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Reservist takes over in Kirkuk — from son

They say parenting is a never-ending learning experience — but it’s not every day your child instructs you on deployed perimeter security.

That’s what awaited Staff Sgt. Tammi Johnson, a reservist with the 507th Security Forces Squadron at Tinker Air Force Base, Okla., who deployed to Kirkuk Air Base, Iraq. When she arrived Jan. 20, according to an Air Force press release, Johnson’s first assignment was a week of training from the airman she was there to replace: her son, Senior Airman Derrick Johnson.

“This is all just a big coincidence,” said Derrick Johnson, a reservist with the 610th Security Forces Squadron from Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base Fort Worth, Texas. “When I found out she was coming to replace me, my jaw dropped just wondering what the chances were of this occurring.”

The chance assignment for mother to replace son was indeed random, the press release said.

Both Tammi and Derrick Johnson enlisted in 2006. Tammi Johnson had served in the Air Force in the 1980s, and the same recruiter who signed Derrick talked Tammi back into the blue again. Both chose to join Security Forces.

The release said the training went well, with Airman Johnson educating Sgt. Johnson on base perimeter security and other Security Forces deployed responsibilities.

“I’ve been asking Derrick tons of questions,” Tammi Johnson said. “A car rolled real slowly by the perimeter of the base today, and I started getting nervous. But Derrick was there to tell me it was the Iraqi police, and everything was all right.”

But despite the student-teacher arrangement, both airmen know who’s boss even beyond rank.

“You have to find the right balance because she is my mother and we are working side-by-side,” Derrick Johnson said.

“She understands and listens to the experiences I’ve encountered, which will help her. But really, she outranks me on many different levels. You can never outrank your mother.”