In all his years in the U.S. Air Force and even after he got out, Col. Lloyd B. McKeethen used to hear this all the time: “You’re the best damn mechanic I’ve ever had.”

That compliment followed him all over Europe during a nearly 30-year career in the Air Force, and it followed him when he retired from a civilian job working for Jordan-Delaurenti Inc.

The 83-year-old Cedar Hill resident is a member of one of the most elite fighting forces in U.S. history: the Tuskegee Airmen. 

He enlisted in the service just in time to see World War II come to an end, then during the Korean War he gained a reputation for being a top-flight mechanic and was in on the ground floor as President Harry S. Truman integrated the military.

“A colonel came down from Washington, D.C., and the first thing he says to me is: ‘The Air Force is going to be integrated, so if you have any problems, you get a hold of me,’” McKeethen said. “They were going to integrate the military, and they were going to do it right.”  

McKeethen has been to every continent on the planet. During the Korean War, he was assigned to Sondrestrom Air Base in Greenland and later to Goose Air Base in Labrador, Canada. He was an aircraft maintenance officer at both places.

“I was the only maintenance officer” in Greenland, he said. “It was so cold. Sometimes it would be 35 below zero.”

McKeethen was still in high school in East Chicago when the U.S. entered World War II. In June 1944, he was still 17 years old and had three months to go before he turned 18.

After he passed several entrance exams, he finally arrived in Tuskegee, Ala., in January 1945 – only a few months before the war ended.

“I didn’t even reach flight school until the war was over, but I had a choice: Either get out of the military or stay,” McKeethen said. “I was 18 and said, ‘Hey, I might as well stay.’ ”  

He did leave active duty for a time to attend Roosevelt College in Chicago from 1947-50 as a member of the Reserves, but he returned to active duty in March 1951, just as Korea was heating up.

That’s also when he met Roberta, his wife of 58 years.  

After his stints in Greenland and Canada, he became a C-54 aircraft commander, instructor pilot and flight test maintenance officer with the 1700^th Air Transport Group, which began an association with the Military Airlift Command that lasted through most of the rest of his active-duty career.

“I was there almost 27 years, flying four-engine transport planes in those days, the whole shooting match,” McKeethen said. “I knew everything about an airplane that you could shake a stick at.  

“One time I was stationed in New Jersey and had to get some people from El Paso – foreign officers – and take them to Pakistan. We were going to take a brand-new jet, so I said, ‘Get the plane and put all the fuel that you can in it, because we’re going to try to go non-stop from Pakistan to New Jersey.’”

The crew made it in 13 hours – with about 40 minutes of fuel remaining, McKeethen said.  

During his time with the Military Airlift Command in Europe, McKeethen ran a huge department after being promoted to full lieutenant colonel. “There were 3,000 or so maintenance people there. Even my engine department had 400-something people,” he said. “When you are chief of maintenance, you’re there 24 hours a day. All of my people worked Monday through Friday, but if everything was OK – and I mean everything – I could go home at the end of the day Saturday.

“But I liked to fly. I liked working on planes.”

During all those years in the service, McKeethen lived apart from Roberta, who was stateside except for a couple of periods in France and Scotland. He missed the birth of oldest son.

“I was always gone,” McKeethen said. “But the relationship survived. It had to.”

Roberta agreed.

“When he was in the military, it was just expected,” she said. “Back then you couldn’t live on base, like a lot of people do now. You just get more independent. You learn an amazing amount of independence.

“There was no email, and no cellphones. It was not ideal, but it equips you better for life.”

As a civilian, McKeethen spent a year working for the Federal Aviation Administration in Oklahoma City – a job he didn’t care for – and then he met Aggie Jordan-Delaurenti, who runs her own company, a management consulting firm. 

 “She told me she wanted me to be the No. 3 person in the company, so I signed up,” McKeethen said. “I bought a house in Valley Ranch and spent 15 years there.”

When health problems started to slow him, McKeethen decided to retire. It was something Jordan-Delaurenti didn’t want to hear.  

She gave McKeethen a sculpture of an eagle holding an American flag that sits on the mantel of his house to this day. She still visits him regularly, McKeethen said.

And when McKeethen retired, Jordan-Delaurenti had only one thing to say to him: “You’re the best damn mechanic I’ve ever had.”

Loyd Brumfield is the editor of the Best Southwest edition of neighborsgo. Contact him at lbrumfield@neighborsgo.com or at 214-977-7686.