Flying to work in Southeast Asia My wife, child and I served two interesting years during the overseas posting to Clark Air Base, The Philippines. We experienced up close and personal the ambiance of that tropical island nation, first living off base among the Philippine people in the Diamond sub-division of Angles City. Later moving into on-base quarters where we occupied one of the homes, because of the size and construction, nicknamed The Barns, which made up part of the NCO family housing options. The barns were of tropical design, airy and spacious homes. Our assignment to Clark came late in the trajectory of the Viet Nam War, January nineteen seventy-one, until January 1973. The US involvement in that horrific mistake was being rapidly unwound and our ground forces had already been drawn down by then. I did only four temporary duty trips into Viet Nam during those two years and made a couple of other less exciting trips; to Bangkok, Thailand to rebuild the Don Muean...
Posts
- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
A tongue-in-cheek trip sixty years or so back in time to revisit some Matador missile units then on the front line of NATO deterrence. I was motivated to write the following after rediscovering in my files the copy of a faded, handwritten tale passed on to me a long time ago, I took the liberty to sanitize the language and do a great deal of rewriting and embellishment for presentation here. I must assume the originator of the tale was a disaffected Matador Missileer whose name is unknown. In it he described his view of the watch on the Rhine in less than glowing terms. ————————— Southwest West Germany 1958 I turned off the state road in the Southwest region of West Germany and onto an unmarked, cow-dung spattered, well-worn path through a farmer’s turnip patch and soon was halted by a US Air Force security policeman when he stepped into view from behind his guard post. With a friendly “Hello” he waved me on through the checkpoint. I noticed his unleashed sentr...
He Never Said a Word
- Get link
- X
- Other Apps
887th Tactical Missile Squadron Grünstadt, Pfalz, Germany 1964 About a half hour before the start of our 14 hour MGM13-A RFML night shift, the crew would assemble, usually at the launch site dining-hall, located outside the site's cantonment area. After an informal inspection we would take the walk from the dining-hall to our assigned launch control center for the upcoming shift. Our path to work would take us through the main gate and into the administration and barracks area. Further on passing the POL pad and maintenance area and to the first of the two controlled, personnel entry gates. After entry into the secure, live launch area we would show our proof of personal identity to the security policeman on duty, and he would issue us our personal launch center identification tags. After gaining entry into our assigned launch control center...