By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

ROCHESTER — When Kevin Druding decided to join the military two years after high school, he knew he didn’t want to be a soldier directly.

“I wanted to save lives rather than take lives,” he put it.

Druding of Rochester spent 21 years as a medical service specialist with the Air Force and Air Force Reserve. He hails from Arizona, graduating from Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood, Ariz.

Kevin Druding

Druding said he was primed for serving others early, having been a Boy Scout.

Upon entering the military, he trained at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss., and would spend six years of active duty there. He then switched to the Air Force Reserve and was stationed in places including England, Japan and Hawaii.

That time included being “activated for Desert Shield,” he said.

“I was discharged under Desert Storm and I received the National Defense ribbon and I also got an Air Force achievement medal,” Druding said.

“We worked right alongside of nurses and doctors,” he said of his medical work. “I started IVs, I gave intramuscular injections. I defibrillated patients. I intubated patients.”

“I did everything that an emergency medical technician does, more like an actual paramedic,” he continued. “I worked in a coronary care unit … and emergency room … and I was actually taking care of patients that (had) received combat wounds.”

Druding said he felt called to join the military.

“You feel a calling. It’s something that comes from the inside and from the heart,” he said.

Druding moved to Rochester after his wife Vicki passed away two years ago. She had been from Middlebury.

“I fell in love with the small town of Rochester, with their ability to put God and country first,” he said. “It touched my soul, and so I transferred my membership to the VFW and American Legion out here.”

Druding now serves as second vice commander of American Legion Post 36 in Rochester and is a Fulton County Honor Guard member, helping to recognize veterans at their funerals.

“I think we like to do what we do to pay it forward to (those serving right now),” he said.

Air Force and Air Force Reserve veteran Kevin Druding, right, is shown with Monica Clennon. They are in American Legion Post 36 of Rochester and the Fulton County Honor Guard together. Photo provided by Kevin Druding.