Calahan vs. Callahan: The tale of two Chads

  • Published
  • By Master Sgt. Sonny Cohrs
  • 8th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
KUNSAN AIR BASE, Republic of Korea --  Will the real Chad Calahan please stand up?

Tech. Sgt. Chad A. Calahan is the NCO in charge of flight safety for the 8th Fighter Wing. Staff Sgt. Chad M. Callahan is a client systems technician with the 8th Communications Squadron. Both are stationed at Kunsan.

"I'm the original and the only Chad A. Calahan," said the technical sergeant (with only one "L") who hails from Flat Rock, Mich., about 30 miles south of Detroit. His middle name is Aron, with just one "A" like Elvis Aron Presley, who was often confused for the misspelling of his middle name. His dad was a huge fan.

The other Chad, with the "double hockey sticks" in his name, comes from Boyne City, Mich., approximately 280 miles from his doppelganger's hometown. The latter Chad's middle name is Michael.

Both Chads are average height and weight with brown hair and brown eyes. Each has a dragon tattoo adorning his arm and they have similar taste in heavy metal and rock music. Confused yet? You should be.

In fact, they are often confused for each other when receiving email ... even when it comes from their own supervisors who sit in the same office with their respective Chads. And this doesn't count for the numerous telephone calls Chad A. receives for Chad M., and vice versa.

"This week I got three [emails]," the staff sergeant said. "I got one from his captain about the third quarter awards and a decoration, which I passed on to him; one ... about picking up a vehicle and I got one about some sort of training they needed. Usually I'll send it back to him and [courtesy copy] the person ... so maybe they get the idea."

Speaking of email, the Air Force Personnel Center confirmed there are only two - these two - in the U.S. Air Force and on the global address listing for all Air Force email servers. The two Chads had their first encounter years ago when Tech. Sgt. Calahan emailed his counterpart just to say hi.

"It was years back," Chad A. said. "I was on the global looking up someone's name trying to find somebody. I saw Callahan -- Chad Callahan. I shot him an email [and] I was like 'Hey Chad it's the other Chad Calahan.' I can't remember if he wrote back or not."

Chad M. did not respond.

"I thought it was the creepiest thing ever," he joked. "I was like, 'OK, you're weird' and just deleted it. I never thought anything about it until he contacted me here."

Each Chad gets email or phone calls for the other's specific job a few times per week and they usually exchange a few laughs when relaying the messages. They're friends on Facebook and often drive family members crazy when replying to similar posts with near-identical display names.

Chad A. is a Mac, while Chad M. is a PC. Republican or Democrat? Tech. Sgt. Calahan (one L - keeping up?) is a republican who just finished reading Decision Points by George Bush. Staff Sergeant Callahan gave a more political response noting: "It depends on what year it is. I am not staged in one side or the other. I pick whichever one I feel suits us best."

Both enlisted in the Air Force for similar reasons, citing travel, education and service of his country.

"Primarily, I didn't have money for college," said Calahan, who joined in 1997. "My stepdad's brother was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. [Joining the military] seemed like a pretty cool and exciting thing to do at the time. I talked to the Navy recruiter for a minute and the Air Force recruiter grabbed me."

Calahan enlisted with an "open mechanical" contract and ultimately became a crew chief.

"I didn't really know what a crew chief did," he said. "I had zero mechanical skills going into the Air Force, but I learned pretty quick."

Calahan, 32, has been a crew chief on the F-15E Strike Eagle, and C/D models and the F-22 Raptor before coming to Korea where he now works for flight safety as a maintenance liaison.

Callahan, 30, joined in 1999 and is now a client systems technician, which he describes as a "ridiculously broad" career field. Although he often misses his original career field where he was a "wire dawg" for telephone maintenance, he still enjoys working as a CST.

"At this base, I am a comm planner," he said. "I oversee requirements at base level for communications requests; I oversee several projects that are large scope projects, for anything from new buildings to renovations of buildings that include comm requirements."

The technical sergeant's follow-on assignment is to Creech Air Force Base, Nev., where he will join up with his wife of 10 years, Terra, and their 9-year-old son Jacob Aron. Staff Sgt. Callahan departs Korea next month heading to Buckley Air Force Base, Colo., to join his wife Allison and their twin 6-year-old girls.

The elder Calahan has met several famous people, particularly while stationed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. He's worked as an extra in movies such as Transformers, Iron Man and his favorite television show 24. He also has a score of three in the "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" game. Calahan was a contestant on The Price is Right with Drew Carey, who was in the movie Coneheads with Tom Arnold, who was in We Married Margo with Kevin Bacon.

The younger Callahan has yet to meet anyone he considers famous ... other than the other Chad Calahan.

[Editor's note: 1st Lt. Trisha Eldredge, 8th Fighter Wing public affairs, contributed to this story.]