WEBVTT

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- Basically my life was based on that,

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on working for the Air Force.

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I feel more American than a lot of American people do.

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(jet engine zooming)

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^My name is Cledis Scandola.

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^I am an Occupational Safety and Health Specialist.

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I've been working for the Air Force

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for 40 years and seven months.

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My family was from Ronca de Fontanavana

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and that's where I grew up.

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That's where I lived until I got married

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and then I moved to the States.

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Then from the States I came back to Italy

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and then I moved down to San Vito Air Station,

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which was an electronic security group

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and that's where I worked for 17 years.

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That's where I separated and

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met my actual present companion.

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So I lived 17 years in Brindisi, which is

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the city where this San Vito Air Station was.

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The mission went away because there

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was no longer a need to spy on Russia.

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- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

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(crowd cheering)

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- So they decided to close the base.

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We had a choice, we could either stay

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and go to work for the Italian government or move.

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Since I was from here I said well let's try again

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or if they have any positions in Aviano and

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they happened to have positions open

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because Aviano was getting bigger.

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Before it was a 40th Tactical Group and

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it was really a little bitty base.

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Then it was becoming 31 Fighter Wing.

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(soft jazz music)

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I think the safety is the job that

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I liked the best out of all the jobs that I had.

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I liked all the others but safety was different every day.

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Every day something new would happen.

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You would do something different,

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trying to get everybody to buy in to safety, trying to get

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everybody to understand how important safety is.

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You do that by training, you do that by talking,

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you do that by briefing, by inspecting,

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by doing everything you can to save people's life basically.

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That's the end of it.

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The end goal is to ensure that

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everybody goes home safe at night and healthy.

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My thought was I don't have to make you happy but

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I have to make sure that you're going to go home tonight.

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Then sometimes it happens that

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somebody does get hurt and sometimes somebody dies.

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That's the bad moments.

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That's when you feel like I didn't do my job.

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What could I have done?

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You get over it because I think it becomes part of yourself.

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You know, it's just like being a doctor.

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You try to cure everybody but

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sometimes somebody can not be cured.

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Somebody can not be saved.

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There were many times that I cried (laughs softly),

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many times you know, especially when you see children

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running around and their dad is dead.

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So you kind of have to work it out.

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You have to kind of leave it out of your emotions

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because otherwise you go into depression

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and you can't do your job then.

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You kinda learn to block it out and never give up

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because if you give up because somebody dies,

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then you have another 9000 people that are left alone.

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So you can't do that.

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You have to think about whoever's left behind.

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Everybody talks about the mission, the mission.

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We're here because we have a mission.

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That is very important because

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if we didn't have a mission we would not be here.

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But, if we don't have the people we can't do the mission.

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So take care of your people and

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you take care of yourself first.

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But as a supervisor, as a commander, as a leader,

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take care of your people because if you don't

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take care of your people, you won't have a mission.

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That's what I've learned in the Air Force.

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That's what I learned with my job.

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Take care of your people.

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And thanks for having taken care of me (laughs softly).

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(soft jazz music)