RAF veteran retires after 38 years to train next generation
For almost 38 years Neil Epton has served his country with the Royal Air Force.
He has been all over the world, but next week Master Aircrew Epton will be hanging up his wings for good to take up a new role – passing his knowledge on to the next RAF generation.
Mr Epton, 54, has served with the air force in Northern Ireland, the Falklands Germany, Iraq, Afghanistan and Cyprus since he enlisted as a 17-year-old.
He has been posted to 10 RAF bases across the UK, Northern Ireland, Germany and Cyprus before moving to RAF Shawbury in August 2009.
He will have completed 37 years 247 days when he leaves RAF Shawbury on Monday. And he said it will be an emotional day.
"The Royal Air Force has been my whole life and I owe it everything," he said. "It has been my privilege to serve and retiring will be a sad day for me in many respects".
He joined the RAF as a balloon operator in 1975 and was selected for flying duties as aircrew in 1983. Since then he has been a helicopter crewman on operations in Northern Ireland, a C-17 (Globemaster) Air Loadmaster on operations in Iraq and Afghan- istan and worked as a search and rescue winchman in Cyprus and Northern Ireland.
He has also worked as a qualified helicopter crewman instructor for much of the past 20 years and in 2005 he was awarded of the Long Service and Good Conduct Medal.
Mr Epton met his wife Julie in 1992 and they married just over two years later.
He added: "Julie has been my rock and guiding star. It is only through her unwavering support that I have been able to serve the Royal Air Force in this way. She is a one in a million gem."
He added: "Military life has its ups and downs, you just do your duty but one of the saddest things is where we would be involved in the repatriation of our fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan."
He also helped with disaster relief after an earthquake in Mexico in 1985 when 20,000 people died, and was on board an aircraft which was shot at by the IRA in Northern Ireland.
There are many incidents he particularly remembers. "In 2008 we were on the ground in Afghanistan unloading and rockets began exploding around us," he said.
"We had to wait for about 20 minutes for the explosions to finish and the area to be checked before getting back on board.
"And in Liverpool in the 1970s, when working as a balloon operator, I was doing parachuting, I jumped out and on the way down a gale force gust hit me, I was going 20 mph and was dragged across a gravel road which cut my face and hands. Eventually my parachute got trapped on a fence."
One comical memory from his time in Northern Ireland was trying to rescue a cow that became trapped in a river, but every time he was winched down from the plane to help it, the cow ran under a bridge. He said they tried for about half an hour before someone jumped in the water.
Mr Epton is retiring now because he has served for the maximum permitted time.
