Thomas Worthington Brundige IV, in my BOQ room

Tom lived down toward the south end of the hall.  He was, like Roger Benninger, a T-33 pilot with the Spittin Kittens Air Defense Command unit at Minot.  He was an Academy grad and a remarkable pilot, according to Roger.  He also played a nice guitar.

Behind him are the pennants of every NFL team at the time.  On the bathroom door is the Superbowl poster.  I had a ticket to that game and went.  That was the Raiders vs the Vikings.  In retrospect, the halftime show was so lame compared to these days.  I think my end zone seat was $30.  This was my second Superbowl.  I still maintained my Rams season ticket until they moved to Anaheim in the 1990's.  Mom went to the games that I could not attend.  I usually timed my visits to Southern California so that I could at least see a couple of home games each fall.

Also behind Tom was one of my four large Advent speakers.  It was THE ABSOLUTE SOUND that advocated a "double Advent" speaker system.  You set a pair beside each other and the sound was even more impressive.  Also, of course, in that era was Quadrophonic sound.  Few were overly impressed, and it was a technology that died.

Tom later was training to become an F-15 pilot.  He developed an in-flight emergency and when he went to bailout was killed--somewhat like the backseater in TOP GUN.  Roger was crushed that his good friend died so young, someone who was a marvelous pilot.

I believe that the poem I wrote about him is posted earlier in this blog, but I will post it again.  He always like the Simon & Garfunkel song, "Only Living Boy in New York" because it refers to "Tom get your plane right on time."

Eager to Fly
                                                  Captain Thomas Worthington Brundige IV,
                                                  F-15 pilot and our friend.

Fall is the wary promises
winter wearily disappoints.

And though we
are also temporarily assigned,
his aborted flight still grieves us
as our own.

He ejected into what we train
might be survival, might be safety;

escape is only a chance,

and a possible intercept,
so he kept ascending.

What matter the expense,
technology fails us,
and when it eludes,
we are all victim.

Like an Academy falcon
flown too far,
he exceeds that obscure horizon
where eyes and instruments cannot go.

But the mind succeeds after what is taken;
we land what the great blue stole;
as often as we want when we journey,
our time together and Tom enfold.

---

Tim McConnell in my dorm room, Minot AFB

A Star Trek TOS calendar on the door.  A Peanuts poster on the closet door.  Tim McConnell sitting on one of those Oak chairs that the BOQ was famous for.  All of the Air Force issue furniture was the same heavy Oak style.  It could have survive a nuclear blast.  Tim could be reading an issue of THE ABSOLUTE SOUND.

Tim lived directly above my dorm room.  He shipped out most of his Oak furniture and bought a convertible sofa so that when his girlfriend visited, they could sleep together.  The Oak beds were only singles.  Some guys bought water beds, the latest rage.

I wrote this poem when Tim took the early out program and left Minot.  He was one of the few left who had been at Vandenberg missile training with me in the spring of 1974:

Fall Again at Minot

                                          For Tim McConnell

On fields that wait for winter
no promises remain.
My four years end next May.
I can stay no longer--
this duty wears me away.
Crews are rearranged;
I am sent again to other capsules,
so there is no change.
I live for the time when my tour ends
(a hostage now as your protection).

There are others who know know as I,
as most of you do not,
how lonely a man becomes
buried with these machines.
I know all noises and their meaning;
Never need to look for sources,
as each is too familiar to me now.
Responding to one another with no surprises,
we opposing vibrations
hum and rattle together
without sympathy.

---

Greg and his Camaro and Peugeot bike, BOQ parking lot

I loved that car and that bike.  I may have bought the Peugeot in the summer of 1974, or 1975, or 1976.  The light blue jacket was one that I bought in 1970 or 1971 from the men's clothing boutique in South Gate.

---

Greg in his dorm room, circa 1976

I had forgotten all about this shelf, the first one the friend in the bungalows built for me.  Atop are the three flags--U.S., U.N., and Soviet-- I bought when Pat Byrne and I went to the UN while I visited him in NYC. probably in 1976. 

I am going to put all of the dorm room pictures next because I am not always certain when I took some of them.  You can also see the L.A. Rams pennant on the wall at the top.  I was also in my NFL football phase.

Regarding the stereo components, I was always selling one or more off and then buying something to replacing them with someone newer.  I subscribed to the elite stereo review magazine THE ABSOLUTE SOUND, a cottage publication.  They were much more accurate and critical than STEREO REVIEW.

Some of the components I bought second-hand from an audiophile, Dave Morris, in the other BOQ building. 

---

BOQ parking lot and BOQ, circa 1975

Sometime in 1975, I got a beautiful Canon camera through David Zito who was in the Far East for one assignment.  It may have been around $350.00, pricey for those days but well worth it.  I started taking color slides in addition to photographs.  Here are two slides.

---

BOQ room, Minot AFB, December 1974

My room was in the lower left of the picture, right above the building heating system.  In winter it could get way too hot.  I would have to leave the window open a crack to get some air; otherwise, I would be totally dried out by morning.  A friend, Verne Weber, who lived down the hall initially said he coped with the dry air by leaving glasses of water around his room to evaporate and provide a bit of moisture.  These day you could certainly buy a humidifier.

I lived in that room through 1977, I believe, about a year before I left Minot in June of 1978.  During the only blizzard during which I was not stuck out on alert was fine being here with my TV and my music.  During another snow storm, not quite a blizzard, improbably there was lightning.  The low clouds and snowfall caused the lightning to make aqua flashes of light amidst the clouds.

Another friend in the BOQ, over in the bungalows, built two large record shelves for me to hold my expanding collection.  He also built a beautiful wooden stand with wheels to contain my stereo system.

One summer, I got some dependent kids in trouble.  They went down the stairs and into the heating equipment room.  I had no idea that they were down there to smoke pot.  I thought they were just there to cause mischief, so I called the Security Police.  They came and hauled them off.  I only later learned that they were just there to hide out and puff away.

---

Stands of trees to the east of the BOQ, Minot AFB, 1974-5

The top picture was probably taken through my BOQ room window.  The other from outside the building.  Every morning when I woke up, I would pull back the drapes and see these trees.  Well beyond them in the distance is the front gate to the base.

---

Professional photograph 1974-5

I believe I had these made for the parents.  By December of 1975, I was promoted to 1st lieutenant; so this had to be taken between 1974-5.

When I look back at all of my Air Force photographs, I am surprised at the length of my hair.  I guess we could wear it longer than I remembered, and certainly much longer than in the Marines.

The Last War Like

Sparks
                  crossing silent
                                              skid the air...

We are the chance for war
and imagine some, or maybe all of us,
gone in his own glory
blazing.

Each a personal vision
like hell.
Our beliefs,
no more horrible than orbiting
within range of an uncontrollable sun.

A merely sooner tiring of human tensions.
We cannot refuse,
for what remains may be a knowing
never moving to this end a second time.

---

Greg atop the January snow drift, halfway up the side of the BOQ, January 1975

This is after the drift had receded a bit.  The BOQ is two story.  The tip of the drift reached about half-way up the side of the building.

The snow plows everywhere had to contend with drifts like this that blocked roads all over the base.  One drift just before the housing area was like a ramp of snow.  If anyone was silly enough to try to drive up and over the drift, he'd get stuck atop the drift because the snow dropped off on the far side.  That drop off was not apparent on the up ramp.

Evidence

In your cringing helplessness,
will your buried missilemen,
undisguised in this defense,
be blamed for all the destruction?
Accused and unearthed in capsules
built only to save them
for the time it took to launch?

Gone,
friends, support, the foe,
who will have vanished, doubting their resolve.

Proof could be merely detecting wreckage
to those living enough to care.
If they are trapped, intact, underground,
encased in concrete,
the trace left of us can too clearly show
who was at fault.

---

Greg and the Camaro in winter, December 1974

Here is the first picture of me wearing my Air Force parka.  I had to have the Camaro winterized by adding a block heater with a cord.  They supplied us with electrical posts at the BOQ parking lot so that, in the middle of winter, the engines of our cars would not freeze, as long as we had a tank or block heater.

In addition, I had them install an interior heater that kept the inside of the car warm, no matter how cold outside.

Unfortunately, during the first four-day blizzard in January 1975, a month after this picture was taken, the plastic base around the gear shift on the center console cracked because of the cold.  Our cars were attached to electrical posts at the Wing Building while we were on alert.  The interior of my engine was filled with snow.  When I opened up the hood, the imprint of the inside of the hood appeared in the snow packed into the engine compartment.

Another guy who had a convertible Corvette had it much worse.  With the small cracks between the convertible roof and side windows, with the wind and snow blowing for four consecutive days, the interior of his car was filled with dirty snow.  He could not even get into his car until he cleared out the snow.

The temperatures hovered around 100 degrees below zero wind chill.  Nothing moved across the entire state of North Dakota.  If people broke down and tried to reach lights in the distance, they never made it.  A security police team, after their truck broke down, managed to bump into a barn in their search for shelter, fortunately.  They felt their way around to the barn door and spent the entire blizzard in the barn. 

We had to ration food at our site because it all began to run out with the two teams of security police, two Flight Security Controllers (FSP), a cook, and four crew members to feed for those four days.  No relief and no food could come until the storm ended.  This was well before we had radios or a small TV set in the LCC.  We often just sat on alert and stared for hours at a time or slept fitfully.  I had a quarter that I borrowed from my commander, hoping to snag a Coke after we went upstairs at the end of one of our shifts.  When I plunked the coin into the Coke machine, the machine ate it.  I got no Coke.  I stood and stared at the vicious machine and almost started to cry.

Back on base, it was so bad that those in the housing area, if they wanted to share with their neighbors, could not go from front door to front door.  They went up through the ceiling and crawled through the attached attics to get back and forth between their duplexes.

Retribution

Between abundance and shortage,
losses and what is regained,
we match the measure of your impatience.
And while we wait
we train
and simulate you have died uncounted times
when any could be your death.

Certain these are causes
turning the keys--
keys rotating to turn this world over
to new orders.

An improving method
blasting off the old, unworthy ways
no longer our way.

When the earth-thick skin
is pierced again with renewed eruptions,
all will be revenge.

No more the mild alteration most never want,
and for those who are so often demanding,
there will be change.

---

 

Greg at Civil War fort at New Bern, NC, August 1974

Looking into the interior of the fort.

---

Dennis Zito at New Bern, NC, August 1974

This is a Civil War fort near the coast of North Carolina.  We ate at a sea food restaurant not far from the fort.

---

Den & Beth at their Havelock, NC home, August 1974

Probably could have used a flash with this picture.

During the first year or so of my being in Minot, I had to go out to a Launch Facility (LF) to watch a maintenance crew work on a missile.  This was the only time that I did have to go out to an LF,  I wrote the following poem based on that night in the silo:

In the Silo

I recall the surgeons bent by their work
across the patient:  tall,
rough in metal skins--
multicolored, yet all dull tones.
Beheaded three times of its single threat.
Never anticipating eventual re-mating,
but held unarmed,
awaiting passive signals or potent birth.
Mindless, but no monster.

All seeming about some harmless device--
wired,
lost in all those minor techniques.

Wise of their youth;
two stripes, and three, trained above this potential;
Wiring with the confident skills
of all who doctor life.

Tools,
never so terrible as what they tighten
or unleash.
Never smeared of the blood
they might heat.

---

Den Zito and his Fiat, August 1974

A couple years older, but here are Den and his Fiat.

---

Beth and Den Zito at Havelock, NC, August 1974

Several photographs, beginning with this one, I dated them November 1974; however, that previous photograph of my visit to Havelock was from their camera and marked on the back by Beth as August '74.  I would visit the Zito extended family, and even meet Den and David's father and mother, and that would be over a Thanksgiving weekend.  But that would be a year or two later and not in 1974.  So, August '74 is far more likely to have been when I flew down to North Carolina, perhaps via Norfolk and Piedmont Airlines.  I know for certain that I returned to my connecting flight on a YS-11 Japanese-made turboprop.

So, these photographs indicate that I had a busy summer that first year in Minot.  I had been in Vandenberg in the Spring.  In June I had accompanied that "can" to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio.  My mom flew up to visit in August, and later in August I flew to North Carolina to visit the Zito's.

Here they are getting ready to open the door to Beth's car, a Chevy Malibu, I believe.

Missile Launch Facility (Golgotha)

I know it now.
As long ago as these were implanted
there is no war.
At the point of succeeding fear,
through the great, wide extremities of earth,
these silver spikes are driven.
The heart is spared,
but spirit-urges lie as a sacrifice.
Fenced-in, connected sections cross the plains,
stunned against the thought of taking life.
We bind both savior and vampire alike,
each victim.

---

Greg and Dennis Zito in uniform, Havelock, NC, August 1974

This is a rare photograph indeed.  Beth took it at their home in Havelock, North Carolina.  Dennis was stationed at Cherry Point Marine Base, the one that I did not visit when the rest of the platoon flew down in Marine helicopters while the rest of us who were leaving the Marines waited back in the barracks for them to return.

It's the only one I know of with both Den and me in our respective uniforms together.  It is also the only one that I have yet found where I am wearing my starched Air Force summer tans.  I believe the Air Force soon phased them out not much later than after 1974, so I am typically in the dark blue pants and light blue shirt in every other picture.

In the photograph, Den is pointing to my missile badge on the left pocket.  Above my name tag, and above the right pocket, is the matching silver metal Missile Combat Crew badge, only for those on an active missile crew.  Once you leave missiles, you still wear the missile badge but not the Combat Crew badge.

In this rented house, Den and Beth were waiting for their household goods and personal possessions to arrive after they moved in.  Those goods showed up at the warehouse for delivery the next day.  That night, however, the warehouse burned; and they lost virtually everything they owned.  Fortunately, I had a second copy of that Marine OCS picture with all of us at Quantico and gave it to Dennis.  Otherwise, they lost all of their personal photos, as well.

Deterrence

We have the kind of constant coverage,
within there is no need to change.
Like a beast that halts to stop a new threat
where motion is the more curious camouflage
than unyielding,
when against unblending situations.

Shielded beneath a billion waving stalks of wheat,
a mere thousand rigid, silver shafts
firm to evade just those few
who slow for a moment their forgetting
to recall
and then remember.

---

Greg Schurr at Minot Zoo, Summer 1974

When I first arrived at Minot in January, I was told that, after missile school, my first crew commander would be Steve Schurr.  I soon met Steve and his wife Elaine.  They had me over for dinner, Elaine was a wonderful cook, and we quickly became good friends.  Unfortunately, while I was at Vandenberg I learned that the squadron needed to upgrade Steve to commander earlier than expected.  He was crewed with someone else.

However, Steve and Elaine remained good friends for the entire time that they were in Minot (I think Steve took one of the early-out programs--he was from Kansas and Elaine was from Nebraska).  They rather adopted me.  So that for holidays, which was usual, when I could not be in California with my family, they invited me to their house to celebrate.  Or for dinners or picnics, I was always a part of their family.  I watered their plants at the garden space across the highway from the main gate that the Air Force leased from local farmers.  (This wasn't easy.  They had given me the keys to their Pinto station wagon and provided me with a huge container of water which I had to fill and haul by car over to the garden plot and pour out by hand.  There was no water source there--you had to haul your own.)

Their house was just inside the housing area, almost at the end of BOQ parking lot, across the street, and about three houses down on the right.  It was within easy walking distance.  The picture above was their son (he was not named for me, just a co-incidence) when we all went to the Minot Zoo together that first summer.  We would continue to be friends after I moved to Colorado Springs and the Air Force Academy.  One morning my first summer in Colorado, I awoke in my new house, looked out at the driveway below, and there their camper was parked.  They had come to visit for a few days and see the area.  

Steve was with the U.S. weather service in Topeka, Kansas, since that had been his first Air Force assignment.  I visited them in Topeka on a couple of occasions, en route to White Cloud, Kansas.  Elaine was a nurse.  They eventually had a second son. 

I look at pictures like this, and ones later when Den and Beth Zito began having children, or Mike and Debbie Durr; and I realize that all of those offspring, who were far younger than five in the mid-1970's or had not been born yet, are all in their mid-30's or even older now.   Of course, I was in my mid 20's or so when all of this happened.

Resolve

Lenthening the

hours of the years we monitor missiles and wait.

I see no change.

Only defeat seems the end of distrust.

The launchers will never dismantle

before they rust,

unless some new device,

some great outmoding force,

appears to replace.

---

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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