Baileys’ faith, love of country stronger after Air Force

Veterans Day is a time to reflect on all veterans’ service that has helped protect people’s freedoms and way of life in the U.S.

Penny Bailey and her husband JD Bailey, M.D., are both Air Force veterans. They met in ROTC in college, and they both retired as colonels — Penny in 2007 and JD in 2015. Penny started active duty in 1982, and JD in 1981.

Penny pointed out that one of the Air Force’s mottos is “Service before self,” which is something both she and JD believe in. “That’s why we were happy to serve,” she said.

Having been raised in a Christian home, Penny said she learned at a young age that she was blessed to be born in America.

“For me it was literally a calling,” she said of her decision to join the military. “I wanted to thank God for being born in America and thank America for allowing me to know my Lord,” she added.

Penny’s experience in the Air Force took her to many places in the world. She spent time stationed in Belgium, England and Germany. She also had temporary duty assignments in Africa, Kuwait, Spain and China.

In Belgium, she worked as a munitions officer in charge of receiving, inventorying and storing nuclear and conventional weapons and various types of ammunition that arrived on the base.

She worked in logistics for supplies, fuels, munitions, manpower and more. She worked for 10 years as a protocol officer, working for seven different four-star generals, three of whom were in the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

As a protocol officer, she coordinated special events like dinners, parades, meetings and other functions to make sure everything ran smoothly from beginning to end.  

She said that a normal workday in the military was 12 hours long, and “you stayed until the job was done.”

JD said the military was similar to a family business for him. His father was in the Army for 27 years, and his brother served in the Army Reserve. JD said he wanted to fly and felt the Air Force would give him the best opportunity to do so.

“It was an opportunity to work with some of the best people in the world,” JD said of his experience in the Air Force. That experience took him to many different places and jobs.

After completing his pilot training in 1987, he flew an EC-135 strategic air command post until 1993. That same year, he started medical school at the University of Alabama School of Medicine.

He returned to active duty after graduating in 1997 and completed his residency in family medicine at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

In 2000, he worked in South Korea with a special operations helicopter unit, and by 2001 he was working at the Pentagon Flight Medicine Clinic. At that time, he was also the Secretary of the Air Force’s personal physician and was then a special operations flight surgeon. He was deployed to Djibouti and then to a classified location for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

He worked as a group surgeon for a special operations team in Europe and went to Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico as squadron commander and chief of the medical staff from 2005-08.

After graduating from the National War College at Fort McNair in Washington, D.C., he was a group commander at Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, from 2009-12 and the commander of the hospital at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan from 2012-13.

Before officially retiring in 2015, he was the 12th Air Force/Air Force Southern Command Surgeon for two years.

JD called his over 30 years in the military a chapter of his life that gave him opportunities to experience and do different things while growing up a lot at the same time.

Noting that veterans are people who want to serve and protect American citizens, he said the average American needs to understand that the military is a group of men and women who work hard every day and make daily sacrifices for their country, including being away from their family and the ultimate sacrifice in some cases.

“The freedom that we experience is not free,” he added.

Penny characterized her experience in the military as wonderful but pointed out that so much more goes into it. She and JD met and married in Alabama and, at the time of her retirement, they had been married 30 years and spent 15 of those years apart from each other.

“There’s a lot of sacrifices and a lot of hardships, but at the end you come out a stronger person and more grateful for all you have,” she said.

Penny said that all of her experiences culminated to help make her stronger, adding that she went from being a Southern belle to a self-assured person who was willing to learn.

“You can’t go through those experiences without finding inner strength to adapt and overcome,” she said. “It was a challenge, but it’s one I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to do. God met every challenge, and he allowed me to succeed well beyond my imagination.”

She pointed out that when she retired, only 2% of women made the rank of colonel. At that same time, 2% of men retired as three-star generals.

She said her relationship with God grew immensely while she was in the military. “God shows you that you can do more than you think you can,” she said. She added that while in the Air Force she learned discipline and to respect others and the Constitution.

“I love our country and what it stands for,” she said. “I appreciate the freedoms that we have, and I know those are all God-given gifts.”

She noted that thanking veterans for their service needs to be personal, genuine and come from the heart. We’re here today thanks to those who served before, and they should be remembered and honored not only on Veterans Day, but every day.