. >> as i heard this story through our wing commander at the time, brigadier general curtis bedke, as i said, the base was in an exercise mode already, so we already had a command post that was fully activated and general benke was there. as he later reported, when air force one was approaching the base and was requesting clearance to land and to clear all the airspace, he asked well what is your estimated time of arrival. right about that time the people that were on the flight line radioed in and said it appears that air force one is on final approach. so it was very quickly from the moment that the air force one announced they wanted to land until they were on the ground. i remember looking out the window of the headquarters building and seeing the blue and white aircraft coming in on to the base and at that point we quickly realized the president was going to be our guest for a while. >> i know that when i got here they were already in a full lockdown of the base, only letting essential personnel on. and media, of course we were not considered essential so we were kept off the bas