The military not only provides path to future, but ties that bind
The Air Force not only sets a standard, creates lifetime bonds
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Laurie Epps is a doer.
While recently retired from a career in the banking industry, her first experiences after high school encompassed a passion, that spread quietly between siblings and children. Laurie met her husband when she was in the Air Force and that union set a path that wasn't the most conventional.
Born to Larry and Jan Olmstead, Laurie Olmstead graduated from Webster City HIgh School in 1977, then Olmstead, now Epps had different interests than most of her female classmates.
"When I was in high school, I took auto mechanics," she said. "I was the only girl in there."
Looking back on those times, she remembers thinking that the guys in her class didn't think too much of her being in the class, until they were her partner, and realized she knew what she was doing. Which she credits to having read the instruction manual!
Perhaps it was the fact that she found auto mechanics interesting, when most young women of that day avoided mechanical tasks, Epps also took a different view on what she would do after high school.
Her father had been in the Air Force, during the Korean conflict, two of her uncles had been in the Navy and Marines. Another aunt had enlisted in the Army. Two of her brothers had joined the Air Force. All of which gave her some exposure to military life.
"Because I had two older brothers, I kind of knew what it was like," she said. " I wasn't that ambitious for college, and felt it was a waste of money. I needed to go out and earn some money, and it was easy choice."
So that is what she did. She joined the Air Force in 1978.
"I was active duty for five years," she explained. "When you went into the military, they talked about the basic training. You have to take orders, and a lot of people are not used to that. They have to understand, listen and follow orders. It can be a life saver."
"I don't know if the military instilled it in me, but the majority of people who have served, whether they were drafted, or they volunteered, they just want to get the job done," she said. "You just don't complain about it along the way." Laurie met her husband, Ron Epps, while serving in Columbus, Mississippi.
"Ron had enlisted about six months after I had" she said, "After his basic training and tech school, we were both stationed at Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi. We didn't work together long before we ended up engaged. While we didn't work the same shift, I suppose you could call it an office romance. Other than the venue was a flightline with about a dozen or more T-38 aircraft surrounding us. When I got orders to go to Germany, Ron was the one to push to move the wedding date to ensure he would travel overseas together." They were married in 1979.
Laurie and Ron Epps spent three years serving in Germany, both as Aircraft Maintenance Specialists. It was Germany where their oldest daughter was born.
Epps explained that the Air Force had to come first in loyalty. As they began their family, with both of them in the same career field, she balked.
"I just didn't think this was a good idea for our family," Epps said. And she couldn't switch careers at that point.
"If you had the training for a mechanic, you would always be a mechanic," she said.
She said she had considered making the Air Force a career, but after marriage, that forced a change.
"My husband and I were both awarded a Crew Chief of the Quarter, which allowed us to take a flight," said Epps. "The plane I got to fly in was a T-38, if you have ever heard of the Air Force Thunderbirds - they are an aerial demonstration team - they fly this type of aircraft. My husband, when he got his, he got to fly in the F-4.
Today, her military experience has also been passed along to children.
"My daughter Toni was also in the Air Force," she said. Toni did make it her career, after 21 years she retired in 2023.
"I think in Toni's case, having her dad and I both having military experience, and my brother and his wife both serving, she knew somebody personally who had survived and thrived."
Toni had already made up her mind about the military before she graduated from high school. It wasn't because she didn't know what to do, she knew what she wanted.
"When she told people she was going into the military they didn't understand. They would say things like "oh, well, that's probably a good choice if you don't know what else you might want to do. But Toni did know. Joining the service was her first choice." Epps recalled.
"We became a military family, but we didn't start that way," explained Epps. My dad was only in for 2 or 3 years. None of my family was career, but when my brother Richard graduated, he just didn't want to go to college. He was only in for four or five years. My other brother, David didn't know what he wanted to do, but was told he needed to get a job."
He ended up making a career in the Air Force, met his wife in the Air Force, and she also made the Air Force her career.
Although her daughter Kayleigh did not follow suit by going into the military, she is now married to Matt McRunnel, who is now the Commander of American Legion Post 191.
"My daughter has a box full of service coins, for all kinds of different things," she said. "I look back and wish I had kept more mementos or taken more pictures. It was just a chapter of my life. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary."
But there was some more to it. Not only did she marry a man she met in the military, she also said she maintains relationships with people she served with.
"When we left the military, it's hard to believe that we were only at that base for 10-11 months together," she said. "We still get together and talk."