Sarah Jones Wheeler (b. 1981), of Oyster Bay, New York. served in the United States Air Force from 1999-2004. Sarah Jones Wheeler was born 18 January 1981 in Oyster Bay, New York. During the spring of 1998, Wheeler traveled to Lubbock, Texas to marry her fiancé, who was completing basic training at Reese Air Force Base. Afterward, she returned to New York to finish her final months of high school, before relocating back to Texas and Dyess Air Force Base, where her husband was now stationed. While working various jobs to make ends meet, Wheeler decided to join the air force and enlisted in Abilene, Texas, in 1999. She took the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and was assigned to Health Services Management. She completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base, and Advanced Individual Training (AIT) at Sheppard Air Force Base, both in Texas. In August 1999, Wheeler was assigned to Dyess Air Force Base with her husband, where she maintained medical records and took inventory of hospital technology. She also assisted with the Personal Reliability Program (PRP), a United States Department of Defense security, medical, and psychological evaluation program. In January 2000, Wheeler received a temporary duty (TDY) assignment to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, where she monitored Third Country Nationals as they built the base. After a few months, Wheeler retuned to Dyess AFB and her previous duties. She received a divorce upon her return to the United States and remarried in 2001. In September 2001, Wheeler received orders to Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina, where she assisted with loading cargo onto aircraft. She was in North Carolina for three months before her husband was able to receive orders and join her. In 2003, Wheeler was deployed, again, to Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait and resumed her previous duties of monitoring Third Country Nationals. After three months she returned to Seymour Johnson AFB. In September 2004, Wheeler left the air force with the rank of staff sergeant. During the following years, Wheeler completed the Educational Interpreter Performance Assessment and began working as a sign language interpreter in her local school system. She also held several adjunct professor positions in American Sign Language at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In 2011, she received a Master of Education in Interpreter Pedagogy from Northeastern University.
