he buckled down and studied,
intent on joining the U.S. Air Force
Academy after high school graduation.
“As a youngster, I didn’t have any money
to take flying lessons, so I thought I would
have the military teach me,” he says.
Living the Dream
After graduating from the Air Force
academy in 1988, Walker attended flight
training at Mather Air Force Base in
Mather, CA. He was appointed second
lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, and his first
assignment was with the 53rd Weather
Reconnaissance Squadron. Known as
the Hurricane Hunters of the Air Force
Reserve, this group was tasked with
flying C-130s into hurricanes to conduct
tropical storm reconnaissance. Walker
was assigned to the mission from 1989-
1991, and it was during that time he
realized he had chosen the right path.
He was living his dream.
Most of Walker’s deployments were
to tropical locations like Antigua and
Barbados. There, he and his fellow troops
waited for hurricanes to move closer to
the U.S. so they could fly into the storms
to measure wind speed and air pressure
and transmit results back to the National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Admin-
istration and National Weather Service.
Walker’s next assignment was with the
50th Airlift Squadron at Little Rock Air
Force Base. From there, he was deployed
to Saudi Arabia before heading to the
Yokota Air Base in Tokyo, where he was
able to fly throughout Asia.
“Kenya, Mombasa, Somalia, Korea,
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philip-
pines, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambo-
dia—I got to see places I would have never
gotten a chance to see if I’d gone into any
other career field,” he says. “Most people
in the United States may have seen these
places in books or on TV, but I got to be
there. And I didn’t just visit these places
for one day. I was able to stay there and
learn about the cultures.”
After 400 combat and combat support
hours, Walker left active duty in 1997 to
join the Air National Guard as a C-130H3
evaluator navigator. He served in various
operations and contingencies such as Op-
eration Enduring Freedom, Operation
Iraqi Freedom, Operation Joint Guard,
Operation Joint Forge and Operation Cor-
onet Oak. Walker also served as a special
assistant to the director of mobility forces
at the 609th Combined Air Operations
Center (CAOC) at Al Udeid Air Base in
Qatar and as a civil aviation advisor to the
Iraqi Ministry of Transportation with the
Coalition Provisional Authority. Finally,
Walker served as the director of and led
the Air National Guard’s Crisis Action
Team, acting Air Mobility Division chief
at the 609th CAOC and deputy director
of air, space and information operations.
A Home Among the Hills
Between active duty and the Air Na-
tional Guard, Walker has lived all over
the world: Sacramento, CA; Biloxi, MS;
Little Rock, AK; and Tokyo, Japan. When
he was offered a full-time technician
position in Martinsburg, WV’s 167th Air-
lift Wing, he was hesitant, but a fellow
pilot convinced him to give the Mountain
State a shot, certain Walker would love it.
“He was right,” says Walker. “Growing
up in New York City, I was not used to
people just talking to me on the street
without knowing them. That was con-
sidered aggressive because if somebody
started talking to you, they wanted some-
thing from you. What I love about West
Virginia is I know my neighbors’ names.
I can walk down the street and talk to
people, and that is considered normal.
West Virginia has taken very good care
of me over the last 20 years.”
A Leader’s Burden
As the first African American to hold
the position of brigadier general in West
Virginia, Walker was granted the inau-
gural West Virginia Herbert Henderson
Office of Minority Affairs Trailblazer
Award. Humbled yet honored to hold
the position of brigadier general, he had
trepidations at first. Instead of backing
down, he looked himself in the mirror
and said, “Let’s do this.”
“I know I can do it because, thankfully,
I’m surrounded by a lot of great subor-
dinate leaders,” says Walker. “The wing
commanders and group commanders are
top-notch. They know what we’re sup-
posed to do, and they are going to help
make my job a lot easier. I know that in
the West Virginia Air National Guard,
they are already top shelf.”
In his new role, Walker assists the ad-
jutant general, Major General Jim Hoyer,
in making sure the state’s units are ready
in their wartime role as well as to sup-
port West Virginians in any natural
disaster while also ensuring that wing
commanders are training airmen to the
standards of the active duty Air Force.
“People do not realize that our peers
like Russia and China are operating at
a much higher caliber,” he says. “I want
our people ready for conflict should it
arrive, God forbid. We need to get our
mindset to a much higher level and be
ready for the kind of conflict we were
ready for during the Cold War. A lot of
us have lost that mentality, and I think
it’s time for us to get it back.”
Walker’s goal is to set the stage for
those who come after him by maintaining
high standards and leading by example.
“Success for me would be having a bench
full of hard-hitters who could take over
for me at any time,” he says. “Even if I
get hit by a bus tomorrow, they will be
able to keep the organization at top-
level standards.”
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