Fernando Cortez carefully prepares the Women in the Air Force uniform exhibit to be cleaned. The exhibit is on display at the U. S. Air Force Airman Heritage Museum at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.
As a kid, Fernando Cortez used to ride his bike to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas, and hang out at the U.S. Air Force Airman Heritage Museum. He would spend hours roaming the building, looking at the numerous displays and imagining himself wearing the timeworn uniforms and flying in the old airplanes.
“Oh, I loved those days,” he said. “I used to get kicked out of the museum all the time for climbing on the planes or trying to sit inside this old ball turret they had there.”
Today, Cortez still spends his days, and some nights, at the museum. He’s familiar with each of its 6,778 square feet and he can recount the story behind every artifact on display. He’s too big and too old to climb into that old ball turret, but he’d try if he could.
Best of all for him, no one can kick him out now that it’s his building.
Fernando Cortez is the curator of the USAF Airman Heritage Museum at Lackland.
Cortez is currently the curator of the museum, a job he’s held since 2005. He now shares his love of history with thousands of Air Force basic training recruits, retirees and other visitors every year. Watching their reactions as they wander the museum, soaking in the history and learning about the enlisted men and women who served in the Air Force of the past, Cortez is happy.
The smiles, the laughter and the excited gestures tell him the museum is doing what it was made for, preserving and honoring the history and heritage of Air Force enlisted Airmen, while educating the public on what these Airmen do to safeguard America.
“I still pinch myself every day knowing I’m the curator here,” Cortez said. “I love history and sharing history and seeing people get as much enjoyment out of it as I do is really special.”
The museum is an extension of Cortez, a man whose life has been spent researching and retelling history, and he’s put some of himself into it.
“A lot of my sweat, blood and tears are in this old building,” he said. “When I took over, the museum was really in pretty rough shape. It was built in 1942 and the roof leaked, the lighting was terrible and every time it rained the parking lot and grounds would flood. I really had my work cut out for me.”
He started by trying to improve the building. He made countless requests to the base’s civil engineers, asking for a new roof, better lighting and the repair of a myriad of other concerns. His requests didn’t receive the response he was looking for.
“They kept telling me I was a low priority, and they’d get to it when they got to it,” Cortez said. “I was beginning to think the museum would fall apart before anyone showed up to fix
anything.”
An early Air Force ID card from the transitional period of the Army Air Corp to the Air Force is part of a display at the USAF Airman Heritage Museum.
Cortez’s persistence paid off, though, and in 2010 the museum reopened after a $730,000 facelift and with a new name. Prior to 2010 the museum was called the History and Traditions Museum.
But, for Cortez, there’s always more to do. He has no staff, and, other than several volunteers from the Air Force Village and the “loan” of a basic training recruit here and there, Cortez handles the museum’s daily activities himself.
“Being the curator here is definitely unique,” he said. “I spend a lot of time doing things the typical curator doesn’t have to worry about.”
Some of these duties include fixing leaky toilets, building wooden platforms for exhibits and painting faded walls or peeling trim.
“I joke that my business card should say curator, mechanic, artist, carpenter, historian and picker,” Cortez said.
The picking part is how Cortez acquires a lot of the items he has on display. He spends numerous hours each month driving across Texas, finding and picking up anything he thinks is useable in the museum.
“To make a museum exciting, you have to find ways to create new exhibits and tell old stories in new ways,” he said. “This means you need a constant flow of items coming in.”
Many are donated by Air Force veterans and their families, and Cortez scavenges others by scouring garage sales, military surplus stores, auction sites and thrift stores. At each place, he’s looking for the next item to put on display – an old field jacket, an enlisted pilot’s leather helmet or an old emblem or rank insignia from the Army Air Corps. On these journeys, sometimes he finds something, but most times he doesn’t.
His love for history makes him keep looking.
Every basic training flight visits the USAF Airman Heritage Museum during the seventh week of training and is briefed on Air Force history.
“It’s important to preserve uniforms and other historical items so we can show it to people of all ages today, to let them see the past and hear the stories of what Airmen did years and years ago,” Cortez said.
These old uniforms and equipment are more than just pieces of fabric and metal, he added. They show how the service has evolved and tell personal stories of the men and women who lived and worked and made history throughout the Air Force’s history.
Local and Air Force officials agree with Cortez and are giving him a larger building. Plans for the new 50,000 square-foot Airman Heritage Museum were recently approved, and it will be located next to the parade field on Lackland.
“The current museum is limited in exhibit space and accessibility,” said Jaime Vazquez, Lackland’s Gateway Heritage Foundation president. “Building a new facility adjacent to the parade ground will provide easy access for the approximately 3,000 family members and friends of trainees who attend the basic military training graduation parade each week.”
The current museum averages approximately 1,500 to 2,000 visitors a month, but this number is expected to increase once the new museum is up and running.
“We expect attendance to grow,” Cortez said. “The new building will have more room and a lot more to offer.”
The new two-story museum and learning center complex is scheduled to open in the fall of 2017 and will highlight the history of basic and enlisted technical training, educating Airmen and their families about the enlisted force’s heritage.
Plus, said one former top enlisted leader, it’s a museum that every enlisted Airman can relate to.
Basic training trainees Richard Dibble and Dominic Gurule clean the exhibits at the USAF Airman Heritage Museum.
“Millions of young men and women have entered the gates of Lackland to complete Air Force basic training,” said retired Chief Master Sgt. Robert Gaylor, the fifth chief master sergeant of the Air Force. “If you are one of those, you have memories that will be with you throughout your lifetime. This new museum will honor Air Force enlisted Airmen – past, present and future – who through their dedication, sacrifice, courage and valor have contributed to the preservation of our freedom and way of life.”
The new building, still several years from becoming a reality, is a dream come true for Cortez.
“It’s amazing and exciting and awe-inspiring,” he said. “And I can’t wait for it to open.”
Still, with nearly seven times more space than the current museum, there is one drawback.
“I’m going to need a lot more stuff,” he said. “Maybe I can get another one of those ball turrets.”