The long, winding road: looking back on the 41-year career of the Air Force's longest continuously serving noncommissioned officer

Airman, July, 2003 by Scott Wagers

Discovering Chief Master Sgt. Norman Marous in a pool of some 613,000 bluesuiters is the equivalent of skiing the back slopes of Vail, Cob., and tripping on the tusk of a partially exposed wooly mammoth.

At age 59-1/2 and completing his 41st year of continuous military service in June, he's the oldest, longest-serving chief master sergeant in the Air Force. Scoffing at any references about extinction, this giant of a mammal is very much alive and breathing, articulate and compassionate, driven and inspirational - a living specimen in an era of revered senior noncommissioned officers.

The ops tempo Marous maintains in the joint military environment of counterdrug operations will leave even the youngest of guns panting for a hit of pure oxygen. Averaging 14- to 16-hour days that involve a 120-mile round trip commute to his office and extensive volunteer work, Marous serves as the noncommissioned officer in charge of the Western Regional Counterdrug Training Team at Camp San Luis Obispo, Calif.

"You're not going to be able to put in long hours and make the sacrifices the military asks of you if you don't have passion and commitment," the chief said. "This is a profession in which the best people feel it where they live -- where their soul is."

Growing up on the north side of Pittsburgh, the idea of spending more than four decades serving in the world's most powerful air force never even registered or Marous' radar until he was four months shy of graduating from Allegheny Senior High School with no solid plans for the future.

"I ran into my best friend, Chuck Hornish, who'd recently enlisted in the Air Force and had just returned home on leave after tech school," the chief recalled. "He was really excited about what he was doing and was so proud to be a part of the Air Force -- his chest stuck out about a mile. I thought to myself, 'Whatever that is, I want some of it.'"

It was June 1962. President John F. Kennedy was becoming painfully aware of a Soviet nuclear missile buildup in Cuba. Astronaut John Glenn had just become the first American to orbit the earth. And on the north side of Pittsburgh, Lillian Marous decided to splurge on a cab ride to take her son Norman to the local military in-processing station for departure to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas. The Air Force was almost 15 years old.

Transition to the blue

"Stepping into the blue" was an easy transition for Marous, who admitted he liked the regimentation, discipline and order of the Air Force.

"It wasn't a big deal for me to fold my underwear, iron my clothes and spit shine my shoes, because I was already doing that anyway."

Today, everything in Marous' world follows the pattern -- from his immaculately clean office and his impeccable uniform to his, not surprisingly, blue 1991 Lincoln Towncar -- and has been whipped into obedient submission.

Though shining his boots may have been familiar territory in 1962, using open-bay latrines wasn't.

"There were no such things as privacy stalls in basic training then," said the chief who described an Air Force that sounds much different from the one of today.

"Women were physically separated from the men. Sometimes there would be a compound established within the base where the women Air Force members -- then called WAFs -- would live. They had their own female commanders and first sergeants because men weren't in direct leadership roles over women." For airmen today, who think it's inconvenient to get a commander's approval for a pay advance, imagine having to obtain permission to get married. According to Marous, those below the rank of staff sergeant who tied the knot without prior command approval could be denied dependent entitlements.

On the subject of money, when Marous began aircraft instrument repair training at Chanute Air Force Base, Ill., as an airman basic, his monthly gross pay was $78.

"I take great delight in the surprise of airmen today, who learn that they make more in one month than I did for an entire year," grinned the chief.

Following tech school graduation, Marous found himself on a train heading back to his home state of Pennsylvania with orders to Olmstead Air Force Base. As an aircraft instrument systems specialist, Marous admitted to being "scared and intimidated" taking that first walk out to a Douglas C-117 Skytrain -- a modified C-47 -- with a toolbox in his hand.

Equally as frightening as calibrating an oil pressure gauge was being startled out of a sound sleep at 4 a.m. by a 6-foot-4, 250-pound first sergeant, Chief Master Sgt. Freddie Vilk.

"I remember jumping out of bed to the sound of my door being pounded in, and there was this voice yelling, 'Marous, pack yer s---!'"

In the weeks prior, Marous' supervisor had encouraged him to volunteer for base honor guard duty, and Vilk was responsible for mustering the detail.

"I sheepishly asked where we were going," Marous recalled, "and the booming voice replied, 'You'll know when you get there!'"

It was Marous' first real encounter with a chief master sergeant.