William Creapaux - Nashua, New Hampshire

Gender: Male

Marital Status: married

Birthday: April 26, 1951

Hometown: Nashua, New Hampshire

Military Status: Veteran

Military Branch: Air Force

Military Rank: E-7

About Me:
After graduation from good old Chelsea High, I tried Boston University for a year. (I was trying medical school)

No way. Toooo expensive.

My brother Jack had been drafted (he chose the Air Force), so that sounded interesting. My uncle had arranged for me to be accepted to the Air Force Academy, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to make a career out of the service.

I enlisted, and was given the “usual” battery of tests to determine what I would be good at.

I got a perfect score on the computer test (in their infancy at the time), and was also looked at to….go to the Air Force Academy. Odd.

Anyway, I accepted the computer training. My first assignments were Elmendorf AFB outside of Anchorage and Eielson AFB outside of Fairbanks. My mother was thrilled. I was safe.

So…

I volunteered for Viet Nam. My mother freaked out, of course…but I explained that when you’re a football player, you go to the stadium because that’s where the game is. I needed to go where the “game” was. It sounds sick, but that’s me.

I was assigned to Bien Hoa (north of Saigon). We would be occasionally mortared, but it was still a bit tame for me. (starting to see a trend here?)

I volunteered (there’s that word again) for the newly created Air Commando program. Ranger School, jump school, unconventional warfare school, sniper school. LOTS of training.

I spent 14 months in the jungle running recon missions. After that, I volunteered for the new AWACS program (the 707 with the flying saucer on top). I was accepted and thought I was going back to Hanscom AFB 11 miles from home to fly the thing. Nope! They brought the bird in country. 450 hours over Hanoi.

When my extended tour in Southeast Asia was over, I returned to the states as a computer guy stationed in Alabama. Safe, quiet. BORING!.

I was reassigned to Travis AFB in California (50 miles northeast of San Francisco), and it was there that military intelligence came into my life. I was contacted based on the work I had done in Viet Nam and offered a career in intel. I was a Special Operations team chief for the next 20 years of so. All over the world. Stations like Stuttgart, Germany; Turkey, Crete, Korea. I did 4 years in Washington D.C. briefing the president once a week on spec ops matters. Great job!

Along the way I married once (1979-1985). A sweet girl that couldn’t handle the fact that when I went on a “business trip”, I might never come back.

I married again in 1990, and had two children. Alexandria Christine, who is now 18, and William Edrick II, now 17. That marriage ended in 1997, thank goodness. The only down side is that the kids went with their mother to Georgia, the Maine for the second time…and I seldom see them.

In 2001, I met a wonderful lady, Cathy. She has four of her own, but all grown. Only one lives with us, schooling here in New England. The rest completing their education in Wisconsin and visit often.

I’m still a computer guy.

Got my degree in Information Technology while I was still active duty, and have been utilizing it since.

I'm doing contract work for John Hancock in Portsmouth, NH.