SAN ANTONIO \u2014 After more than four decades of military service, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Xavier Gudino completed his final flight Friday, landing a UH-60 Black Hawk at Martindale Army Airfield in San Antonio.<\/p>\n
Gudino, who has served in both the U.S. Navy and U.S. Army, brought the Black Hawk known as \u201cAlamo 67\u201d home for the final time as family members, fellow service members and others gathered to mark the end of his military flying career.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wings are tired. The feathers are flying off, as you can see, but the most important thing is to complete the mission and take care of the soldiers,\u201d Gudino said.<\/p>\n
Gudino has deployed seven times during his military career. He said his passion for aviation, test flying and mentoring other soldiers kept him serving long after he could have retired.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of people tell me, \u2018How come you didn\u2019t retire at 20 years of service? Twenty-five, 30, 35?\u2019 It was for the love and passion of flying, test flying, mentoring the soldiers, doing the right thing for the aircraft to make sure my brothers and sisters can complete the mission safely,\u201d Gudino said.<\/p>\n
For Gudino, that responsibility extended beyond flying the aircraft. He said there was tremendous satisfaction in helping ensure service members could complete their missions and return home safely.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd every time they came back alive and the aircraft took them and brought them back in, it was a tremendous satisfaction for me and my team, the maintainers,\u201d Gudino said.<\/p>\n
His wife, Nidia Gudino, watched Friday as her husband completed his final landing. She said the moment carried additional meaning after years of deployments that took him away from home for extended periods.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter four decades of serving in the military, he is in the process of retiring next March,\u201d Nidia Gudino said. \u201cSo he takes the final flight six months before. This will be the last time he flies his Black Hawk.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Gudino\u2019s final military flight is now complete, his formal retirement is still several months away. His wife said she already knows what she hopes he does next.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him that he needs to take a year off and relax and enjoy because he\u2019s deployed seven times,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s been gone for a year at a time, and he\u2019s earned this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Nidia Gudino, Friday was also a moment to reflect on all the times her husband left \u2014 and returned.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just excited for this next chapter and very thankful to God for allowing him to come home every single time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Gudino described the final flight as emotional but said his responsibility in the cockpit remained the same until the aircraft was safely on the ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing. It was an emotional roller coaster, but at the end, you have to remain focused,\u201d Gudino said. \u201cNever lose that concentration in the cockpit because it\u2019s a life-or-death situation. Any small mistake from an aviator or a pilot can be catastrophic or fatal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gudino is expected to formally retire from the military in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 After more than four decades of military service, Chief Warrant Officer 5 Xavier Gudino completed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-440480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=440480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}