“7 High”
Recollections of a Combat Defense Squadron “Ramp Rat”
Chapter 9.6
“Adiós España”
Big Ass Bird waiting to take us back to the land of the big BX.
Back in Sevilla, Doug was speaking Spanish only. After all that leave, it was tough to get into fatigues, and head out on the road to Morón. But life without any aircraft was easy. A relaxed atmosphere had settled over the base. There is no leave card in my file for the trip around Europe, it was never deducted from my balance. That is the way things worked at Morón. Truly, 1965 was a good luck year.
It was 5BX time again. I worked out a bit on that tile floor in front of the Grundig. But, there was no problem, because I knew the guy at the gym. This time around I bought one of the Crossman pistols from him. The pistol was probably stolen from the Air Force, now that I think about it. The Tiger objected, but was overruled, when we had target practice in the living room. Doug’s blocks stacked up on the floor made excellent targets.
23 August 1965 Bien Hoa Air Base was the target of a stand off attack that damaged six A-1Es three O-1Es, one F-100 and one U-10 aircraft. This begins to sound familiar, just last year, 1 November 1964, for example.
***KIA/WIA?
They had been building revetments at Bien Hoa AB since the disaster 16 May 1965, but it seems the SAC philosophy of guarding air bases from the inside was still being used in Vietnam; if it is outside the fence, it is somebody else’s problem. We could see in the daily Stars and Stripes how well that was working out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bien_Hoa_Air_Base
Here is a personal account of both incidents.
http://www.dixiestones.net/details.php/listing/362
Air base defense remains a riddle in the US Air Force. In October 2004, Lt Gen Ronald E. Keys, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for air and space operations, told a Naval Postgraduate School audience that ABD was one of five critical problems facing the Air Force. The general based his concern on the fact that air bases in Iraq have suffered well over 1,000 attacks (twice the rate of occurrence in the Vietnam War)
http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/fox.html
Here are a couple of Vietnam War chronologies:
The History Place Chronology
http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html
Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Command History Chronology - 1965
http://www.testgoons.com/ccSEA/Chronology/MACV_1965.html
Back in the day, before the internet, it was a lot tougher to research these guys. For the troops, information of this type came mostly in the form of rumors, scuttle butt intelligence, which on this ramp generally concluded that General Westmoreland was a dumb ass. I doubt he would have gotten a kick out of that, the boy scouts thought the general was a dumb ass.
Looking them up is so easy now. It wasn’t so easy to research information back then. The rigors of command must be tough these days when everyone knows who you are.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Westmoreland
Compare that bio with the opposition. Ho Chi Minh was quite a guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh
31 August 1965 President Johnson signs a law penalizing the burning of draft cards with up to 5 years in prison and a $1,000 fine.
9 September 1965 Hurricane Betsy roars ashore near New Orleans, Louisiana with winds of 145 MPH, causing 76 deaths and $1.42 billion in damage. The storm is the first hurricane to cause $1 billion in unadjusted damages, giving it the nickname "Billion Dollar Betsy". It is the last major hurricane to strike New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina 40 years later.
14 September 1965 Chief of Staff of the Air Force, General John P. McConnell, who had replaced General Curtis Le May effective January 31, 1965, concerned that COMUSMACV intended to treat air base security as a calculated risk, proposed that the Joint Chiefs of Staff request CINCPAC to re-examine the air base defense problem. This was disapproved.
COMSUMACV in action. Stars & Stripes photo.
7 October 1965 we received orders for Malmstrom AFB at Great Falls, Montana. This hit like a punch in the gut, real fear and loathing. I had worked missiles before, at Forbes AFB in Kansas, and hated every minute of it. That routine in Montana weather could only be worse, much worse. Talking to troops that had been stationed at Francis E. Warren AFB at Cheyenne Wyoming did nothing to allay my fears of a crappy tour ahead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_E._Warren_Air_Force_Base
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malmstrom_AFB
One of the things that made these bases such a poor assignment for Air Police types is that there was no bomber force; this would mean there was no alternative to working missiles. There would be no screwing up to get back on the base here. In the case of Malmstrom, when the B-47s had been decommissioned in 1961, they had not been replaced. It was terrible to think about what a cold and lonely tour it was going to be.
But right now, duty at Morón was so sweet there was never a FIGMO moment. We were scheduled to depart Torrejón for McGuire AFB at 1400 on 27 November, until then, might as well enjoy every moment. I had heard about bases like this, but never in SAC, and often only in ramp rat dreams.
Flights were tiny, and soon to become even smaller. The attitude was relaxed, even at guardmount.
SSgt Len Richardson giving SSgt Bill Miller the boot.
“B” Flight going to work, September 1965.
A shift at work might consist of playing crazy eight’s with Bill Miller for a couple of hours, taking a drive around the flight line, and typing three or four sheets of paper. It felt like I was still on vacation. Once in a while some fun was had when the strike team was called to clear sheep from the active runway. A 12 gauge shotgun; shells refilled with rock salt were used from the back of a smoking, wheezing, bucking, blue pickup truck, as shown above.
Occasionally, an “Operation Chrome Dome” B-52 would stop by because the ashtrays were full. Some of them sported the Hound Dog missiles I hadn’t seen before, nor had I ever been in the cockpit of a BUFF.
By now, Bill was putting away a fifth of 80 proof Smirnoff every shift, and doing it well. Certainly he wasn’t getting in any trouble at work, and I remember his wife telling us as we dropped him off one totally fried morning that; “Oh, Bill doesn’t drink.” Nice lady.
Miller was a resilient old geezer. At a party in our apartment, the Tiger laid him out flat on the kitchen floor with a frying pan for getting frisky. A little ice, for the knot on his head, and some vodka and he was a little wobbly, but ready to go again.
“Bad Eye” (A2C George Bryan) and Doug party.
Now that I was an Airman First Class (E-4) with over four years service Uncle Sam would ship my dependents, furniture, and vehicle back to the states.
There were deals advertised in Stars and Stripes and elsewhere; you could ship an expensive foreign car back to the states and exchange it for a brand new 1965 Chevrolet at Kardon Chevrolet in New Jersey, plus get some cash to go. I had so much love into our VW by now that I decided to pass on the new car and the money and ship it home.
25 October 1965, several of us drove our vehicles to the port at Cadiz for shipment. I’m not remembering how we got back to Sevilla. That leads me to believe that Bill Miller, who was leaving about the same time might have been on the trip. It could have been Len Richardson that brought us back; he didn’t drink, and I’m sure he didn’t ship that junker of a Tempest.
SSgt. Lenvil Richardson, was new to “B Flight”, and had orders shipping back to the states on the same date that we did. From now until we departed our families would be together a lot. Len was a family man, and deeply religious.
Richardson had gotten in trouble for doing missionary work; he was Pentecostal and had been reported to the Spanish government for having services other than Catholic. The complaint came back down the chain at the base, and he had lost his day job and been “busted” back to the ramp on “B Flight” as punishment. He was still doing missionary work, but had gone underground.
I commuted with Richardson, and sometimes even pulled a patrol with him, this made for a lot of hours together. Religion was his favorite topic and he did go on. I remember he decided I was agnostic, I didn’t know what that meant. To him it meant I needed a lot more preaching to. I fought back with war stories.
Once our cars had been shipped, Len and I worked very little, if at all, after that. With both Staff Sergeants Miller, and Richardson gone, A1C Kosa was left as “B Flight” commander.
30 October 1965: Near Da Nang, United States Marines repel an intense attack by Viet Cong forces, killing 56 guerrillas. Among the dead, a sketch of Marine positions is found on the body of a 13-year-old Vietnamese boy who sold drinks to the Marines the day before.
30 October 1965, in Washington, DC, a pro-Vietnam War march draws 25,000.
8 November 1965 Operation Hump: The 173rd Airborne is ambushed by over 1,200 Viet Cong.
14 November 1965; Battle of the Ia Drang: In the Ia Drang Valley of the Central Highlands in Vietnam, the first major engagement of the war between regular United States and North Vietnamese forces begins.
This battle is the subject of a 1992 book; “We were Soldiers Once… And Young”, by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore (Ret.) and Joseph L. Galloway.
The 2002 film; “We Were Soldiers”, starred Mel Gibson.
CBS News Special Report with Walter Cronkite and Morley Safer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDMcxBk4vg4
Battlefield Vietnam - Part 01: Dien Bien Phu The Legacy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQdFGr7NQ4o
14 November 1965, we were in the final stages of packing up again.
Doug in his suitcase, ready to go.
We found my overcoat, and blues, in the bottom of my duffel bag, where they had been for the past three years. I took out the best set of blues to wear on the flight back, and to report in at Malmstrom. The rest went back into the duffel bag along with all my fatigues and those 505’s that I had worn only once in Spain, at Tough Tiger school.
15 November 1965 our household goods were picked up for shipment and we moved into a pensión in downtown Sevilla, with the Richardsons’. Len and I cleared the base in one trip, and then we spent the days playing tourist in Sevilla.
Plaza de Toros, Sevilla
SSgt Richardson and Family with Doug examine wares as vendor shoos flies.
Doug getting the finger wave from candy vendor.
The Three Graces
I recall we loaded the families in Len’s beat up old Tempest and did some touring around the countryside singing and entertaining the kids. Along the way, the kids came to a consensus that all large four legged creatures were ‘Bacabayos”. Here are some scenes from the countryside.
Edward Benavente �Stars and Stripes
Andersen Air Force Base, Guam,
November 19, 1965:
Their work done for the time being, members of the ground crew watch as a B-52
takes off on a bombing mission over suspected Viet Cong strongholds in South Vietnam.
19 November 1965 It was disturbing to learn that SAC aircraft were being used to bomb Vietnam. We had been told over and over again that we were the nuclear deterrent. Peace was supposed to be our profession.
24 November 1965 The Len Richardsons’, La Tiger, Doug and I boarded a bus to travel the Camino de Morón one last time. At Base Operations, we were loaded onto the base courier C-54, which flew us to Torrejón AB. We checked into the Torrejón guest house, which the Tiger and I were most familiar by this time. I loved that beer machine in the lobby. We had a couple of days to look around Madrid again.
***There should be photos, but I haven’t found them yet.
27 November 1965 Torrejón AB, we said our goodbyes to España. At 1500 we boarded that familiar Pan Am 707 that would fly us to McGuire AFB.
27 November 1965 tens of thousands of Vietnam War protesters picket the White House, and then march on the Washington Monument.
27 November 1965 The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned major sweep operations to neutralize Viet Cong forces during the next year are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam will have to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000.
28 November 1965 morning, it was snowing when we landed at McGuire AFB. The weather had been increasingly bumpy as we began to let down and sure enough there were a few pukers on board. To me, it was just plain embarrassing to see an Air Force NCO in uniform hurling into a paper bag, in front of his children.
We struggled through customs with our luggage and the maximum three gallons of liquor, one for me, one for the Tiger, and one for Doug (Who will most likely demand his gallon now.), of Crown Royal and the swords that I had been packing since Toledo for Art Martinez.
It had been three years to the day since I had been in the passenger terminal at McGuire, it seemed like another lifetime.
The Miller’s blue Opel station wagon with Spanish plates was parked at the McGuire Guest House facility. We didn’t have time to look them up, but had to catch a bus to Philadelphia to pick up the VW.
At the docks in Philly, we picked up our 6 volt beetle and found it had a dead battery and had been jump started with 12 volts and everything that was turned on was fried. Things like my pride and joy AM/FM/SW radio from Gibraltar. I speculated that the dock workers had been playing with the radio and left it turned on, thereby running the battery down and setting up the situation. I was so pissed off. I hadn’t liked the looks of those guys at the docks when I turned the car over to them.
Starting out steaming, and with no tunes, we set out to drive across the USA in our VW. I had been pouring over maps and planning this drive the entire three years we had been in Spain.
As we started out in the Philadelphia traffic I was impressed at the size of the cars around me. Our VW felt awfully small and underpowered. My perspective had changed. The freeways and traffic were much less fun. It all seemed so much bigger and dirtier.
I remember looking at the 1965 Chevrolet especially, since we could have had one. It was a good looking car, but big as a battleship.
We started off into bad weather; it would never have occurred in those days to wait out a storm, besides we were burning leave time.
This was our route: https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=McGuire+AFB
Coming across Pennsylvania the sections of interstate were periodically pinched into two lane tunnels, making long lineups of stop and go traffic. With snow and traffic backups, we soon remembered something we had forgotten in the sunny Sevilla climate; the heater in the VW didn’t work at all when you were standing still.
Our first stop was in Ohio, to visit the Tiger’s sister Sue and husband Jim. I think it was Columbus, Ohio. Here, Doug had his first Christmas of the year. He was to have Christmas again in Indiana, with Linda’s parents, then on to Odgen, with Art and Linda Martinez, and finally in Spokane, with my parents. Imagine; four Christmas’s in one year. I’m sure Doug would agree; 1965 WAS a very good year.
Sue and Jim First Christmas for 1965, December 5.
Sue’s husband Jim was an up and coming young manager for the Firestone Company. With his discount we purchased snow tires and had them mounted on rims. I piled the slick tires on the VW top rack with the other boxes. The snow tires didn’t speed things up on the freeway, and the drag was noticeable with all the gear we had lashed on top. On the freeway drafting became a necessity to keep up with traffic.
I found a shop that would work on the VW radio. They got it going again, but it never seemed as good as before. While in the radio shop, I received the first parking ticket on the VW. It had the notation that the plates were “possibly foreign”. I realized that they would be good for free parking in the USA.
Also I discovered, for the first time, those large aerosol cans of windshield deicer. We used it on the inside of the windshield, as we were driving, since the defrosters were pretty hopeless. Winter driving in the VW was always an adventure in motoring.
Bob Cutts �Stars and Stripes
Saigon, South Vietnam, December 4, 1965: An MP stands guard on the devastated second floor of
Saigon's Metropole Hotel as rescue efforts continue five hours after a truck
bomb exploded outside the building, which served as a bachelor enlisted men's
quarters for the U.S. military. Eight Vietnamese, one U.S. Marine and a soldier from New Zealand were killed in the early-morning blast that also injured
more than 175 people, including 72 Americans.
4 December 1965 The attack missed its intended target, Bob Hope and his entourage, by minutes.
“No sense wasting all that aviation fuel by letting us go home,” Bob said, later in Saigon.
“What a welcome I got at the airport. They thought I was a replacement… As we flew in, they gave us a twenty-one-gun salute. Three of them were ours…”
“Thank you, thank you! I want to thank General Westmoreland for that wonderful welcome. We opened with a bang… General Moore drove me into Saigon, and just as we got to town, a hotel went the other way. I’ve never seen a house detective in flight before. Incidentally, if there are any Viet Cong in the audience, remember I already got my shots…”
Bob Hope Christmas Show Inbound to Ubon AB 1965
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnWByGRNwMI
Home movies of Bob Hope Show; December 1965 aboard USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV8XvBduqJQ
It was a quick drive from Ohio to the Tiger’s Mom. She was living in Ligonier, Indiana and married to fellow named Tom by this time. They had a brand new RCA color television, the first folks I ever knew that had color TV. It was a big deal. Especially, as it was the first broadcast of Charlie Brown. I wonder if Doug remembers.
9 December 1965 A Charlie Brown Christmas, the first Peanuts television special, debuts on CBS, quickly becoming an annual tradition.
The original isn’t freely available, although it is broadcast every year. So if you search on the internet you find a lot of imitations. Here it is performed by the cast of “Scrubs”. It’s funny, but I’d wager Mr. Schultz would rather have his version come up, copyright or no.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20Of_mna-Rs
Our Ligonier visit ended abruptly after the family got shit-faced on my Crown Royal, and then watched while drunken Aunt Joanne attacked me. First verbally, then physically, she came after me for not being good enough for Linda. After quite a bit of this, we left in the middle of the night and found a motel.
Ray would have stuck up for me. We did stop for a brief Christmas visit with Linda’s Dad in Warsaw.
***Thought sure there were photos from this visit, they still might turn up.
It was a long and wintery drive to Odgen, Utah, Doug’s next Christmas. Somewhere in Nebraska we came very close to being blown off an icy highway by the Hawk. Other, larger vehicles had been and were lining the ditches. This was the first time I had observed an RV, travel trailer they were called at the time, in an accident. It really came apart. The family’s belongings were scattered down the highway.
Some of the geography we recognized from our trip three years before. Grand Island, Nebraska. Hey, we’ve been here before. It seems like it wasn’t possible to go west without passing through Grand Island, which is a funny name for such a land locked place, you have to admit. Out in the middle of nowhere, there was a huge truck stop called Little America. Most of US 30 had become Interstate 80.
Our route map;
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=McGuire+AFB
It was well below freezing, when we arrived in Odgen. The ruts of slush in the streets were frozen tracks of ice and the VW jostled from one rut to the other, not being quite wide enough to fit in the US sized car tracks.
Zephyr and Art Martinez at home in Odgen, UT.
Art and Linda were the kissy face couple, all right. Their Grundig looks in better shape than ours. It hadn’t been dropped, and there were no grubby little fingers to dirty up the speaker cloth. That might actually be Art’s hatchet on the far TV tray. That was something to look out for; he loved that hatchet just a little too much.
Notice the steel can Lucky Lager, detachable pull tabs were something new since we left the states. The adventuresome dropped them into the can, and took a chance on choking on it later. Some folks made them into razor sharp chains, which could be draped around the apartment.
We usually drank Lucky from short bottles. Lucky Lager was once famous for its 11 oz stubby bottles featuring a rebus under the cap. Since the closure of the Olympia Brewery in Tumwater Washington, this famous bottle has been discontinued.
I have a butt can full of these caps and was going to take some pictures, but the work has all ready been done. And a very good job indeed. Also, I learned that they are worth something. Check it out now while you can, so many of these links are fragile.
http://www.jokelibrary.net/yyDrawings/bottle_caps.html
Later on, after we were settled at Malmstrom, we would make trips to Odgen to see the Art and Linda, and pick up Coors for under $4 a case. We would take out the back seat and really load the VW. Coors wasn’t available in Montana at the time, and since it was trendy, the folks there would pay the big bucks. We could double our money and pay for the trip.
Zephyr loved the Wooly Bully. Put that on and she would get to rocking. Sam the Sham, and the Pharohs! You couldn’t make this stuff up. These were all new tunes for us. Armed Forces Radio hadn’t been keeping us up to date with the top forty.
Watch a short commercial and you can hear it now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6P7g_qz2OU
***Sword story
Had studs put in the snow tires after getting stuck in an icy track, again.
They were driving T-birds, a ’59 and a 62? Both white.
***excuse for car photos
Here’s that link to the route map again. Ain’t technology wonderful?
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=McGuire+AFB
So, it was “North to Spokane”. More winter driving, I had my skills back by this time, and the studded snow tires really did help on ice.
Christmas in Spokane 1965
Doug has Christmas with doting Grandparents again, although it was actually New Years by then.
9 January 1966, We loaded up again and drove over the 4th of July Summit, Lookout Pass, and Rogers Pass towards the future at Malmstrom AFB, Great Falls, Montana. Yaahoo!