Chapter SEVEN: 1968 - 1969
Texas Tea, Thunder, Tornadoes and True Love
I've often wondered many times, what else could there be that would only happen to me, one relatively insignificant person living a relatively quiet life, or trying to anyway. Sure, ambitions were a big part of it I am sure, but many folks have ambitions like I had growing up but for one reason or another just never got many and in some cases any to come full term. Well, I was about to find out in short order. so once again we are off to the races.
This time it was an assignment to Perrin AFB in Sherman, Texas, about 65 road miles north, northeast of Dallas, Texas. Perrin AFB, in this part of the Lone Star State, was (maybe still is) in a dry town. The base was quite large and beautifully laid out. The flight line was home to a squadron of F-102 Delta Daggers at the time. I was still the proverbial radar technician, advancing to the 5 level in experience, but honestly, interested in just about everything and anything else. Now a private pilot with about 120 flight hours under my belt, my first priority once settled in was a visit to the local Sherman Airport. That's where I met Doyle, the manager of both the flight school and I think possibly the airport there as well. There was a control tower there but I don't believe it was ever manned. Doyle and I became good friends, I took the obligatory check rides in the Cherokee 140 that were there along with the Cherokee 160, 180 and the model 360 aircraft.
Staying on the base week-ends other than to go to the service club there was a basic waste of time unless you were into shooting a lot of pool. So I worked out a deal with Doyle after taking the Greyhound Bus one too many times for the 2 - hour multi-stop trip to Dallas on a number of Friday's or late afternoon Saturday's
Doyle said I could take the Cherokee 140 to Dallas and keep it overnight flying back on Sunday but only paying for the actual flight time. The trip by air to Love Field in Dallas, was right at 30 minutes. On a nice clear day, you could actually see the city buildings of downtown Dallas from about 3,000 feet.
We'd land at Love Field and park at the transit ramp and off we'd go usually to the USO for the Saturday night dances.
Lots of GI's went but more often than not lots of very beautiful Texas ladies went as well. Life was great, well on the week-ends anyway.
It was there at the USO that I met Barbara, a stunningly beautiful lady and I was in love in just under three minutes and within three weeks knew she would be "the one". But to keep up my flying activities, I needed something part time.
So I went to the local TV station there and requested an audition for anything ON AIR like the news or weather or some sort of community program event. Well I got the audition and I got a job. I became the weekend anchor for news, a fill in on weekdays and also the weather presenter on weekends and a fill in on weekdays when asked.
The pay was OK, not great, but good and even that's a bit of a stretch as I recall but being "on the air" was enough to keep me "in the air". I was doing two things I very much enjoyed. But now I'd have to do the news and weather on most Sunday's so if I went to Dallas on a Saturday afternoon, I'd have to come back before noon on Sunday.
In television pretty much whatever station you might work for, there were at least a few, probably still are, staffers whose side mission they believed was to get the new guy or girl "indoctrinated". The idea was to get the on camera person to "break-up", laugh, or lose it on the air on live TV while on camera at the worst possible time. Of course the viewers had no idea what was happening because the perpetrators were never seen on camera.
I had my shoelaces tied together several times until I got smart and started to wear loafers or even no shoes at all when doing the weather on camera.
I was sitting at the news desk and felt the belt on my pants being undone a time or two, so obviously you didn't stand up when on the air.
Not much happened in Sherman that would even be reported say on a larger station like in Dallas. Accidents, severe weather or local community projects were pretty much it, so in an average week-end newscast the script, (we had no teleprompter there) was largely world, national or local news which we broke up into segments accordingly.
But every so often a big story would occur. There was a four alarm fire in a vacant building in Sherman one Saturday afternoon and of course it broke out in time for the six o'clock news but not in time to have many if any real details.
Well, I opened the newscast ad-lib, no script, by telling viewers about the fire this one day. I said we had the Channel 12 news team on scene, (that was one guy) with a videomera man (same guy) and said we expected some information during the newscast and of course we would be sure to bring it to them the minute we got it.
Well, on this one occasion about 15 minutes into the newscast I heard the studio door open with a bang and calmly said when I finished the sentence I was reading at that moment, that I believe we may have late breaking developments on our lead story, the fire in Sherman.
I just held out my hand off camera to take the copy from the studio hand and would read it. I took it, brought it in to read and it was copy that one joker had actually lit on fire. Without breaking stride or a smile, I said, well maybe not, let the copy fall to the floor beside me still burning and proceeded on as if nothing had happened.
The news director who had been watching at home was not amused, I never did see who the perpetrator was, but I got kudos the next day for "handling it so well."
Then one night I filled in on a weekday which was also a holiday. Kids had been in the studio for some sort of children's program that day and they all received ICEE balloons to take home.
Well as the news introduction was playing, I was, as we often were looking down at our news copy and pretending we were busy writing. When you heard the words "and cue" you looked up at the camera and started. When I looked up, there was this fully blown-up ICEE balloon with the huge feet just above the camera lens, teetering back and forth. You get the picture. So at KXII-TV in Sherman, there was always some experience to deal with. But it was great further experience for me, financed my flying a bit more so all was well.
The girl at the USO, Barbara and I were becoming quite serious and when possible I would spend as much time as possible near Dallas, stopped flying to Love Field and instead to the Dallas-Garland airport, a private field with one runway, much closer to Barbara's home in Garland so we could visit and be together. I met her parents and her younger sister both extremely nice people, but you could feel a sort of a tension in the air that just didn't seem that it should belong there.
The father and to this day I don't hesitate to say it, was not a big fan of military men of any service in general and one dating his daughter even less. But he played the role of a southern gentleman, as hard as it was and basically grin and bear it, certainly when I was around at least. Military men all had reputations of "love em and leave em". We were all in the same boat as far as he was concerned.
He was pleasant enough but you could tell without question it was forced.
As Barbara and I became closer, he went totally off the rails, just never around me. He was obsessively possessive of his eldest daughter. There was always this pleasant forced act and smile for me but I learned not for her.
When I wasn't there she was grilled mercilessly after every date or even group outing, no matter what it was. I found out, probably too late, it was a never ending stream of, what did you do, where did you go, who were you with, who else was there, were parents there, were you alone other than in the car driving. It was a nonstop inquisition time and time again. I didn't see it, only feel it after a while. She never talked about it, but it was taking a terrible silent toll on her.
Barbara was as I have said a beautiful, common sense woman of 21 when we first met. She was very religious, true Southern Baptist. She had a great job in Dallas, she was very principled in every way. We dated perhaps 6 months and then I asked her to marry me. She said yes. I was over the moon when she accepted. Life simply couldn't get any better. I thought for both of us. That was until she got home that one night and told her mother who was very happy for her. Then she told her father and it "hit the fan", the best I can think of and keep a "G" rating as they say.
Being in the military now approaching year four I had a decision to make. Would I re-enlist and have a steady job and guaranteed income for four more years or get out and work maybe part time, maybe full time, maybe no time. Barbara and I talked about it, I knew I was going to be sent overseas, I just didn't know where.
We decided to wait and go for what we knew. I would do the tour wherever, I would be guaranteed a return to the USA and we'd get married then. While I didn't know it at the time, it turned out to be the worst decision we had ever made
I reenlisted, collected a nice bonus for that in the field I wasn't really interested in. Turned out it was another 7 months before I got that overseas tour. I came down with a case on mononucleosis and was hospitalized for a week. The pending overseas duty was cancelled, but I knew there would be another on the horizon in short order I got two week's free leave when I got out of the hospital. When Barbara wasn't working, we spent every free moment together we could.
Then my father visited when he was on his way to California for a business conference of electrical company owners and managers. He knew of our plans and this was a good time he thought to meet his future daughter in law.
Barbara's father basically insisted that my father stay with them, but he already had a company paid room in a 4-star Dallas hotel and said thanks but no thanks. Barbara paid the penalty getting besieged with the like father like son routine, haven't you learned or heard anything I said, non-stop yet again.
Knowing her well for now about a year it was easy to see that she loved and respected her father but was scared to death of him. He was constantly questioning even berating her about pretty much everything. You could see how torn she was trying to be with me and trying to deal with the constant lectures, warnings and his obsessive behavior.
She actually ended up in the hospital with a nervous breakdown for nearly two weeks. He never called or tried to get in touch with me about it.
When I found out about it I was furious and let him know in no uncertain terms. I thought I had reached him, but I was wrong. My dad, and a friend of mine who worked for at the time Braniff Airways in Dallas, had purchased four tickets to see America's team, the Dallas Cowboys play a home game at the Cotton Bowl.
We had it all set up with Barbara just the day before. We were supposed to pick her up at about 12 Noon, have lunch and then go to the game together. I called her to say we were running about 30 minutes late and we wanted her to know.
She said well, my father says this is a men's day thing and I should not go with the three of us men. It was just one more example of what she was putting up with day in and day out.
I had finally received orders for Okinawa, departing in about 10 weeks There was no way we could have gotten married because being subject to temporary duties in Korea as well during the tour she could not come along.
We met over dinner and decided to call off the engagement while I would be away, date others if she liked and while there would be no guarantees on either of our parts, see how it would be just writing until I got back to the USA.
It was all an effort to so she could get a little peace in her life. We both agreed that at least until the tour was done, it was all we could really think of to do. That was like 48 years ago and I still wrestle with that decision we made together every so often to this day. You'll learn why in the not too distant future.
I continued my flying in Sherman, Texas and spent most weekends flying from there the 30 minutes to Dallas, Love Field. DFW was not built then. One Friday afternoon, I had to delay an expected take off because spring, summer and fall often brought their share of severe thunderstorms and an occasional tornado racing from west Texas through Witchita Falls to the west if Sherman right on through. When they came they were moving 30 to 45 miles an hour on average so would be short lived as a rule.
So on this day my planned 4 PM departure was delayed until around 5:15 PM. I was by myself this particular day but I had to have Murphy, you remember him, riding along somewhere. Thde storm had passed the sun was back out so off I went. I was about halfway to Dallas over or near the town of McKinney Texas when suddenly a blinding flash and no other decernible sound. I looked at my instrument panel to see if there was any thing not as it should be. My directional gyro was spinning around and around, the fuel gages said zero on both tanks, and the airspeed indicator had dropped to Zero. But I was still flying, the propeller was still turning and the controls responded. Apparently, I had been struck by a bolt of lightning but I was OK as well. I called aððroach control at Love field and told thenm I thought I had been hit by lightning and gave them all the ðarticulars. They were concerhned and right on it. I was asked if I was declaring an emergency an d since I was still flying but without important instruments I said no but I think it would be a good idea to get the plane on the ground as soon as possible. They gave me a straight in approach to runway 18 there and about 15 minutes later I landed without incident. A maintenance man met the plane and we both looked it over. There seemed to be no discernable damage to anything except the aforementioned instruments..
And so it was. Now I had heard that lightning from any severe thunderstorm COULD have a reach of ten to as much as 20 miles from the start of the stroke. But this storm had to be at least thirty 'five miles away at the time. Strange but true. Exciting and scary for sure but alls well that ends well.
Finally, the duty in the far east was upon me. It was quite an overnight flight to Okinawa. The chartered airline was a DC-8 dash 62 belonging to Flying Tiger Airlines. We left Travis AFB in California and learned that someone had forgotten to put any meals aboard. However, we were told we'd be stopping in Anchorage, Alaska for refueling and they'd put on the food there for the flight across the Pacific and a short stop in Yokohama, Japan before going on to Naha AB in Okinawa.
We were also told that we had to deplane while they refueled and the terminal would be open with all sorts of everything we could purchase. We arrived at 4:00 AM in Alaska and found the terminal concessions all closed. Boarding the plane again we were on the way to Japan. Dinner, they called it was ham and cheese sandwiches. It was all the airline could get.
We tried to sleep and in the morning, breakfast which consisted of more ham and cheese sandwiches, and still more from Japan to Okinawa. Thank God that was the shortest leg of the entire flight.
We got all checked in, our rooms in the barracks, a real meal finally, an orientation at work and our deployment schedules.
I was to make three trips during my 18 months to Suwon, Air Base in Korea, which I soon learned was but a five - minute flight to the North Korean border. Life on deployment was OK except when the pungent smell of the Korean dish Kimchee was in the air when the wind blew in from the local housing area. It seemed sometimes that was the only way the wind blew. We were also getting some sort of overseas hazardous duty pay which I didn't understand but didn't argue about either. It wasn't much, certainly not by today's standards, but it was OK given the low prices of just about everything, on base and off.
One night, our crew was working an aircraft in the revetment area with a portable battery light unit (called an NF-2 cart) so we could work the airplanes systems a little better with more direct lighting. It was a basic pre-flight and fine tuning of the radar for the next day's mission.
Suddenly ALL the runway, taxi lights and electric overheads in the area shut down. The only light was ours, but we could still work OK. But seconds later what looked like the entire South Korean Air Force was running toward the hills just on the other side of the runway that was fairly close and firing live weapons and flares into the hills. We stood watching the spectacle for a moment believing this was a drill.
Then there was a "ping" on the light cart leaving an indentation on the unit. It took a micro second for all of us to figure out that it was a bullet being fired back at the only illuminated area. This was no drill. Off went the light, and off we all went as well.
It turned out that it was a small North Korean party of soldiers, we heard about half a dozen, trying to pull off a night raid. We were never told any more.
That easily solved another burning question I had.
About two weeks before that, we all went to the supply equipment building and were issued handguns. We had to dismantle, clean each part and reassemble the weapon hopefully having no parts left over when you finished.
But rather than take them with us with any bullets, we were then given a 3x5 card to carry in our wallets that listed the weapon, the serial number an all that pertinent information. We were told this was to be our assigned weapon when and if we ever needed it.
Then they took the weapon, we kept the card and were told when we needed it, it would be there in supply once proper authority had told us to retrieve them. The only problem was that supply operated only from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, closed all week-ends unless war broke out.
At that point it seemed that military intelligence was a contradiction of terms. It seemed funny and just plain silly then, but two weeks later we were getting shot at and our defense should we have needed it was that little card in our wallet.
I managed to get a position at maintenance control because I had experience doing that in Okinawa. Perhaps you'll remember the day that a North Korean fighter jet shot down a plane of military personnel, 19 of them I believe.
Naturally Murphy's law made sure I guess that I was on duty that day and time.
Suddenly I got a call from our command center on a private secure line that told me to "hot-load" all the aircraft with real weapons, in our case, missiles. I was given a scant partial reason, but it was NOT to be given or discussed with anyone else being highly classified.
We got it done in short order, but not without a number of questions from the supervisors on the flight line at that time. I understood because they had been out there all day loading and downloading aircraft for practice missions to train the pilots and the weapons loading crews. The first two aircraft took off at 4:30 PM a half hour before a scheduled departure for a training flight. The difference here was that this was NOT a training mission, this was the real deal. Two more planes followed, then two more. And then a final two.
Well, again in a "why me" moment, a young first lieutenant, the squadron section commander came into my area behind the heavy curtains to keep out noise and light so we could work the boards lit from behind and said. Why did all these aircraft take off? The mission was for two planes at 5:00 PM and another two after that. There were eight of them and they were a half hour earlier than they should have been.
I want to know why.
What a spot to be in. I had a top secret clearance and this young officer was not privy to anything about what was going on. I was specifically told I could not discuss what was going on with anybody, meant just that, ANYBODY and that included this lieutenant. So all I could say was it was an operational situation and I could not say more. That's what in hindsight was when the fun started. I heard, Sargent, I am your commanding officer and you are an enlisted man. I am giving you a direct order to tell me, I order you to tell me. All I could say was I am sorry sir but I am under orders myself NOT to discuss this with anyone. I will have you court martialed he said. Well I said to him. Do what you must but Iðd give it a little thought first. I think.
I had had enough. I said, you need to leave sir it's a little busy here. He grabbed a local base phone and called the command post. That's when my smile broadened. Apparently in the middle of his somewhat condescending rant to them he was interrupted and ordered to report immediately leave maintenance control, report to the commander there. M y guess is he got an earful, maybe both ears full. He left, without comment. I smiled again and took a deep breath. It was over almost as fast as it all began. About 7 PM we all were given the all clear, relieved of duty and went to the barracks to change to civilian attire then headed for the local village.
The next day, we noticed the lieutenant was also missing. I was told he was sent back to Okinawa. I smiled again.
Back in Okinawa we had a great club system. Bands usually from the Philippines playing rock and roll or top-40 were entertaining nearly every night. All of them were impressive to be sure but the one many of us never missed was a group called Roses and Thorns. There were two beautiful Philippine women in the group. The food was good and the beer was cheap so although a long tour, it was pretty good. By now and all that was going on with the day to day routines, attending night college classes, and the deployments, our occasional letters back and forth between Barbara and I were fewer and much further between. I sensed it might be over but didn't know for sure until one letter she wrote said she had met
another, I believe a lieutenant. He had no plans to stay beyond his four year commitment.
I got a job at the downtown radio station, my own evening show from 8 PM to 11 PM. This was a Japanese owned and operated station that spoke only English.
The highest US position however was the Program Director. Above that level it was all Okinawan or Japanese. We actually got paid. The salary then was $1.00 an hour. That's hard to forget for us part-timers.
There were two US full-timers and they got a whopping $375.00 a month. This was 1969 in case you've forgotten but it was still very poor pay.
I worked with an Army part-timer who called himself "Bubble Head Ed." He was in the Army and was a different military rank almost every week. Harrigan was another and Doug was the full time employee on the staff.
July 20th, 1969, yes, the night of the US moon landing.
Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when the "Eagle" touched down on the moon that night?
My answer is yes. I was in a bath house where we had just finished a steam cabinet bath and a great massage. When we came downstairs the television was on as Neil Armstrong spoke those famous words. "That's one small step for man; One giant leap for mankind."
Then one afternoon a letter appeared in my mailbox from the McKinney sheriff's office. My fine was to be $30.00 dollars court costs another five dollars, and thirty-two cents for the stamp to mail me the letter. I could remit a check, made out to the sheriff, NOT THE COURT for that amount. Now I knew why people had been and were being stopped, probably about that time, every night. So I answered that I was in Okinawa, could not appear in court to defend myself.
So what was I supposed to do? I also asked why should I make a check or money order to the sheriff and not the court or town of McKinney. I thought, if I got an answer, it would be interesting to say the least. I did about four weeks later. I had been brought to trial in abstentia on a Saturday and was found NOT GUILTY. Really ? !!!
Although I thought a lot about Barbara, we really didn't write past the first few months. It was also in Okinawa where I met the director of the Youth Center at the base. She would become my wife a few years later. Stay Tuned.