Bio
7 hours. 7 hours of labor a woman spent in the hospital giving birth to a baby boy on April 21st, 1992. That baby was me, Eric Keldani. I grew up like a normal kid soaking up all that beautiful Florida sunshine in; at the time; a small town called Port Saint Lucie. I did all the typical things you'd expect as a teen but one activity I clung to was playing football. I started at the age of 9 and played throughout high school. When it came time for college all I wanted was to play. I got offered a scholarship to play for the Green Knights of Saint Norbert College in DePere, Wisconsin. This stint didn’t last too long and I quickly moved back home to Florida after a one-year residence and a torn shoulder. Fast forward some time and I kept getting a feeling in my gut that I was destined for something bigger than myself. I leaped and enlisted in the United States Army as a 15U CH-47F Helicopter Repairer in February of 2012. I thought this was going to be a short stepping stone into a civilian aviation field but I was mistaken. After my training was complete, I was quickly thrust onto a plane heading for South Korea. Here is where I learned we can be crewmembers and fly as a daily job. From that point on that’s all I wanted, to be a CH-47 Crew Chief. I was given the chance and never looked back. After Korea, I was sent to Fort Campbell where I deployed twice to Afghanistan and did countless nights in the field on training exercises. I was selected to attend the flight instructor course in 2018 where it is now my job to teach up-and-coming crewmembers. I left Campbell at the height of COVID-19 in 2020 to teach the instructor course here in Pennsylvania. I have since started a beautiful family and am currently sitting at 14 years in the Army. Reading and Mountain biking have become a passion in the past three years, “Cant hurt me” by David Goggins was the last entry I read cover to cover. In what feels like a blink of an eye we sit here, in this class ready to lean. I never would have thought this Florida baby all them years ago would be the man I am today.
Recommended Citation
Keldani, Eric A.
(2024)
"The Paper King,"
Night Flight: Online Literary Journal: Vol. 5
, Article 64.
Available at:
https://commons.erau.edu/night-flight/vol5/iss1/64