During a career spanning more than half a century with the military, John Mace has rubbed shoulders with some big names and ensured servicemembers and civilians got the care they needed. He has been a close-up witness to history as freed American hostages and survivors of high-profile attacks streamed through the doors of his clinics.
While he’s mainly worked out of the spotlight as a special operations medical officer for the 86th Medical Group at Ramstein Air Base, his efforts haven’t gone unnoticed.
Two of the Air Force’s top generals made a special trip to Ramstein for his retirement ceremony on Friday. It was a final flourish to a career spent focused on the health of others.
“As operations officer, I am more or less trying to make sure the clinic takes good care of every patient that walks through the door,” Mace said in a telephone interview a few days before his retirement. He goes above and beyond, he said. “to make sure they feel like family.”
“It’s been a great honor to do this job all these years,” said Mace, who turns 73 later this month. “Most guys my age are retired, and some are 6 feet under.”
Attending Mace’s retirement ceremony was Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove, head of European Command, NATO’s supreme allied commander, and former head of U.S. Air Forces in Europe.
“John lives to help others, build teams, and he takes immense personal pride in witnessing others surpass their own expectations,” Breedlove said, according to prepared remarks.
“I owe you my health, my career, and my outlook on life itself,” he added. “You are a true friend.”
Gen. Mark A Welsh III, the Air Force chief of staff and former commander at USAFE, also was on hand Friday for the ceremony attended by Air Force staff.
While active-duty and civilian retirements in the military happen every day, it’s rare for four-star commanders to make a point of showing up for the farewell of a midlevel civilian staffer.
Mace retired from active duty in 1985 as Air Force master sergeant after 25 years of service that began with a brief stint in the Army. He stayed on with the Air Force as a civilian, working in executive medicine in Wiesbaden and later at Ramstein ,where he has served as an operations officer at one of the Air Force’s largest ambulatory care facilities outside the U.S.
Over the years, Mace has handled treatment for troops and their families, wounded servicemembers and American civilians freed from captivity.
When the Marine Corps barracks in Beirut was bombed in 1983, killing more than 200 servicemembers, Mace was on the flight line to meet surviving Marines transiting through Germany. He also was on hand when passengers from the hijacking in 1985 of a TWA flight were released and transferred to U.S. medical facilities in Germany.
“People were in shock. We brought them to a medical center in Wiesbaden for the night to make sure they were OK,” said Mace, a North Carolina native.
And when hostages passed through Mace’s medical unit in Wiesbaden, he’d learn about their experiences firsthand. One of them was Associated Press journalist Terry Anderson, who was released by his Iranian-backed captors in Lebanon in 1991.
“It was interesting to hear how they coped with that long captivity. They all had their own story,” Mace said. “And they all had low cholesterol, of course.”
When Mace first met a newly released Anderson, he delivered him to a distinguished visitor suite, where a health exam was conducted before his eventual return to the U.S.
“He said, ‘John you know what my biggest problem is? The press is asking me to put together a full-day schedule of the things I want to do.’
“For six years, he had no choice in anything. So for him to now come up with an itinerary for the press just totally downed him,” Mace recalled.
After the Wiesbaden clinic closed in the early 1990s, Mace made the move to Ramstein.
During his long tenure with the Air Force, Mace says, much has changed in military life, and he has a certain nostalgia for the old days, when serving in Germany came with few frills or entertainment opportunities on base.
“Back in the beginning, there was more camaraderie and we were more united. At best we had A BX and commissary on the base, not the conveniences we have now, so we stuck together,” he said.
Now, with budgets getting cut, services downsizing and some benefits getting trimmed, his parting message to colleagues is for the military community to stick together.
“Today we need to close ranks,” he said. “All branches of service, the Guard, the retired force, the civilian work force, we’re a massive, humongous family. But we are not united as we once were. We need to be concerned for each other and solidly united.”
vandiver.john@stripes.com
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