Steve Daykin

Partial Transcript:

Segment Synopsis: Steve Daykin was born in 1981 and grew up in Tewksbury, MA. outside of Boston. He lived in a safe area with his family where he and his brothers were allowed to play in the woods and ride their bikes. Daykin became interested in skateboarding, skiing, and BMX extreme sports.

Keywords: BMX; Boston; Skiing; Tewksbury, MA

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Segment Synopsis: During high school Daykin attended a vocational school where he learned carpentry. While many of his friends were going to college after school, he was unsure of what he wanted to do. He ended up joining the Air Force on a delayed enlistment, seeing it as an opportunity to see the world. His family supported his decision, because they hoped the Air Force would provide a better future for Steve as well as a possible career path.

Keywords: adventure; air force; carpentary; delayed enlistment; oppertunity; vocational school

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Segment Synopsis: Going from Massachusetts to Texas was a large culture shock for Daykin. He describes basic training as an "eye opener" that is designed to let participants know that what you do from here on out is what counts. In his experience, the six weeks of basic training were not physically demanding. While it was nerve wracking, Daykin excelled and became an Element Leader, someone who was in charge of other trainees.

Keywords: Element Leader; Lackland Air Force Base; San Antonio

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Segment Synopsis: After basic training, Daykin was sent to Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX, where he was assigned the job of utilities system craftsmen. The atmosphere here was more relaxed than at basic training.

Keywords: AFSC; Sheppard Air Force Base; Utilities system craftsmen; Wichita Falls, TX

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Segment Synopsis: After Sheppard Air Force Base, Daykin was sent to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, outside of Washington D.C. Outside of meeting important people such as the Clintons and the Bush family, life was close to a civilian's. His first deployment was in 2000 to Saudi Arabia where he stayed in villas with marble floors and air conditioning. There was no conflict while he was stationed there. On the day that he returned to Maryland, he met the woman that would become his wife.

Keywords: Andrews Air Force Base; Operation Northern Watch; Saudi Arabia; Washington D.C.

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Segment Synopsis: Daykin was in Maryland when the attack on 9/11 occurred. He remembers having to search for bombs under cars all day and then performing RAM duty which required him to sit in a ten-ton dump truck waiting to see if anyone would try to come through the gates.

Keywords: Maryland; Ram duty

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Segment Synopsis: After putting in for a World Wide Remote position, Daykin was stationed in Korea. At this time his then girlfriend, now wife, was stationed in Okinawa but was deployed to Kuwait. While Daykin was going through an exercise in MOPP gear, he received a call from his girlfriend where he could hear sirens in the background because Kuwait was being bombed. The two were married in Okinawa and later had a second ceremony stateside before their next deployment in Iraq.

Keywords: Korea; Kuwait; Marriage; Okinawa

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Segment Synopsis: Because he volunteered for the Army detachment unit, Daykin followed Army rules while he was in Iraq. One such rule was that he did not have to check his weapon and clips out every morning. There was no tracking how many bullets he fired in a day, which was more lenient than Air Force policy. Daykin felt this was beneficial because his group was being attacked, on average, three times a day.

Keywords: M249; Mortar Fire; volunteer

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Segment Synopsis: Daykin was in a unit that was attached to a signal battalion to provide extra security for convoys, but for the first month or two that he was there, there was nothing to do. Daykin and the other men worked to make their living conditions better and participated in things such a knife throwing competitions. At last Daykinn was able to volunteer to go on a convoy and almost immediately one of the tires on the Humvee blew up, leaving him and four other guys alone on the side of a highway. Another memory is of seeing an explosion in the distance and feeling the tires of the Humvee lift off of the ground.

Keywords: Balad Air Base; Camp Anaconda; Convoys

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Segment Synopsis: While on a Peace Keeping Mission digging a trench from the Euphrates River to a village, Daykin's unit was attacked by a suicide bomber. He talks about how he started to get used to it. For three months Daykin's wife was also stationed in "tent city" in Iraq with him but several hundred yards away from him. The couple bought two way radios to be able to communicate with each other when the area was bombed. Daykin describes his worry anytime he couldn't contact her after mortars hit and the relief he felt when she deployment was up.

Keywords: Humvee; Kevlar; Peace Keeping Missions; Tent city with wife

Partial Transcript:

Segment Synopsis: Daykin has an honest conversation about how he dealt with the emotions that go hand-in-hand with being deployed in a combat zone. He talks about how in the first few months he was scared but that the fear turned to anger. He was angry that people were trying to kill him and he didn't know why and that he could do nothing to defend himself. He liked convoy missions because it was doing something, not just sitting, waiting for death. In all he was in Iraq seven or eight months.

Keywords: anger; boredom; fear

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Segment Synopsis: Because he and his wife were on separate orders, when her four year enlistment was up, she was forced to leave Okinawa. This meant that when Daykin left Iraq, he went back to an empty house to serve out the last of his enlistment. During this time his wife lived with his brother and sister-in-law in New Hampshire.

Keywords: New Hampshire; Okinawa; wife

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Segment Synopsis: After leaving the military, Daykin went to plumbing school where he was exempted for three years out of a four-year program because of his experience in the military. This allowed him to quickly get his plumbing license. Roughly two years after leaving the military, Daykin and his wife started having problems. He admitted that he was distant, irritable, and that something was wrong so he went to see a civilian doctor. He was immediately diagnosed with PTSD and started on antidepressants to help with his anxiety and try to get back to normal. His feelings are numbed to him.

Keywords: Anxiety; Plumber; PTSD

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Segment Synopsis: In order to try for a better life, Daykin and his wife moved to Louisiana to be close to her family. Here, Daykin took up fishing, which he finds helps relieve stress. While he goes hunting, it does not give him the joy that fishing does.

Keywords: boat; fishing; shooting

Partial Transcript:

Segment Synopsis: Steve Daykin both feels like the military was beneficial for him as well as caused permanent scaring. He discusses both sides of his military career and expresses that he has no regrets but wishes there had been a slightly different outcome. He believes that his time in the military opened his eyes to the world.

Keywords: news; no regrets; scaring