Flying high: Hockessin resident named Delaware Air National Guard Airman of the Year

An F-86 proudly sits at the entrance to the Delaware Air National Guard’s base in New Castle, a testament to the service and sacrifices of the First State’s Airmen.

But the plane didn’t just land there.

It was painstakingly rebuilt, piece by piece, by an aircraft assembly team that included Senior Airman Benjamin Fileti, a Pierson’s Ridge resident.

And now Fileti’s service and sacrifice has been recognized, too – he was named the Delaware Air National Guard Airman of the Year, an honor bestowed on only one of the First State’s thousand airmen.

It’s fitting that Fileti, 22, got word of his award while deployed in Afghanistan, a two-month mission he volunteered for so other airmen could be home with their families for the holidays. He received the news six hours before he was to head home to Hockessin.

“Things couldn’t have been better at that point,” he said.

Being deployed overseas was an inevitability Fileti was prepared for when he joined the Guard four years ago, he said. His father had been a pilot with the Delaware Army National Guard, he said, and he knew at a young age he wanted to serve his country.

But Fileti serves on two levels – on the weekends, he works in aircraft structural maintenance while during the week he works full-time with the Delaware National Guard Counter Drug Task Force.

With the counter drug task force, he works in schools, leading classes of sixth-graders through a 12-week program about goal setting, problem solving and decision making, he said. The Stay on Track program also focuses on team building through activities like climbing a 24-foot rock-climbing wall, he said, which teaches the kids to work together.

“Just to see how proud the kids are when they’re done, after they’ve worked together, it’s pretty cool,” he said. “We build them up as one.”

It feels great to make a difference in the lives of kids, he said, and some of them really need the information and positive support the program provides.

Outreach is something Fileti thrives on, he said, but he’s just as comfortable working on airplanes during the weekends.

As an aircraft maintenance technician, Fileti is responsible for keeping the planes ready for takeoff, which includes everything from repairing cracks to applying fresh coats of paint.

The biggest challenge of maintaining the planes is following the procedures to a “T,” he said, and resisting the urge to take shortcuts.

“You have people’s lives in your hands,” he said. “Every time you’re fixing an aircraft, it’s extremely critical that everything is done by the books.”

Working on aircraft can be stressful, too, he said.

While serving in Afghanistan, he helped maintain supply planes bringing food and ammunition to the troops and there was always a deadline he was racing, he said.

“People out in the field, you want to make sure that they’re getting everything and they’re getting it on time,” he said.

Typically, working on the aircraft requires him to follow instructions to the letter, but rebuilding the F-86 was a different story, he said.

The F-86 had been torn apart when a tornado came through several years ago and the Guard sent it downstate to be repaired, Fileti said. The technician they sent it to couldn’t fix it, so he was asked to give it a try.

The only problem – there was no instruction manual.

Fileti and an assembly team worked to build the plane from pictures and after four months, they had finished the F-86.

“Just to be able to get in there and turn the wrench and be able to do it for my country at the same time, it’s a double benefit,” he said.

Serving with the Delaware Air National Guard is a matter of pride, he said, and Fileti intends to reenlist when his term of service is up in two years.

“I’m a lifer in the military,” he said.