Loyd Case is perhaps most comfortable when he's in the driver's seat.

After retiring from the Army with 20 years of service, Case took a job repairing forklifts, and his coverage area spanned across King and Snohomish Counties.

"I put nearly 100,000 miles per year on my service truck," the 77-year-old Auburn resident said.

When he retired from his civilian job in 1970, Case started traveling with his wife all over the country in an RV, fishing and visiting various sites.

Now the Texas native drives for a different reason: to serve troops and give back.

Case, a volunteer for the United Service Organization's McChord Center, handles the driving and maintenance duties for the organization's RV. The USO RV travels to various events all over the Puget Sound area, hauling volunteers, snacks, gifts and goodie bags.

"It keeps our name out there and it's a good conversational piece," said Tracye Kakely, USO McChord Center manager.

The RV and its band of USO volunteers routinely travel to Everett and Whidbey Island to welcome home troops arriving on ships and aircraft carriers. It also makes appearances at military appreciation events and parades, as well as other community events such as Seafair in Seattle and the Tall Ships festival in Tacoma.

"It extends the reach of the USO," said Case of the RV.

The RV was given to the USO a few years ago after Lockheed Martin donated several of them for use as mobile control centers during the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding effort in New Orleans. After coming out one day to start it up for an event and discovering it had a dead battery, Case took charge of the situation.

"I said to myself, ‘Somebody needs to take care of this,'" he said.

Case now keeps a maintenance log and starts up the RV twice a week during his shifts to keep it fresh, informing Kakely when it needs to be serviced.

He's also the first one to arrive at the center on the days when the RV hits the road, making sure all the food and items get packed up properly and the team has what it needs for the event.

"Loyd has it down to a science," Kakely said.

After Case's wife passed away in 2006 from lung cancer, he decided he wanted to do some volunteering. A stint at the local Red Cross chapter turned into an opportunity to work at the USO Sea-Tac Center. Then Case moved to the McChord location, where he's been for nearly two years. The Army veteran has clocked more than 4,000 of the RV's 10,000 total miles, and he's enjoyed every minute of it.

"This is payback to the troops because I enjoyed a lot of benefits from the Army," Case said.

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