Minot AFB Welcome Sign, inside the front gate, August 1974

I am sure that I also took this during mom's visit, given the date on the photograph.

The entrance was to the right, and the BOQ buildings were to the left, if you kept following the main road.

Minot AFB

Darkness.
Without pairs of rolling lights from the main gate,
I would lose one way out to blindness.

If the only connection between Point Loma
and this base is mine, I am
no less free than I have been.

And since I never hear those dead,
or ever know a living thought
saving my own,
I have no communicating as others.
Worthlessly still I arrange
contact on paper.
Trying to continue through any interruption.

One, and then another day's distractions
prevent succeeding grief's reaction.
No scale or grid of suffering
(enough to realize what hurts
that any pain is well enough).

I know as much will remain
as sufficient to remember what was lost.
Of cities pushed from civilization
as they no longer link to provide.

---

Greg in the Camaro, Minot AFB main gate beyond

I am sure mom took this.  I'm at the wheel of the Camaro.  The front gate to Minot AFB is beyond.

I was at the base only a few days after Vandenberg when another Arab-Israeli conflict erupted.  Something happened late at night (I believe the Israelis had the Egyptian Army surrounded and the Soviets threatened the U.S. to call off the Israeli final attack so that the Egyptians could flee back across the Suez Canal).  Because of the Soviet threat, the missile crews were required to take out their launch keys and insert them into the launch panels.  Fortunately, the crisis passed, that step was rescinded, and the keys went back into their secure lock boxes.  But that incident inspired the following poem:

Nearing War

Yes,
even I question why all this is written,
but then in the early darkness of any day
a twisting of wrists...

We have been close.

While you sleep we could be shaking
a new world awake--
that uncovers countless
without protesting the transition.

Not even will exist an instant
long enough to add reacting thought to realization.
Only terror at the tip of burning winds
is recognized.

---

Anita and Greg at entrance to BOQ, Minot, August 1974

I'm wearing one of those color dress shirts that I had bought back in South Gate in 1970 or so.

I believe one of the guys in the BOQ let mom stay in his room during her visit while he was away.  She played pool at the Officer's Club where we usually had lunch and dinner.  Fine dining was non-existent in Minot.  The restaurant at the "O" Club was pretty good.  If you were an officer, you were strongly encouraged to become a member of the Officer's Club, which I gladly did.

For the first few months, most of us ate there all of the time.  But, as the time passed, we got tired of that and began to buy our own food and eat in our BOQ rooms with what we'd prepared in our kitchenettes.

I had bought an RCA TV set with a loan that I got from the Minot Credit Union where I had set up my checking account.  It used to be very cheap to have our rooms cleaned by the same cleaning service from the VOQ.  However, the rates began to go up so sharply that all of us cancelled what was the equivalent of daily room service.  I bought a portable vacuum cleaner--my room was a combination living room/bedroom anyway, not very large as you will eventually see.  The small bathroom had a tub/shower and a sink with a medicine chest/mirror but no vanity.  The kitchenette was also small with a small stove and fridge and sink.  So, there really wasn't that much to keep clean.

One year, unfortunately, the building quickly became overrun with silverfish.  North Dakota silverfish were like North Dakota mosquito's:  huge.  You would see them scurry into hiding in the kitchen.  In the middle of the night, you could see them gliding along the ceiling and walls.  It was scary they were so big. 

The Air Force scheduled a fumigation and that seemed to clear up the problem for good.

Shopping in Minot was also pretty limited.  The local K-Mart was a good as it got, and that was a 45 minute or more drive, on the south side of the town, whereas the base was a thirty minute drive north of Minot.  So, most of us shopped for groceries at the Commissary and any other goods at the Base Exchange where prices were lower than almost anywhere else.  And nothing was close to the Air Base anyway.

Launch Control Center

Keep us reaching away
from documents ordering us to war.
Run it farther off.
With those who so often know invasion,
will we suffer from distant relations
a final knowledge of conflict?

Amid heat and its quick corrosion,
if we arc retaliation
with our reach through the sky--
outflanking any naturally shielding snow--
will be meet them as we lie,
frozen in the instant
that revenge flashes and clouds;
layering the ill-natured
between recovering cold
and impotent green?

---

Mom and then me and the Oscar cook, August 1974

There's the basketball backboard in the background.

The Oscar cook, whose name I readily recall but will dispense with here for reasons that will soon become apparent, is out barbecuing lunch, a rare event.  This cook was a nice kid, but one night he exercised terrible judgment.  He and some friends had been out with some girls from Minot State College in downtown Minot.  The girls had to get back to their dorms by a certain hour or could face discipline.  The cook said that he could take care of that and called their dorm to make a bomb threat, figuring that that would alloow the girls to stay out later, without getting into trouble. 

Then wasn't today, but bomb threats were still taken very seriously, even if this was a fake threat.  The college authorities and the police figured that at least some of the girls in the dorm knew who had made the threat and, when confronted, they quickly confessed that it was this Air Force cook.  He was arrested quickly, and the Air Force immediately discharged him.  Later, I read in the local paper that while he was on a road gang, working off his lengthy sentence, he simply walked off.  He was soon caught and even more time was added to his sentence. 

He was a nice enough kid and was a decent enough cook.  But now his life was ruined and getting worse, all because he thought he could get away with something really stupid.  I always wondered what eventually happened to him and if he ever got paroled.

In a different vein, once when I had to go on alert the roads were so bad from snow that the Air Force flew all of the crews out on Huey helicopters.  We made a combat approach and landed on the Oscar helipad, just outside the main gate, partly visible in the first picture with mom and me . 

Each LCF had a helipad for emergencies, and they used to fly the crews out to alert all of the time.  But I was told there was a crash and loss of life, and with the added fuel expense of a helicopter vs a vehicle, the crews returned to going out on alert in Air Force Blue Chevy Suburban vans.  Now, I suppose they would be referred to as SUV's.


Alert

Even when a warming phase of world relations
pressures forth green and grain,
we drive the gray miles hard
and slow on the long, rural roads
that seem toward an end of the earth.

The intervals of cold that stiffen our movement
never delay, never delay.
In the capsules we are boring parallel
to this humming underground.
What we keep here is presence,
and the patience to replace.

---

Mom and Greg at Oscar LCC, August 1974

Mom flew up to Minot in August of 1974, my first summer as a Deputy Missile Combat Crew Commander (DMCCC).

Here we are at the Oscar Launch Control Facility (LCF).  Oscar is the missile site closest to Minot AFB, so this is where friends and family could be taken, as well as visiting dignitaries.  It was directly north of the front gate and took about a half hour to drive there.  There were a total of fifteen LCFs in the 91st Strategic Missile Wing (Alpha through Oscar).  Oscar was my first Launch Control Center (LCC) as a deputy crewed with Bill Graham. 

Most of the other LCFs were a hour's drive or more away from the main base.  The 15 LCF's and the 150 LF's (the launch facilities where the 150 individual missiles were connected to each LCC--ten directly to one LCC and 50 indirectly to the other four LCC's in a squadron) were no closer than ten nautical miles from each other.  All were typically farther than that from the main Minot AFB.  The missile fields with all 15 LCF's and 150 LF's were laid out in a huge horseshoe shape around Minot AFB.   Oscar's northern missiles were buried close to the Canadian border.  The missiles for Alpha and Beta were south of the town of Minot and about half-way to Bismark.

You cannot see it in this picture, but there is a basketball net to the left of those red and white posts in the background.  Bill and I were playing basketball one afternoon before we had to go back downstairs for our final night shift.  I wasn't paying attention when he tossed the ball at my face.  It hit and chipped a front tooth.

I remember when someone in the Wing mentioned that whenever anyone visited an LCC below ground, all of the visitors would appear to huddle near the center of the acoustic enclosure for fear that if they backed up against any of the humming equipment, ten missiles would launch.

No chance of that, but it all must have seemed intimidating to anyone unfamiliar with how it worked.

Conventional defensive philosophy was that the missiles were there to protect the nation, but that they were the primary targets of any Soviet First Strike missile launch.  However, in those days, the U.S. was always selling to the U.S.S.R. tons of wheat, wheat that was grown in North Dakota and elsewhere where the missiles were located.  Typical Soviet harvests were rarely enough to feed their growing populace, so they often turned to the United States.  In the following poem, I looked at the conventional philosophy the other way around, that the existence of the wheat growing all around actually was protecting the missiles:

To the Field
 
Where we arrange the targets
amid a food to feed our world.
Stubbornly we interval protected growth
through barren plants.
A dispersal
that is a lesser raging of weapons,
unharvested as sacred grain
for fear,
for hunger.

---

 

Playing tennis at Minot AFB, Summer 1974

Summer in North Dakota was often beautiful.  The weather was never too hot and a cool breeze typically blew, making it too cold for winter but pleasant for summer.  However, for the first couple of weeks of summer, the mosquito's were brutal.  If Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, North Dakota is the land of millions of stagnant ponds and pools of water.  Out of those countless pools and ponds came thousands upon thousands of mosquito's to bite anyone.

They were large, too.

In a half hour of playing tennis without OFF insect repellent that first summer on the tennis court, I had 20 mosquito bites on my legs and arms.  Literally, OFF repellent became my summer deodorant.  Until the Air Force got out and sprayed continuously far and wide around the base, everyone not protected was bitten repeatedly.  People joked that the mosquito was the state bird, they were so large (or the B-52 bomber was the state bird).  The state tree was the telephone pole.

On rare occasions, I might see a firefly at night.

Also in summer were the terrific thunderstorms that raged outside.  I wrote a poem about them:

North Dakota Thunderstorm

I understand now
the worship of weather.
I, who have no gods,
marvel at the display
and the stumbling ability
that seems to understand conclusions so firmly.

Yes, an unravelling power to rival our missiles.
Yet behind the most stubborn and rugged front,
there is no simple thought.
This opposition, a kind of force
to lean on for comfort,
you never think it brings relief;
off balance, but it works.
Releasing all other forces,
building elsewhere.

Summer was especially the time for picnics and barbeque's and folks growing gardens.

---

EC-121 at Wright-Patt, June 1974

When I was at OTS, we had an aircraft identification exercise just for fun in the classroom.  I was the only one able to identify an EC-121, the military modification of the Lockheed Constellation.

When we were ready to leave Wright-Patterson for Minot by civilian carriers, we had our loaded weapons to be concerned about.  I called the base and learned that I was supposed to have picked up two weapons boxes to ship the guns back to Minot.  I flat missed that part of the written instructions.

I had to call TWA to let them know what was going on.  They said it was all right as long as we kept the weapons, unloaded, in our checked bags.  Inside the plane, I sat at a window seat to ensure that my suitcase with the guns inside made it aboard without incident.

The whole flight back and the change of planes in Minneapolis to North Central Airlines was a bit nervous for me.  If the guns were somehow lost or stolen, it would be my head.

Fortunately, they arrived when we did, and the two of us checked them back in at the base armory, relieved.  Because nothing went wrong, this trip was a nice mark for my first Officer's Effectiveness Report.

---

Greg in front of missiles, Wright-Patt AFB, June 1974

It never seemed appropriate, when I was in uniform, than to strike any other than the same pose:  hands on hips.  Behind the Atlas is a Thor missile, I believe. The third one back may be a Titan.  And, the last, appears to be an earlier Atlas.

---

 

Greg and the B-70, Wright-Patterson AFB, June 1970

Love this picture.

In the background is an Atlas missile to the right of the picture.

---

B-70 bomber at Wright-Patterson AFB, June 1974

Runner-up favorite for me was the B-70 Valkyrie.  This is the only surviving aircraft with the other prototype having been run into by a chase plane when both crashed after the collision.

The Russian development of the MiG-25 fighter pretty much doomed the high and fast flying B-70.  Still, it was a beautiful design and a graceful and futuristic design.

---

B-58 Hustler, National Museum of the USAF, Wright-Patt AFB, June 1974

When you love airplanes, and you grew up with a father in the Air Force Reserves who subscribed to AIR FORCE magazine his whole life, you cannot help but develop favorites.  My favorite bomber was the B-58 Hustler.  My favorite fighters were the F-102 Delta Dagger and the F-106 Delta Dart.

After we arrived one day, we spent the night and were able to tour the museum the next day.  We left the following day, but not after I or the enlisted man for me, took several pictures.

---

On courier duty with a Top Secret "can", June 1974

Every now and then, a missile "can" with Top Secret data has maintenance issues.  It has to be removed from the missile itself and returned to Wright-Patterson AFB to be securely erased.  They cannot do it at the missile base.  So, typically, a junior officer is assigned to accompany the can along with an enlisted man.  Both are issued side arms for the trip.  This was just after I fnished my final missile training at Minot but may have been before I went on my first missile alert with Bill Graham.

Saturn Airways, using converted Lockheed Electras, was a contracted cargo carrier with scheduled flights across the Northern Tier of Air Force bases, linking them together.  This photograph was probably taken at Minot on the first leg of the trip.  We then flew on to Grand Forks AFB, then Duluth Air Force Station in Minnesota, next to Kinchlow AFB, K.I. Sawyer AFB and, finally, Wright-Pat in Ohio.  (The Electra may have arrived in Minot from Malmstrom AFB in Montana.)

At each stop, either myself or the enlisted man had to be up and keep an eye on the can as other cargo was loaded or unloaded en route, which lasted overnight and into the next day with all of the several stops along the way.

---

Greg at George Air Force Base, December 1973

This photograph was certain not taken with an Instamatic camera.  And it did not look like Minot AFB or even Vandenberg.  It was just out of order in my photo album.

I heard from Dennis Zito that his brother, David, was at George AFB, going through training as an F-4 backseater.  After mom and I returned to Southern California after OTS commissioning, I drove up to George AFB one late afternoon, arriving there in the evening.

I was in uniform, or course.  (It was tough to get me to take it off.)  We went to dinner at the Officer's Club.  One of David's friends noted my uniform and said, "You're proud of those brown bars?"

"Yes," I responded, not bothering to go into the details of how I had just managed to earn them.  The next morning, having stayed in David's room at the VOQ, or I could have gotten one of my own, David took this picture in the parking lot out front of the VOQ.  I believe that's his car in the foreground.

He had bought a pair of large Advent speakers, hence my purchase of them when I was at Vandenberg.  By the time I arrived at Vandenberg, David was already stationed elsewhere.

After this picture was taken, I then drove back to San Pedro.

I'd even gone to the Long Beach Naval Ship Yard Base Exchange and bought mom a few Christmas gifts, like a new set of cookware. 

Damn, I love being in the military.  (The photograph above had David's writing on the back, indicating when and where the picture was taken.  He must have mailed it to me after it was developed.)

---

 

Greg standing in front of BOQ, Minot AFB, North Dakota, April 1974

As I said, it would be more than three years before I would claim that room just behind me in this photograph.

Here I was, just six months out of OTS, at my first assignment as a 2nd Lieutenant.  I am smiling, of course, and was as thin as a rail in those days.  Not an ounce of fat, but after more than four years of eating poorly on alert and sitting on my posterior for hours at a time, I would get a bit chubby around the waist.

I think this picture was taken the day Tim and I arrived.  I got my uniform on and was headed to the Wing Building and my Squadron.  In one of the first monthly Squadron meetings I attended, Col. Kukowski, who would not remain as our Squadron Commander for too much longer, had me assigned as the Squadron Supply Officer, a position I would hold for the rest of my time in Minot.  It was my responsibility to make sure all new squadron officers would have their complete haul of cold weather gear soon after they arrived, especially if they arrived in winter, which was all but about three months out of each year.

In the first year or two that I went on alert, waves of crews went out twice a day, every other day.  One shift (designated A1) went out in the morning and relieved the night shift crew already on alert.  In the evening, the next shift (designated A2) went out to relieve the day shift.   The day shift would go topside and sleep in the crew quarters overnight, then relieve the night shift in the morning so that they could try and sleep during the day before returning to alert that night.  The relieved day shift would then return to base.  The night shift would return to base in the morning when relieved by the new day shift crew fresh from base.

These 36-hour alerts continued for a couple of years.  Then, the Air Force decided to save money by releasing as many missile officers who wanted an early out from the service.  Tim McConnell took advantage of this program.  For the crew members who remained such as me, they altered the requirement to allow one crew member per alert crew to be allowed to sleep at a time.  We would go out on alert in the morning and spend 24 hours on alert in the Launch Control Center, 60 feet beneath the earth.  The next morning we would be relieved by a new crew and would return to base.  There would be no more night shift crews and new crew sleeping in the crew quarters topside as a sort of standby. 

Twice before this new system was implemented, I was stuck on alert during a lengthy blizzard.  Once for four days and once for three and a half days.  Fortunately, we had a crew upstairs to relieve us and we could relieve them.  Every twelve hours we relieved one another, day after blizzard day.  By the final day, all of us were getting blurry-eyed and senseless.  Four consecutive days downstairs, with no other crew to relieve us, and the Wing staff might have had to lock us up.   

OK, just to clear this up to begin with, crews always slept on alert, one crew member at a time.  Yes, it was illegal or unauthorized and certainly frowned upon, at least officially.  But this was an early version of "Don't Ask' Don't Tell."  Nobody asked if any crew members slept on alert, and nobody told that they slept on alert.  Except in the very beginning of a new, or temporary, crew pairing.

My first crew commander was William Graham from South Carolina.  He was sharp.  But he also had a few enemies on the evaluation staff and that would soon impact me.  However, if there were an alert that he could not make, I was assigned to a temporary crew commander for that single alert.  Usually on the drive out, that new crew partner would casually ask, "Does Bill sleep on alert?"  He would not ask me directly if I slept on alert, just Bill.  By implication, if I confirmed that Bill slept on alert, that meant I did, too.  (As the deputy, you got the first sleep shift, always the hardest because you had to sleep first and then get up at about 1:00 AM and take the watch until the relief crew arrived in the morning.)

There were already "racks" in the LCC from the old days when crew discipline was much more lax.  What goes around usually comes around again.  One crew member at a time could sleep in the old days; and, toward the end of my tour in Minot, one crew member at a time could sleep on alert once again--legally.  This time around, they installed special tamper seals over the launch panels so you could tell if someone were trying to tamper with those panels while the other crew member was asleep.  But when we thought about this, it was all a bit insulting. 

We were all part of the Human Reliability Program, so our patriotism and integrity should not have been questioned.  But the Air Force felt it needed to offer proof to outsiders that nothing untoward was going on by one crew member when the other was sound asleep.  (The only commander I was temporarily crewed with who told me he did not sleep on alert went to his front crew chair when we arrived in the launch "capsule," sat down, opened a book, and promptly closed his eyes and slept.  He didn't use the bed; but he slept nonetheless, not much of a distinction to my lights.)

Believe me, as a deputy and then as a combat crew commander, had I been paired with someone I did not trust, I would not have slept on alert, even if I were allowed to.  We were both armed, although you could each hang your .45 holster up when the blast door was closed and it was just the two of you down there together. 


Missile Combat Crewman

Feeling more secure than any other living,
I have been where sun and moon
draw from the sea a motion
wearing the touching death edge of Point Loma

As far as I could be a Marine,

I shared enough to feel an equal
but declined to be complete.
I thought to save lives,
but the Coast Guard never chose me.
So I pound no earth and no surf.

I am from all that,
well beyond and beneath.
Underground is a new inspiring,
a source of unleashing to multiplied--
nearly absolute efficient.

I am one at the consoles,
and as others,
I await.

---

---

Jim in front of the BOQ in Minot, April 1974

I first met Jim (Hunter?) in the VOQ when I arrived at Minot the first time in January.  He also now had a room in the BOQ and was helping me move some of my things from the car into my quarters, which were in the middle of the first floor on the back (east) side of that building.

There were two other types of bachelor quarters.  To the left of this picture out of frame were the two-man rooms that later became one-man rooms because they only contained one bath room.  It was decided in the next year that each officer should have his own bathroom.  The four-man quarters that are in the background of the previous picture were designated to be two-man rooms since each half, while it may have had two bedrooms, only had one bathroom between them.

I preferred not to have to share my space anyway, even though in the quarters above while I would have my own bathroom, each pair of rooms between the two entrance doors had to share a kitchen.

On each end of the building, you can see double windows and a then single window.  Those quarters had a separate living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom (the other rooms were a combination bedroom/living room).  Mostly captains were able to apply for and, based on seniority, get those separate rooms.  Eventually, a few months before I left Minot, I acquired the one that you can see this side of the entrance door.  Someone had put luminous stars on the ceiling which softly glowed at night.

Some officers chose to live off base in Minot because the BOQ, after the change of bathroom policy, was usually full, and they could get an off-base housing allowance.  One of my missile training classmates, Fred Tate, bought a trailer in the on-base trailer park.  After four years of making payments, the trailer was usually paid for and you could then sell it to someone else, making a tidy profit. 

---

Tim and Greg finally arrive at Minot, April 1974

All is well, as someone takes our picture for us when we finally pulled into one of the BOQ parking lots after our long journey from Vandenberg, several days earlier. 

The day before, we were still driving across Montana and then North Dakota.  As night fell, we were still cruising along a modern highway across southern North Dakota.  Possibly out of boredome, Tim kept pulling off the road and into several rest stops along the way, not even slowing down and certainly not stopping.  He would then lurch back out and onto the freeway.  One time was slightly amusing.  Twice and then three times was getting annoying.

We finally had to stop for the night in Bismark, a couple of hours south of Minot.  I had already called the Squadron and explained that I would be one day late and was chided just a bit by Colonel Kukowski, the Squadron Commander.   I had already eaten into my leave so that I would not have any days off for several months to come.

That morning, Tim had left an early wake up call with the front desk of the motel.  However, when the phone rang, I had to get up and answer it.  He still soundly slept.  I called out to him to get up, but still he slept away.  Finally, out of frustration, I hurled a pillow at this head.  He then woke up but loudly barked back at me for tossing the pillow.  I then barked at him.

At breakfast, I then gave him the silent treatment.  All of these hissy fits by both of us was definitely because of the many frustrations that had built up on the long drive through several wide Western states.  But now, in the photo above, we were finally at our home for the next four plus years.  By this time, I would have my own BOQ room, which made me feel even more at home.

---

Greg near the Grand Tetons, April 1974

Earlier that year, when I was in Minot, one of the guys in my squadron strongly suggested that, on my drive back to Minot, I should go through Yellowstone National Park.  But as you can see from the photograph above, while the suggestion was a good one, it was a bad one for this time of year.  Too much snow.

We headed past Jackson Hole and then continued into the Park.  However, the road began to narrow because of the amount of snow all around.  Finally, at a filling station that was not open, the road ended.  This was as far as it was plowed.  A few dogs came out and barked at us when we were forced to turn around and retrace our route.  We lost several hours going this way.

The best we could figure, looking at our maps, was to go west and then north, around the Park on the Utah side, to Montana.  The roads were littered with pot holes, making for a very frustrating drive; and it was at night.  We stopped at one west entrance to the Park to pee on a snow bank (there was no open restroom), and Tim used a phone booth to call his family.  Then we drove on to Montana, found a motel late at night, and stayed there, realizing that we were well behind when we needed to get to Minot.

We were starting to get frustrated by the delays and all of the extra driving we'd had to do.

Greg near Lake Tahoe, April 1974

Again, as in the earlier pictures, I am wearing another of those pull-over shirts.  And bell bottom Levi's.

---

Tim McConnell near Lake Tahoe, April 1974

I believe that's Lake Tahoe in the background. 

This is still during our second leg of the trip, before we reached Salt Lake City late at night.  I took a few pictures through the windshield along the way because we had too far to travel and could not afford to stop very often.

---

Greg in the Sierras, April 1974

After we spent a day or two visiting Aunt Jean and Uncle Lloyd in the Bay Area, we started our long drive to Minot.  We headed up through the Sierras, past Tahoe, and then across Utah, arriving outside of Salt Lake City late at night, staying at a motel.

The picture above was probably taken when there was an accident ahead of us and traffic was backed up and stopped for several minutes.  Before taking this picture, I think Tim and I tossed a Frisbee around while we waited.

---

Tim McConnell and friend, April 1974

Tim McConnell is on the left, and his friend from Vandenberg is on the right.  Both, as you can see, are wearing bell bottoms.  It was the 1970's after all.

They might have been roommates in the barracks.  Tim's friend, however, was assigned to a different missile base than Minot.  I think it was Whiteman in Missouri.

After the Cold War, which, especially during the 1970's, we thought would never end, two of the missile bases have been closed, Grand Forks AFB in North Dakota and Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota.  Minot AFB, Whiteman AFB, Francis E. Warren AFB, and Malmstrom AFB are still active.

The Titan missile bases were the first to go.  The Peacekeeper missiles were retired in the 2000's.  Only Minuteman III missiles, which we were trained to monitor and launch, are still at all of the remaining bases.

Minot and Grand Forks were the two least favorite assignments for most of their existence because they were in North Dakota and far from any place entertaining to visit, though after a long drive you could reach Minneapolis from Grand Forks.  F.E. Warren in Wyoming, not that far from Colorado, and Whiteman, in Missouri, were much more desired locations to be stationed. 

I obviously did not care.  Minot was fine with me.  Here I would make my career.  I was sorry to have to leave Southern California, but the gasoline crisis made living there difficult, that year anyway.

---

Greg and the '73 Camaro, Vandenberg AFB, Spring 1974

 

I am wearing another of those pullover shirts.  This is the parking lot in front of a few of the barracks where we missile trainees lived while learning all about missiles in classrooms and in the missile procedures trainers on base.

Vandenberg was a marvelous base to be stationed at.  Without the gasoline crisis, I could have driven home every weekend, but I still was able to go home more often than not.

I brought up all of my possessions, books and record albums.  I intended to drive my Camaro back to Minot and have the Air Force ship all my stuff to Minot from Vandenberg. 

I had read about the Wherehouse stereo equipment store in electronics magazines.  They were located in San Luis Obispo.  One of the guys I was in training with and I decided to drive over there and each purchase four large Advent speakers.  We removed the back seat of the Camaro for more room, just in case.

In their boxes the speakers were even larger.  We managed to fit three into the trunk.  More went into the now-removed back seat area.  We had already moved the seats as far forward as we were able.  One of us had to carry the final boxed speaker in his lap. 

Since I could no longer fit behind the wheel, and since he was smaller than I, he drove and I tried to look out the side mirror on the passenger's side while he used the side mirror on the driver's side any time we needed to change lanes.  With a speaker box in my lap, I could not move, and the rear-view mirror was blocked by the four speakers piled high in the back seat area.  We were fortunate that we did not get a ticket.

I set up the system in my barracks room.  I remember listening to Joni Mitchell's newest album, COURT AND SPARK, testing the limits of the system with "Car on a Hill" and "Help Me".

When missile school was finally over, Tim McConnell and I decided to drive to Minot together, he in his blue Maverick and me in my maroon Camaro.

We spent the first night staying with Aunt Jean and Uncle Lloyd in San Leandro, CA, driving over to San Francisco for dinner in Fisherman's Wharf.  The following day, we took off north and east.

---

Ann and Greg on the rocks near Vandenberg AFB, March 1974

This visit was likely over a weekend.  They may have driven up on a Saturday and left on a Sunday.

---

Ann, Greg, Mom, Vandenberg AFB, March 1974

We took several pictures that cloudy day at the beach, not far from Vandenberg AFB where I was undergoing missile training in the spring of 1974.  Probably March through May.  About the same time of year that, two years earlier, I was at Marine OCS in Virginia.

This is one of those little excursion when mom and Ann likely drove up from L.A. to visit that I would not have remembered had we not taken several pictures.  I also cannot tell who might have taken this picture.

Most of the other photographs from that day are of Ann and me, or Ann and mom, or mom and me.

---

Two pics of those short-sleeved dress shirts, 1970's

The first picture might have been taken near Marineland on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.   The blue shirt with the wide collar was just one of several.  The next picture is at the Lompoc Airport, not far from Vandenberg Air Force Base, where I was stationed for missile training in the spring of 1974.  I am also wearing one of the light jackets I also bought from the same store.  Again, I owned several, each with a single, solid color.

Along with the bright red dress shirt, I am wearing a colorful pair of checked bell bottom pants.  Pat Byrne could pull off such pants, but I wasn't always sure I could.

Mom might have flown up to visit.  A DeHaviland Dove is in the background.  I took one of those planes from LAX to Lompoc myself.  I don't even recall the name of the commuter airline that served the area.

Since I left my Camaro at mom's when I flew up to Minot the first time, I was able to drive it all during missile training.  Only then, when the training was over, did I then drive it to Minot.

The only problem I did have that spring of 1974 was the gasoline shortages that plagued the nation in those many months following another Mideast crisis, this time when the Saudis shut off the oil because of U.S. support for Isreal. 

California dealt with the shortage by having restricted even- and odd-day gasoline purchases.  If your license plate ended in an even number, you could only get gas on even numbered days.  Unfortunately, on the weekends, when I drove down to Southern California from Vandenberg,  I found it more and more difficult to get gasoline for the trip back to the base.  Most stations were not even open on Sundays as the shortages continued and even widened.

I would drive down on a Friday evening, and then get up early on Saturday morning and hunt for gas.  One weekend, I simply could not find an open station that had any fuel.  I drove back to Vandenberg on fumes, finding one station at the last moment.

The next weekend, I just stayed on the base.  I did not want to have to go through that ordeal again.

---

 

Ann and Greg, early 1970's, Southern California

These were from sometime during the early to mid-1970's.  I cannot say whether I was in the Air Force or not when these were taken--they were in mom's photo albums but, rare indeed, they have no writing on the backs of either one. 

The first is likely from the parking lot of the Del Amo Mall.  Mom's 1968 blue Ford Galaxy is behind us.  When mom was on her trip to Europe, I drove that car with Mike down to San Diego a couple of times in 1970.  It road so beautifully, much more comfortably than my 1966 Ford Mustang.

The second photograph is likely from Frontierland in Disneyland.  Ann has her Karen Carpenter look going on in both.  I am wearing the same brown pullover shirt with the white stripes in each one.

Daylin became friends with a guy who managed a modestly sized men's clothing boutique not far from Daylin's house.  I believe it was off Bullus Road.  I later learned that the guy had paid a doctor to provide fake medical documents that allowed him to avoid the draft and military service in Vietnam.

The clothing store carried all kinds and colors of these short-sleeved pullover shirts.  By the time I was in the Air Force, I had already acquired many of them a few years earlier; and so pictures of me in the 1970's wearing one or another of those shirts are prevalent.  I am the type who buys a bunch of new clothes at one time and then keeps them nice for years.  Sometimes, I would wear them long after they were no longer in fashion--most especially 1970's garish pants.

When I arrived at the Academy in 1978, and my neighbor and I attended a private party given by one of the other members of the English Department, I was told that my bright maroon corduroy pants and green shirt were quite out of date and a real fashion, and color mismatched, faux pas.

I also bought a slew of the short sleeve dress shirts from the same guy, again in several bright colors.  So, if I am not wearing one of those pullover shirts, I am wearing one of those dress shirts.

---

Christmas 1973 and Christmas 1974, San Pedro, CA

As I mentioned before, after I left for OTS, mom finally moved out of the rented house in South Gate to San Pedro, nearer the water where she had always wanted to live. 

The house where she moved was the left side of a long duplex on a deep lot.  The owners lived in the right half.  The unit had a long hallway to the bathroom.  I quickly joked that if one had to go, one needed to start out early since, by the time one arrived, one really had to go.  The unit had a bedroom in the back next to the bathroom that mom used, and another halfway down the hallway, used as a den and a guest bedroom.

Regarding the two pictures above, in the one on the left, I am wearing my new Air Force uniform with the long winter coat.  This must have been a morning after Christmas and New Year's when I left from LAX via Denver for Minot (note the absense of presents under the tree).  While the coat may look warm, it was entirely insufficient for North Dakota I would soon learn later that same day.

Missile school wasn't for a couple of months after OTS graduation, so I could not stay much longer in San Pedro because I had accured very little leave.  So, I needed to report to Minot soon.  I believe that I arrived on January 3rd.  When the exit door to the Frontier 737 flight opened up and I stood in the doorway, ready to descend the mobile ramp, I was blasted by the intense cold.  A breeze always seemed to blow there, adding to the wind chill.  It was definitely well below zero that day, even with the sun shining brightly.  Unfortunately, my suitcase did not make the connection in Denver since I had to transfer from either United Airlines or Continental Airlines to Frontier.

This was the first time that I made that change of planes in Denver, the first of many such transits there.  But, fortunately, this was the only time while I was stationed in Minot that my bag did not make the connecting flight with me.  I was able to catch the Air Force shuttle bus from the airport to the base and immediately checked into the Visiting Officer's Quarters (VOQ).  After checking in, I took another base bus to get to the Wing Building and checked in with my Squadron, the 742nd, whose color was blue.

The next morning, I had to hike from the VOQ to the dispensary, to catch the bus to the airport to retrieve my suitcase, which had arrived on that morning flight from Denver.  I dressed as warmly as I could in that long Air Force coat, but I was freezing before I got halfway to the dispensary (all I had to cross was the VOQ parking lot, one street, and the dispensary parking lot; but the wind was blowing strongly and the wind chill was considerably colder).  I passed someone wearing a parka, hood covering his or her head, who saluted me.  I returned the salute and kept walking, grateful at having finally reached the dispensary while my ears and nose were still attached.  (I didn't as yet have any long underwear either, my cold weather clothing issue not coming for another day or so.)

The picture above on the right is also in the rented San Pedro house; but as you can see, while the drapes are the same, and the TV is off to the right side of each picture, the two Christmas trees are entirely different.  So, this had to be the next holiday season.  Mom was only able to live in that house for a couple of years.  The couple that owned it had a daughter who married; and she and her husband wanted to move in, so mom had to move out. 

She found another rented house to move into that was rather old, having possibly been built in the 1920's, or earlier.  She did not live there that long before moving into another house, this one on a corner lot.  After she had had her first open heart surgery, she went on disability for the remainder of her life and was soon able to move into a senior housing high rise, overlooking the harbor.  From her balcony on the 10th floor, you could see one end of Catalina Island to the West.  You could also see ships arriving and departing from the harbor, their fog horns announcing their arrivals and departures.  She would live in that same apartment for the next twenty-five years until we were forced to place her in an assisted living complex a few miles away in 2002.

Unfortunately, she had already deteriorated enough that even this arrangement was insufficient.  Ann finally had to transfer her to a nursing home back in Maryland, to be near her.  She lived for approximately two months before dying of congestive heart failure in June of that year.  At this point she was 80, having endured those two open heart surgeries, one in the mid-1970's, the other in the early 1990's.  She would not have survived a third.

But that was all ahead of us, twenty-five years in the future.

---

Thank you!

Taking a break from my "Photographs of You and Me" series for a moment here, I wanted to thank one of you followers of my blog for going onto amazon.com and ordering all eight volumes of the Rainbow Arc of Fire series of paperback books.

Amazon.com just sent me an email early this morning to order replacement copies for their inventory.  This obviously means that, instead of cancelling the series in paperback on their site, with this new order by one of you, they will likely maintain an inventory for the foreseeable future.  (They do not make it easy to get cancelled books returned, and I was rather saddened by the thought that their inventory of my books was going to be destroyed rather than, at the very least, given away.)

Rainbow Arc of Fire has always been a cottage industry for me for all of these years of its existence, and certainly a labor of love for every one of those years.  After the initial conclusion of the Tales of the City series (which Armistead Maupin has renewed twice now with Michael Toliver Lives! and Maryann in Autumn) , and with the passage of Amendment 2 in 1992, in Colorado, I always felt compelled to write RAoF.  What you see here is the direct result of that compulsion.

These characters seemed destined to come into existence, and I often felt like a midwife, responsible for their emergence but not entirely in control of how it all turned out.  Much like a medium being spoken through by the spirit world, I felt these characters appeared to be writing their own adventures as dictation.  I was Dr. Watson to their Sherlock Holmes.

From 1994 until well into the 2000's, I worked on one volume and then another, not really certain when the series might conclude.  The flier above is the one Anita, my visual and cover artist, created after the first six volumes were completed. 

Obviously, four more volumes were to come after those first six.  Fortunately, David Small created this blog for me to keep the series alive.  And, apparently, one of you readers did want to see the paperback books remain available on amazon.com.  For that I am profoundly grateful.

For all of you who follow this blog, I am also grateful.  While I may have had a somewhat typical existence for the past 62 years, my life, like all of your lives, like the lives of everyone else on this planet, is unique.  One of a kind.  Exactly like no other.  A snowflake.

By reading my blog and/or buying my books, whether in paperback or as Kindle Editions, you touch my life in return.  Just as all of those individuals who are in these many photographs that I continue to post touched my life, people weave in and out of our lives all of the time.  They all leave an impression on us, even if, years later, we do not always remember their names or, perhaps, never learn their names in the first place.     

---

 

Mom removing my shoulder boards, December 5, 1973

Mom was wearing her un-PC fur coat that day because it was probably chilly.  Linda must have taken this picture of mom removing my shoulder boards after commissioning.

A few minutes later, we all departed with our friends and family members.  Many of us had promised to get our first salute from an enlisted man who worked weekends at the OTSOM, serving dinner and drinks to us trainees for so many weeks.

I sought him out, he gave me my first salute as an officer, and I reached into my pocket to give him the obligatory $1 bill.  Unfortunately, klutz that I am, I grabbed a $20 bill by mistake.  He laughed and recoiled when I went to hand it to him, now realizing my error.  I fished back into my pocket and found the $1 bill that I'd put there deliberately, a bit embarrassed.  I am sure he told that story for years afterwards.

I cannot imagine that giving only a dollar to the first person who salutes you as a new officer is sufficient remuneration anymore.

Mom and I drove around Lackland mainside after graduation.  She wanted to see the Officer's Club that she had remembered so fondly from almost thirty years previously.  She wanted to see the wooden wall where they had all carved their names or initials years earlier after the long war was over and they'd all survived.

We found the club, though it may not have looked quite as it once did to her; but the wall inside was long since gone.  Nobody we asked even knew about any such wall.  All the fun that she and my dad and their fellow officers and wives must have had so many years ago had been erased by the passage of time.

After that unsuccessful search for her past, we left the base.  We had dinner that night at the HemisFair Park, in the Tower of the Americas revolving restaurant at the top.  We spent the night at a nearby La Quinta Inn, where I called USAA Insurance Company the following morning and became a member.

That next morning, we drove off west.  I don't recall if we stayed at a motel somewhere between San Antonio and Riverside, CA.  We did get to Riverside late at night.  I dropped mom off at Mrs. Daly's house.  (She and her husband Dan had divorced several years before.  A male friend was with her and, when I left mom with them to spend the night, the two of them already sounded drunk.)  I drove to the University, found Darryl Butler, and he let me sleep in an empty dorm room that night.

It was to his dorm I went months before after my Air Force physical at March AFB when my eyes were dilated and I could not drive home to South Gate that day.

---

Linda and I standing in front of the stands, OTS, December 5, 1973

Mom may have missed the hat toss, but she caught this shot perfectly.  Friends and family are meeting up with their newly commissioned officers, Linda is looking back and me, smiling, and I am looking up at mom, grinning.  It was a wonderful day.  We still have not yet removed our shoulder boards, but we're done. 

She had this picture, as well as the next one, enlarged.  That was appropriate because this was one of the finest days of my life and this was the finest moment of that day.

---

After dismissal and the hat toss

Mom was just a few moments late taking this picture.  After we are administered the oath of office, we are then told, "Ladies and gentlemen, you are dismissed."  That's the signal to toss our hats in the air in celebration.  Mom missed the hat toss and caught all of us scrambling to find our hats so we could say our final goodbyes and leave. 

---

Marching Past the review stand and then taking the oath

In the first picture, we're marking past the review stand while everyone stands.  In the second picture, we are probably taking the oath of office from the general.

---

OTS Graduation Program, December 5, 1973

Inside on the second page, we are Class 74-06; however, on the first page with our names listed, we are Class 74-07.  I think we were 74-06.

---

 

Parade Field and Reviewing Stand, OTS Graduation, December 5. 1973

It was a cloudy day, but the rain held off.  Mom took pictures of the flights on the parade grounds and the reviewing stand where the higher ups and their families sat. 

This is what the program said:  "Graduation Parade and Commissioning Ceremony Class 74-06 - School of Military Sciences, Officer Lackland Training Annex Parade Ground Thursday, 5 December 1973.

Adjutant's Call        1030

Oath of Office

                                Brigadier General Cecil E. Fox
                                Commander
                                School of Military Sciences, Officer

---

George Tucker and I shaking hands afterwards

This picture mom took after we were commissioned.  Nancy, with her back to the camera, and Linda look on.

George and I had met back in California before either of us had even met up in El Paso, TX, for the final leg of the drive to San Antonio.  The two of us and the other two guys from CA stayed in a motel the night before we reported.  George and I were in the same flight during the first six weeks of OTS.  We were in the same flight through FSP.  And we assigned to the same flight after we left FSP and became upperclassmen.  Now, we had just been commissioned together.

In all, we'd been through fifteen weeks of training together, starting in August in the heat and humidity of Texas.  Now it was December 5th.  He would go on to pilot training, and I dn't recall to which base he was assigned.  I would go home on leave and then report to Minot before returning to California and missile training at Vandenberg AFB north of Santa Barbara.  I am not certain that I would ever hear from George or see George again, our careers took such different paths.

The only OTS trainee I would see again was Bruce Culp from my Marine OCS days.  He would go through missile training but flunk out.  (I doubt if he really wanted to be a missile officer.)  He then was able to get into Air Force security police, becoming a "Sky Cop" in Minot, of all places.  We lived in the same dorm building there for a few years.

One other interesting Marine connection also occurred.  I learned that Marine Cadet Palms, who had left Marine OCS after six weeks along with John Ormbrek, turned up at Air Force OTS when I was an upperclassman.  We spent an evening at the OTSOM.  He'd been prior service Air Force.  Again, that was the last I saw of Palms.

I don't recall where many of my flight mates ended up.  Mel Kaya, my roommate in the final three weeks was in Columbus, Ohio.  I chatted with him one afternoon when I was there, delivering a top secret missile "can".  I believe that Linda was stationed there, too, but I was unable to locate her.

Since several of the others were either prior service or pilots, none of them ended up at a base like Minot, and so we all lost track of one another after this day.

But that was all in the near and distant future.  This day, like George and I getting as close to hugging one another as men got in 1973, we were all overjoyed to be in one another's company one last time.

---

Mom pins on my gold bars. OTS graduation, Dec 5, 1973

They had us get our gold bars pinned on in the classroom rather than out on the parade field.  Here is the picture of mom doing so.  I am certain that being at San Antonio again, nearly thirty years after she and dad were there brought back a flood of memories for her. 

Our flight commander gave us the oath of office: 

"I, (officer trainee), having been appointed a second lieutenant, United States Air Force, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God."

Twice during OTS, homosexuality came up.  Once, during the first weeks with my first flight, we were each sent to the head Chaplain of the base for an orientation.  Whether he realized that I was gay or not, or if it were merely part of his usual speech to each individual trainee, he mentioned that you only discuss certain issues with a Chaplain and those remarks would remain confidential.  Most importantly he mentioned homosexuality.  If you told anyone else, it would not be confidential, and you would get in trouble.

A few years later when I was teaching at the Academy and my friend Mike Durr was at OTS as a flight commander, I visited him and his family there.  One cadet, under suspicion for homosexuality, and having just been commissioned, was forced to wait at OTS until the investigation concluded.

The second instance of the mention of homosexuality occurred a few days after I left the FSP program.  A 1st lieutenant or junior captain was working on a psychological study regarding why some trainees failed FSP.  So, I was called into his office and interviewed.  At one point in the conversation, and I could see this question coming, he asked if I had ever had any homosexual relations.  He did not ask if I were a homosexual.  So, I was able to reply that I had not.  He noted my reaction to the question and asked, "You seemed surprised by that question."  I cooly responded, "I was surprised that you asked that question.  I haven't had any but the question surprised me."  He seemed to smile to himself, appeared to write something down, and then continued onto a different line of questions.

I never heard any more about his study.  And I doubt if he was able to come to any consistent conclusions regarding why some trainees flunk out of FSP and others do not.  Knowing gay pilots over the years, even gay Air Force pilots, that certainly does not provide any kind of impediment to succeeding at pilot training, obviously.

Regarding this day, we put our shoulder boards back on over our new gold bars.  It was only after the parade and commissioning ceremony would those boards finally come off.  Many more people were there to see the ceremonies at the parade ground than could have fit into our classrooms, so they wanted to preserve the illusion that those at the parade grounds were witnessing our official swearing in.

---

The classroom, OTS, Dec 5, 1973

You can see all of the model planes hanging from the ceiling.  In the upper left is Linda's "Strawberry Bitch" which she had painted an unlikely pink.  She told us that there was a B-17 named just that in WWII, but I somehow doubt it was pink.

I think we are getting ready for the ceremony.

---

Roommate, me, Nancy, Jim Thompson, classroom, Dec 5, 1973

The guy on the left was my roommate for three weeks after I returned from FSP but before we became upperclassmen.  He was a good athlete with a strong arm for playing one-pitch softball.  He could easily hit home plate with a throw from the outfield.  But even looking at all the names in the graduation program, I don't as yet recall his name.  In the group photo before, you cannot even see his name tag.  He was prior-service army, I believe.

Nancy is standing in front of me, and Jim Thompson has his arms folded.  As I said, we were standing around, waiting for the commissioning to begin.

The model plane above were constructed by some of us for extra credit.

---