Weathering the storm: Airman reflects on road to chief despite brush with death

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Ryan Conroy
  • 31st Fighter Wing Public Affairs
AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy --  On Nov. 20, 2014, Senior Master Sgt. Darren Green, 31st Munitions Squadron superintendent, was selected for promotion to chief master sergeant. But, the road to the top wasn't easy and it even included a brush with death.

Upon first inspection, Green is rugged. Stern facial features stacked six feet high on top of a resilient frame - one would never guess he is 37 years old. He'd never let you know, but there's more to him than the rough-around-the-edges persona he puts on.

The man he is today was the product of a well-built foundation that he attributes to his father.

Laying a strong foundation

Green was an Air Force brat. He calls Lake Placid, Fla., home, but there were several different places he gave the same label growing up. His father, James Green, was a firefighter in the Air Force and retired as a senior master sergeant in 1986. Darren was in 3rd grade.

James was a strong character in Green's life. Upfront, honest and direct was his dad's style. He instilled values in Green, including one philosophy that he tries to instill in his Airmen today - family comes first.

"I don't remember a lot of my dad's career in the Air Force, but I will always remember he was there for us," said Green. "He would tell me, 'Take care of family because they're the ones that will be there when the military is over.' Sure enough, when he retired we were there for him.

"My dad was one of those guys that would let you learn from your mistakes," said Green. "I would screw up one way or another and he would let me. Then after the fact, he would sit me down, explain what I did wrong and he would heal me back up."

Green's father would set the groundwork for the type of leader he was going to be - imparting wisdom and years of experience on his son, and teaching him hard life lessons along the way.

Paperwork detour

Upon graduation from high school, Green believed that college wasn't for him, choosing to labor on the shores of Florida.

"I thought I could make my living building boat docks, but then I was presented with an alternative," said Green. "I told my dad that I wanted to join the Air Force and he gave me advice and took me to a recruiter."

The recruiter guaranteed Green a job as a firefighter and it seemed he would follow directly in his father's footsteps. Instead, his uncertainty to join eventually led him to default on the deal and was left to return toiling on the docks.

Shortly after realizing this profession was not what he envisioned for his future, Green went back to the recruiter for the second time to find a new job in munitions.

Green would join the Air Force on Jan. 10, 1996.

His plan was to fulfill his four-year enlistment and travel the world; but the Air Force had different plans for him. Before he arrived at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, for his first assignment, his career was in jeopardy.

"I wasn't a model Airmen in my younger days," said Green. "I treated the Air Force like a game and one day in tech school I made a mistake that required paperwork."

The first sergeant served him a letter of reprimand, a serious offense, especially for an Airman in technical school. Darren turned to the only person he knew could help and fell upon the advice of his father once again.

"I called up my dad and I told him, I didn't know what to do," said Green. "He told me, 'Well, what did you expect? If you acted the way you did at home, I would have disciplined you. That's what they're doing, disciplining you.'

"I was a one-striper at the time and I thought it was all over ... I didn't know any better," he added. "It shook my world pretty good and the message was received loud and clear."

As quickly as they began, Green's trouble-making days were over. That would be that last piece of paperwork Darren ever received.

Finding a mentor

As far as Green was concerned, his four-year enlistment was up soon and he was leaving the Air Force for good. However, after two years, he found himself at Royal Air Force Lakenheath, U.K.

"When I think of where I am now in my career, two names stick out the most," began Green. "Now-Chief Master Sgts. Paul Huber and John Hanline were the two men in the beginning that could see what I couldn't see - a diamond in the rough if you will."

At the time, the two men were staff sergeants in his career field who he credits with the change of attitude for the young Airman's career path.

"They were the first ones to change my mind about getting out," said Green. "It was the first time I saw a leader in the Air Force and thought, 'That's who I want to be like.' They were the alpha males ... they took care of their people, believed in the mission and most importantly, believed in me."

Paul and Hanline were always one step ahead of Green in his career, offering advice and leadership along the way. To this day, they are both still in the Air Force and Green still seeks advice from the pair on a continuous basis.

"I would have never guessed I would be peers with these guys," said Green. "They were everything I hoped I could be and they brought the Air Force into perspective for me. I highly respect their advice and without them, I don't know where I would be." 

The diagnosis

In just 11 years, Green "burned" his way through the ranks up to master sergeant- a feat not even he could foresee. It seemed like nothing could stop him from reaching chief in exceptional time - until a little lump on his neck flipped his world upside down.

"One day, I was sitting in a meeting at work and I felt a lump on my neck," began Green. "I went to the hospital to see what it was and they originally gave me antibiotics thinking it was an infection. Unfortunately, it didn't clear up."

He returned to the hospital and was placed in surgery. The doctors took out the lump to find something far worse than originally thought.

Then-Master Sgt. Darren Green, "Mr. Indestructible," was diagnosed with stage-three melanoma ... cancer.

The doctors gave him a 15 percent chance of survival.

"It was rough," said Green recalling the diagnosis. "There were constant horrifying thoughts racing through my head. At the time, my newborn daughter was 2 months old and I kept thinking, 'My God, she's never going to know who I am.'"

Green was married with three children. The news not only hit his world and shattered reality, but his wife's as well.

"We just had a baby and I thought, 'Wow, this is really happening...what am I supposed to do if something happens to him?'" said Jenny Green. "I remember a lot of crying and then I just sat there in shock.

"My mind couldn't process what was happening. You always see it happening to someone else, but why him? Why us?" she added.

Treatment

Shortly after the diagnosis, Green met with a specialist in Denver, Colo., who began running tests to see how far along the cancer was and how to attack it. Green elected to start biochemotherapy - a combination of chemotherapy and immunological therapy - a fairly new treatment in 2009 for his type of cancer. 

For Jenny Green, watching her husband, she believed to be unbreakable, looking so sick and weak was almost too much to handle.

"Every time we arrived at the hospital for treatment, they put this catheter in his arm and it's where they pump all the drugs," said Jenny Green. "As soon as they started pumping it through, I would cry. Every single time."

Whenever Darren was in the hospital, she refused to leave his side. Day after day, treatment after treatment, she would sit next to his bed and wait for him to wake up.

"To watch someone you love go through what he went through ... I wouldn't wish that upon anyone," said Jenny Green. "I wasn't going to leave him for one minute and I think he needed that - to know he had my support through all of this."

Support at the time not only meant sitting bedside, but also helping him take care of himself when he was weakest. Green needed help eating, drinking, showering and anything else he could not do on his own.

As strong as Green was for his wife through the years, it was now Jenny Green who became his bedrock in his time of need.

"It takes a special person to do what she did ... to stick by me regardless of the stuff she had to do for me. That's kind of how you know you met your soul mate. She's pretty amazing," said Green.

The Greens described the seven months of treatment and worrying as an emotional rollercoaster. After several chemotherapy treatments and extensive surgery to remove the lymph nodes, the doctors informed him that the cancer did not spread to the rest of his body and he was in remission.

Darren now approached life with a new attitude, abandoning risks and living life to the fullest extent.

"I'm really blessed," said Green. "When I was diagnosed with cancer, I was smoking and drinking, but I threw that all away. I decided early on that if I got the chance to beat this, I wasn't going to do anything to risk it coming back and taking me from my family." 

Green receives annual checkups and six years later, everything keeps coming back clean.

Making chief

"When I was diagnosed, I thought 'That's it. The Air Force was great for the 14-15 years I was in, but there's no way I can go the distance,'" said Green. "I was thinking that even if I pull through, I'll be out of work for so long, there's nothing I can do to come back from it."

When Green received the news he was in remission and went back to work for the first time that year, he was worried that there wasn't enough on his enlisted performance report to push him through to make senior master sergeant.

"I had been out of work for so long that I didn't have the bullets," explained Green. "My EPR closed out and I was going for senior master sergeant so I didn't have much of anything because I'd been fighting cancer for seven months. When you looked at performance-based bullets on my EPR, there wasn't much there."

The chief master sergeant in his office, Chief Master Sgt. Ray Guest, understood the situation well and refused to let Green's career expire.

"He started pushing me and encouraging me," said Green. "Even though I didn't make the cut that year, he kept on me and that next year I was promoted to senior master sergeant."

His goal was finally in reach. Despite everything he had been through, it seemed that nothing would stop Green from making chief.

"I remember telling Darren early in the marriage that I was going to be a chief's wife one day," said Jenny Green. "He looked at me in disbelief, but I knew just by watching him work and study that nothing was stopping him."

On Nov. 20, 2014, Green's hard work and resilience paid off and he was given a line number for the promotion to the highest enlisted rank in the Air Force.

"He called me the day it was released and said he had some good and bad news," said Jenny Green. "He said the bad news was that he needed about $100. I sighed and said, 'Ok what's the good news?' He paused and went, 'Jenny, I made chief.'"

Eighteen years of hard work, discipline, mentorship, family and cancer, Chief Master Sgt.-Select Darren Green was finally fulfilling his aspirations.

"Of course I'm a little biased, but I felt all the way through, that he deserves chief," said Jenny Green. "He did it in his own way. He took care of his Airmen first and foremost and he did his job as well as he could."

During a week-long Chief's Leadership Course last week, instructors, classmates and peers alike were describing making chief master sergeant as the pinnacle of their careers. Green doesn't agree.

"I don't know what everyone is talking about," said Green. "I don't care if I can't go any higher but I'm just getting started. I have a lot of years of experience and Airmen I can still impart wisdom on. The more I think about it, I have 10 years left, at least. They're going to have to find another way to get me out because I'm nowhere near done yet."

Senior Master Sgt. Darren Green is expected to sew on chief master sergeant in July. His line number is 302.