When Ryan Billingham returned to the Upper Valley in 2014 after seven years in the Air Force, he needed a break. Following tours of duty as a senior airman working on A-10 and F-16 jets in, among other places, Afghanistan, South Korea and Japan, he needed to adjust to civilian life.
Two years later, “It’s still an adjustment, I guess,” Billingham, 29, says while sitting outside the Wilder Club & Library on a recent sunny day. “I needed a break, but then I got too stir crazy.”
He got a job at King Arthur Flour a year and a half ago. He enjoys the work and his co-workers, but sometimes, in both his personal and professional life, he feels self-conscious when he experiences an internal conflict between wanting to maintain his standards of machine-like efficiency and not “bashing the civilian world.”
“(The military) trained me to be the most efficient that I can be,” he says in an abrupt staccato voice, “and coming back to the civilian world … I was just trained differently, so then I just get irritated at myself.”
Billingham, who grew up in White River Junction and graduated from Hartford High School in 2006, was drawn to the military since childhood through his family history of service in the Marines, Army and Air Force. His affinity for mechanics and working with his hands, he jokes, can be “blamed” on his older brother, who was “always playing with computers, working on his car.”
“It’s always been physical labor for me,” Billingham says.
After basic training and tech school, Billingham was at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, and deployed within a year to Bagram, Afghanistan.
“Deployed with no return date — that was depressing,” he says. He ended up serving there for eight months. The Air Force, Billingham says, is “completely different than the rest of the branches” — especially for jet “maintainers” like Billingham — because they stayed on base.
But the risks were still there, with frequent shellings, especially in the first few months of his tour.
“I’m not crazy, but you have to accept the fact that if you’re going to get shelled or bombed, there’s nothing you can do,” he says. “You can’t block it, you can’t see it coming, you can’t this or that.”
Billingham loved working on A-10s, an “iconic jet I’d seen in movies and all that stuff.” His fascination made the long days, grueling work and stifling heat more bearable.
But there were no A-10s at Kunsan Air Base in Korea, his first foreign service after Bagram, so he was moved to a support position for F-16s, which he didn’t enjoy as much. He also grew tired of internal politics in the Air Force, which he blames in part on understaffing and officials trying to achieve too much with too little.
He’s been living with his mother since his return. In the King Arthur Flour machine room, he gets to work on machines with his hands again, preparing, packaging and shipping out the company’s box mixes.
His long-term goals include getting a degree via the GI Bill, buying a house — he’s not interested in renting — getting married and having kids. He’s already moved around the world enough, he says, and will probably stay in the Upper Valley.
“Coming back to this place, I love it,” he says.
Age:29
Hometown: White River Junction
Current town:Wilder
Where were you five years ago? Either going to Korea or in Korea. “At that point I was realizing the Air Force for what it really is, because at my first base, Tucson, Arizona, I really had it good. I had standard hours almost every day … I had a designated lunch break, I had time to eat, and it was great. If I stayed in Tucson I probably would have stayed in for my full 20 (years) and retired.”
Where do you see yourself in five years? Getting a degree online or at a local college. “I wouldn’t mind doing more maybe for culinary (studies). I absolutely love music so maybe I would go in for music.”
What’s lacking for 20-somethings in the Upper Valley?Nightlife.“There’s more cows in this state than there are people.”
What does the Upper Valley offer 20-somethings? Natural scenery. “It’s beautiful, it’s the Green Mountain State — c’mon!”