jim Salgado. "And for me, service seemed to be the thing to do."

Jim Salgado

But Salgado's personal career started in Pisa, Italy, after he completed training camp in the early eighties. His next assignment brought him back to the States, to Georgia, at Robins Air Force Base. There, he worked on mobile power.

"If you can recall, looking on the interstate, sometimes you'll see a convoy of very large green vehicles with boxes - they're towing and everything," Salgado said. "Well, those are communications people, and they would tow the generators on the back of them.I got the training and drive those things, so it was a lot of fun," he said.

After returning to MacDill Air Force Base, he received news he never wanted to hear; his beloved father had served his very last day.

Salgado took a break in service, but 9/11 shook the world, and he was deployed to the Philippines.

"It was a dangerous place to go to under Operation Enduring Freedom. I spent a while there and really had a lot of training," he said. "Of course, coming back to MacDill, my assignment took me to the joint communication support of Military Element, or JCS, which is a mobile communication unit, but it's multi-service."

His service at MacDill continued until August 2018, when he fully retired from the Air Force. He is now a defense contractor for the base, but he also remains active in the veteran's community.

He and his wife are involved with Canines for Christ, their passion project, Operation Lend a Hand and Veterans Treatment Court in Hillsborough County.

"They came to MacDill one day to the JAG office, and they were talking about this new idea of a treatment court that is based on treatment, not on punishment," he said. "I did go to one of the court hearings that they had, and I sat in the gallery watching and I thought to myself, ‘my gosh, this is somewhere I need to be. I just need to do this.’"

In these circumstances, he shares a special token with veterans in the program, a military coin, to remind them of their strengths through struggles.

"I said, don't ever forget that when you carry this in your pocket, this is like the ultimate soldier. I mean, Saint Michael carried that weight, carried that shield for the Lord.
So I base mine on my faith because for me, that's the foundation and the absence of that, I really don't have a basis to help these people," Salgado said.

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