Getting to class wasn't easy

For Mike McFarland, getting the job as a professor in the department of communications at West Texas A&M University was the easy part. Having the chance to actually perform it, well, that was another matter.

McFarland was hired to teach at his alma mater in the fall semester of 2017. But he never showed up, having last been seen in Nebraska. He finally returned to Canyon to teach in the 2018 spring semester, and then took off for Atlanta, New Jersey, San Antonio, Germany and Africa only to return for this fall semester.

What’s going on? The Air Force, that’s what’s going on.

“It was an interesting situation,” said Dr. Trudy Hanson, department chair of the department of communications. “Even our HR department didn’t quite know how to handle it.”

McFarland, 59, had been teaching computer programming, web page design, video game design and audio production at Hopkinton High School in suburban Boston when there was an opportunity for the Brownfield native to return to his roots in 2017 with the opening at WT.

He got the position, but there was the little oh-by-the-way. McFarland, who served in the Air Force, various Air National Guards and Air Force and Navy Reserves for nearly 30 years, was in the Massachusetts Air National Guard until December 2019. There was always the chance his 253 Cyber Space Installation Group would be activated, but really, what were the odds?

Pretty good as it turned out.

Just as McFarland was about to launch his new career at WT, Uncle Sam tapped him on the shoulder. His group was activated, and he was off to Offutt Air Force Base in the fall of 2017. Goodbye classroom, hello Strategic Air Command.

“Some units, there’s a higher probability that you may be deployed, and we’re one of those units that’s expected to always be ready to go somewhere,” McFarland said. “So you always have to be prepared. It just depends on what’s going on in the world.”

The 253 Cyber Space Installation Group determines communication requirements and makes installations at U.S. Air Force sites all over the world. It’s more of a management group with eight squadrons underneath it.

At Offutt, McFarland was part of a group installing communication infrastructure in new Strategic Command buildings. He was on the cable team, pulling miles and miles of cable and manually installing it.

“We were affectionately referred to as the ‘Cable Dogs,’” McFarland said.

Meanwhile, back at WT, Hanson had to refer to Plan B, even though there was no Plan B. She added to the workload of instructor Randy Ray, who shared some of the audio and video technology expertise that McFarland was to teach. A graduate assistant was also used.

“We kind of piecemealed things together for three months,” Hanson said.

McFarland’s communication installation duties complete, he finally joined the WT communications faculty in January 2018 to settle in as an instructor. That semester went fine, and as summer approached, McFarland was driving to Massachusetts.

“And it was – ‘Guess what’ We’re getting deployed again,’” he said.

McFarland sent an email to Hanson, laying it out matter-of-factly that he was going to be gone again. It wasn’t what he had in mind, but he had no choice.

Employment law says an employee can’t lose his job because of military service, but they do not draw a salary. Beginning in the fall 2018, Hanson used that savings to hire a part-time instructor.

This deployment was more involved. The 253 Cyber Space Installation Group was sent to pre-deployment training at Warner Robbins Air Force Base in Georgia, Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, and Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.

They were eventually based out of Ramstein Air Force Base in Frankfort, Germany, but the work was in the African country of Niger and two new air bases, 202 and 201. Their primary mission was to oversee a number of squadrons in ‘com-planning,’ determining communications requirement for the entire African continent, and Tactical to Enduring (TTE), which is transitioning from temporary communications to long-term.

“There was a lot of manual labor,” McFarland said.

Niger is on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It was hot and flat and the wind blew sand. In that regard, it wasn’t a whole lot different than Brownfield or much of West Texas.

“The sand storms aren’t as bad as Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said, “but the weird thing is they still have these rain systems. So it will flood and everything will turn green.

“And here come the locusts. It’s like a Biblical thing as they eat all the vegetation. After the locusts come in, here comes the birds like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. They eat up all the locusts. It’s a really weird cycle of events.”

Hanson said McFarland was still considered a faculty member and colleague, even though she didn’t know how many emails and weekly updates on department and University news he received.

“Granted, there are laws in place that protect civilian jobs, but I didn’t sign anything that says, ‘Sorry, I have to do this first,’” McFarland said. “If WT would have said that we have to give this position to someone else, I would have understood.

“The next opportunity I would have reapplied. I’m not one of those people to use the law to his advantage when it’s unfair. My philosophy was I put a hardship on the University. They hired me, made plans for me to be here at a certain time doing certain things, and all of a sudden, I’m not able to do that.

“If they would have told me we’ll just have to do this at a different time, I get that. But thankfully, it all worked out where I could come back.”

McFarland, who had a WT flag flying in Africa, was discharged from active duty this past summer. His seat was warm and waiting for him in the communications department this semester where McFarland has jumped in teaching two courses in mass communications and a sports broadcasting practicum.

It’s full higher ed circle for McFarland, who received a degree in Radio/TV from WT in the early 1980s.

“He’s a great colleague and really wants to recruit students to the field,” Hanson said. “He has an energetic way of teaching and approaching people. He has wholeheartedly jumped into academia.”

McFarland is retiring from the Air National Guard in December, and, so – possibly, maybe – that part of his life is over.

“Unless something catastrophic like war with Syria, this is it,” he said. “It doesn’t quite seem real. After 30 years, it becomes part of your life. It’s just something you do – it’s ingrained in you. So when it’s over, I don’t know if it’s going to feel weird, but it’s going to be different.”

Editor’s note: This column originally appeared on the WTAMU website.