Dana Hunsinger Benbow

dana.benbow@indystar.com

People are coming at Jim Saddler in swarms. Men with beer sloshing out of their cups. Women looking slightly annoyed. Most are decked out in Indiana Pacers gear, and they have demands.

"I need the concessions."

"Restrooms?"

"Where is Section 7?"

"Tell me where my seat is," a 20-something — hat on backward — barks at Saddler, not looking him in the eye.

Saddler responds with a smile and a twinkle in his eye.

He puts a hand on their backs, leans forward like they're the most important people in the world. They hurry away, headed to where they need to be, no more thought for that 65-year-old Pacers usher. Who is he anyway?

Who is he?

Well, there are a few people who can tell you exactly who Jim Saddler is. You might have heard of them. They once led the free world.

Saddler hasn't always answered the demands of fans at Bankers Life as an usher. Saddler used to be a flight attendant on Air Force One.

He used to answer to three guys, three presidents of the United States.

***

His former bosses' names were Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

When he happens to see a guy named Paul George, he isn't starstruck.

After all, Saddler used to sneak steak, chicken cordon bleu and lobster to Reagan. First Lady Nancy Reagan wanted him eating spinach salad and drinking fresh-squeezed orange juice, as she did. And Ronald Reagan did eat spinach salad and drink fresh-squeezed orange juice when Nancy was aboard Air Force One.

But when he was flying solo, Reagan would whisper to Saddler: "Hey, what's everybody else having? Um, I'll take that. But make sure Nancy doesn't know."

"Don't worry," Saddler would reply. "Your secret is safe with me."

Much of the job wasn't glamorous. Much of the real work took place when the president wasn't aboard. Cleaning, wiping down walls, scrubbing toilets, changing bedsheets, making grocery trips to stock the galley with the president's favorite foods. Take Bush. He required vanilla yogurt and fresh granola in two separate cups. He mixed it together himself and ate it every single day.

But the magic happened when the president was aboard and when he pressed the buzzer, a buzzer that made the door light up and a little bzzzzz go off. That meant the president needed something. That meant one of the six flight attendants that manned the presidential aircraft should go in.

Saddler remembers the first time he responded to that buzzer in 1982. He wasn't the attendant assigned that day to the president, but the man who was happened to be in the back of the plane.

"Reagan's light went off, and you don't want to keep the president waiting," Saddler said. So he went in.

"I was so nervous, and he knew I was. He knew I had never been in there with him," Saddler recalls. "Ronnie says, 'Jim, I'm going to put you at ease. I put my pants on the same way you do.' He treated you like you were his son, a relative. He was just amazing."

Saddler also remembers the last time he responded to that buzzer in 1993. It was with Clinton, and it was on the infamous "Hairgate" flight. Clinton had requested a haircut, a $200 haircut from the Belgian-American stylist Cristophe Schatteman.

Air Force One sat idling with engines running on the tarmac at Los Angeles Airport as Clinton's hair was shaped and styled. Two runways were shut down for an hour. At the time, the media reported that air traffic into and out of the airport was affected. That didn't end up being true, but Air Force One was most certainly delayed.

"We were supposed to be back at Andrews (Air Force Base) by 10 or 11 that night," Saddler said. "Instead, we landed about 3 a.m."

That was OK. Clinton really needed that haircut. "He had pretty bushy-looking hair when we went out there," Saddler said.

And as they landed in the wee hours of the morning and Clinton found out that this would be Saddler's last flight on Air Force One, the president didn't get off the plane right away. Instead, he stayed aboard and took pictures with Saddler, signed the itinerary for him, joked with him and thanked him for a job well done.

"That was one hell of a last trip," Saddler said.

Doyel: This Pacers' usher is a "player," too

***

Gallivanting in luxury with heads of states, that wasn't something Saddler had ever dreamed he'd be doing. He is the son, one of five children, of a coal miner in West Virginia.

Growing up, Saddler played basketball in the dirt on a wooden contraption. A straight-A student he wasn't. Neither was he the college type. So when he graduated high school in 1969 in the midst of the Vietnam War, he had an idea.

"Everybody that was getting drafted into the Army was going directly to Vietnam," he said. "So I decided, 'I don't want to go into the Army.'"

He took a test to get into the Air Force and did quite well. The next eight years included stints in Texas, Utah, Thailand and Germany. His record in the military was stellar, so stellar that he caught the attention of the 89th Airlift Wing, which flew congressman, senators, four-star generals and the like.

After returning from Germany, he was assigned as a desk jockey (doing administrative work) for the 89th Airlift Wing.

But Saddler's desk had a window that looked out onto the hangar of Air Force One. The pilot of the plane kept an office two doors down, and Saddler made it known that he'd love to work on Air Force One.

After landing a job as a flight attendant on the 89th Airlift, and excelling, he got a call. A guy was retiring from Air Force One. Would Saddler like to go on a rehearsal flight to Europe? Yes, he would.

Then came the call, "Hey man, how would you like to fly with us?" Saddler was asked. "I said heck yeah. Heck yeah."

***

Through the years, Saddler not only grew close to presidents, getting to know their quirks and likes and dislikes, he met a lot of people that rub elbows with a president.

Journalists Dan Rather and Helen Thomas. Bruce Willis. The Queen of England, Elizabeth II. Jimmy Carter. Leonard Nimoy.

He and Nancy Reagan grew extremely close. She often flew on a separate flight than her husband, staffed by an Air Force One flight attendant and, for three years, often staffed by Saddler.

"She was just so sweet. She'd hug me. She was just a tiny little lady," Saddler said. "Me and her got along really well."

Saddler also went a lot of places. After all, Air Force One flew the president wherever he needed or wanted to go — from economic summits to private vacations. "I've been everywhere," he said. China, Yugoslavia, Cape Town, South Africa.

With the job came enormous trust in Saddler. More than once, he ended up in the front of the plane with the president who was doing "business."

"You'd go in there, he's in there talking so you hear stuff. You just don't really hear it. You don't want to know," Saddler said. "You just kind of get his food and serve him and get out of there. You could never tell anything."

What secrets did he hear? "I'd have to kill you if I told you everything," he said, laughing.

What about Monica Lewinsky? Was she ever a guest on Air Force One with Clinton?

"Never saw her," Saddler said. "I think that was after I retired. I don't think she ever made the airplane."

But what Saddler took from all those years rubbing elbows with the presidents wasn't top secret at all. What he took was the realization that all three presidents weren't much different than any guy you'd meet on the street.

"You'd think people with that kind of power would be ... I don't know," Saddler said. "But they were just like me and you."

***

Ask Saddler his favorite president and the answer comes before the question is finished.

"Ronald Reagan, of course," he said. "He was just as nice as you think and you just never felt like you were under pressure. No intimidation."

The hardest moment of Saddler's career is also an easy answer. It happened in 1992. He'd been on the campaign trail with Bush, and the last stop was in Texas so Bush could cast his vote in the presidential election.

Saddler was the first person to greet Bush the next day as he came up the stairs onto the plane, after he found out he'd lost to Clinton.

"That was so hard. What the hell do I say to the president of the United States? He just got beat," Saddler said. "All I said was, 'I'm sorry sir.' He said, 'I'm going to miss it.'"

Then, Bush turned to Saddler: "Hey, Jim, they really beat me up. Next week, we're going to Florida to go fishing."

Sure enough, five days later, Air Force One was headed to Florida. Bush spent his days fishing, while the flight crew played golf.

***

But, of course, Bush losing really wasn't the hardest moment for Saddler. Of course not. The hardest was when he was retiring from Air Force One, leaving behind a job so few ever have. A job that came with the perks of five-star hotels and cuisine, days spent on sunny golf courses and beaches just to kill time.

"Oh boy, you can't imagine what a great life it was," Saddler said. "Such an amazing time."

He walked off Air Force One Sept. 5, 1993, and the next day was the personal flight attendant for Steve Hilbert, then CEO of Conseco. That's how he and his family — wife Sherry of 43 years and twin sons Marcus and Jamie — ended up in Carmel.

Saddler spent nearly 10 years with Hilbert and then another 10 working for TSA at Indianapolis International Airport before retiring — if you call what he is doing retired.

Saddler not only ushers for Pacers and Fever games and anything else that goes on at Bankers Life, he also is a high school referee for basketball, volleyball and softball.

People aren't always nice to Saddler as an usher, brushing him off as a guy to answer their demands. And people aren't always nice to him as a referee.

"What a dummy," fans will yell after he makes a call. "You let that idiot out of the old folks home?" They taunt.

Saddler just smiles. Still with that twinkle in his eye. He doesn't need them to know who he is. He has his own secrets. Big secrets.

Follow IndyStar reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter: @DanaBenbow.