Jonathan Yates’s buddies kept asking “why are you doing it?” He had a perfectly good life in the Air Force fixing jet planes. He was getting a great paycheck and had lots of free time.

Why would he give that up to return to boot camp at one of the hardest schools in the country?

He surely wasn’t expecting the triumph he encountered last week. All he knew is that he was heading toward a goal he had dreamed about since he was a little kid growing up on Cayuga Island. “I’ve always said I wanted to be a pilot,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to be anything else.”

In the beginning of his Air Force career, it didn’t look like his dream had much chance of coming true. Although he pre-enlisted in his junior year at Niagara Falls High School, he wasn’t yet aware of how hard it was for an enlisted man to fly fighter planes.

He was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio where he studied to be a crew chief on a jet mechanic crew.

“It was not quite flying yet, but at least I was around jets and I planned to make the best of it,” he said.

When his officers chose six airmen from among 1,000 for early promotions to senior airman, he was among them.

One day, his commander asked to see him. He told Yates that his pilots talked highly of him and asked about Yates’ plans.

“I looked at him and said ‘Sir, I would be willing to go through hell to become a pilot.’ He looked at me with a smile and said, ‘Son, I have just the thing for you, come with me.”

The commander encouraged Yates to apply for the Air Force Academy.

And so began his journey. It was a path loaded with obstacles and without guarantees. At first he didn’t make it into the academy. He was invited to spend at year at the academy prep school. It would be a full

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year of academics that didn’t count for anything accept the possibility of a shot at the academy. The prep school year began with another boot camp, but his military experience served him well and he was named cadet commander, the highest rank a cadet can attain at the prep school. Probably as a result of that he was accepted to the Air Force Academy.

He was now staring down four years of academics at one of the most rigorous schools in the county. He also was required to go to boot camp for a third time.

Adding to the challenge was the endless freshman hazing, which is traditional at military schools. That included having to run throughout the campus and being subjected to the ire of the upperclassmen.

Then, shortly after freshman year began, he developed colitis. He was bed-ridden and falling rapidly behind in his classes.

It seemed too much for a young man to bear. He told his parents he was going to quit.

His mother, Debra, and his father Ronald, back home in Niagara Falls, shared in their son’s despair. “We told him we would support him whatever he decided,” Debra said later. But then the pilots in Utah sent an envelope full of their “wings” as an incentive. Yates also got encouraging e-mails from other cadets. He decided to tough it out.

“I never excelled but I continued to improve,” he said.

While the experience never got easier, he started seeing positive results. At the end of his junior year, he learned he had won a spot in pilot training school.

During December of his senior year, his friends convinced him to place his name among candidates for the highest spot at the school, the cadet wing commander.

He was stunned when he won the position.

His job included escorting dignitaries whenever they came to the academy. He got to meet Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the national hero who safely landed a US Airways plane in the Hudson River this past January. Sullenberger impressed Yates with his humility.

“He came out talking about his crew,” Yates recalled. “He doesn’t go anywhere unless his crew is invited.”

Yates graduated from the academy last week. It was at the ceremony that he witnessed his proudest achievement as flight wing commander.

The school was recovering from some ugly attention at the previous year’s ceremony when exuberant cadets gave bear hugs and in one case a sports-like pat on the backside to the guest speaker, President George W. Bush. There was so much rough-housing going on the commandant of the academy decided to change the tradition at graduation this year and send cadets off-stage through a back ramp away from the eyes of the audience.

Yates put his reputation on the line, rallying his classmates to promise their best professional demeanor. And so, this year’s graduation, where Vice President Joe Biden spoke, went off without a hitch. “And so, the tradition lived on,” Yates said proudly.

After the ceremony Yates joined his fellow cadets in flinging their hats in the air. Then he and his family began the long road trip back to Niagara Falls. The graduation was something his family will never forget. His mother, Debra, said they were particularly proud to see other cadets and officers saluting their son. “Nobody was beaming brighter than us,” she said.

For the few weeks, Yates will enjoy days at home on Cayuga Island, surrounded by family and friends. Then he’s off to a year of pilot training in Texas, hoping to someday fly the F-16’s that he used to work on.

He plans to be the type of pilot who appreciates the young men and women who come out on the tarmac to service his plane.

“I’ll have a better understanding than some of my other fellow pilots,” he said of the jet technicians. “I’m never going to forget my roots.”

His former commander, Major Melissa May, an F-16 pilot, believes that Jonathan’s journey will be inspirational to all those who work with him, particularly due to his climb up from his days as an airman working on the F-16s.

“To see him go from that to the cadet wing commander and future pilot — it’s very rewarding for me,” she said. “I only hope that one day I will have the opportunity to serve with him again. He’s going to make an amazing officer.”

When Yates was asked about the biggest lesson he learned from the whole experience, he spoke about his journey from being “the golden child” as a jet mechanic getting early promotions to his days in the academy when it seemed “all I was doing was failing ...”

In the end his lessons were well-learned. “I learned a lot of humility,” he said. “I learned I will never be a one-man show.”

Contact reporter Michele DeLuca

at 282-2311, ext. 2263.