The top photo Dave took of me inside the top of the Arch. The bottom photograph I took of barges on the Mississippi River below the Arch.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Dave Morris at a mural under the St. Louis Arch, 1977
This is one of the last of the color slides.
Dave Morris was my stereo equipment and record album buddy who lived in the former two-man room BOQ. However, as with so many of my friends in Minot, the time would inevitably come when they transferred from Minot to somewhere else, or left the Air Force entirely, like Tim McConnell.
Dave got a new assignment outside of St. Louis, MO. Another friend, Chuck Gover, left the Air Force and returned to Morgantown, West Virginia. Darryl Butler was then attending graduate school at the University of Indiana in Bloomington. David Zito was living near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, having left the Air Force. Dennis and Beth Zito were not far away in New York, having gotten out of the Marine Corps.
I decided to undertake an insane trip to meet up with all of them on one big swing east in the fall; and then I would end up in California, to visit mom. When I bought the ticket at the Minot Airport, I recall that it came to approximately $728.00.
I flew on a North Central DC-9-30 from Minot to Fargo, ND, and then on to Minneapolis, Minnesota.
From there, I caught an Ozark Airlines DC-9 to St. Louis. The plane may have stopped in Des Moines, Iowa, en route.
I spent a couple of days with Dave Morris, exploring St. Louis, where we went up to the top of the Arch. We also saw the film DAMNATION ALLEY, about a post-nuclear-war United States.
Unfortunately, my ticket was incorrect as to when my TWA flight to Indianapolis, Indiana, was to take off, the time having changed since my ticket was issued several weeks earlier. When I checked in at the front counter, the woman did not impress upon me the need to immediately run to my gate to catch the flight, which was to connect with a puddle jumper to Bloomington. Dave and I said goodbye, but I took my time walking to the departure gate, only to see my TWA flight disappearing in the early morning darkness for the runway, having pulled away from the gate only moments before.
I had to catch a later TWA flight, but there was then no connection in Indianapolis to Bloomington. I called Darryl, who reluctantly agreed to drive to Indianapolis to pick me up later that day, that being a Saturday during an Indiana-Purdue college football game, and he was worried about the traffic.
We actually missed any football traffic, fortunately. I spent a couple of days there, visiting him and his wife. We played pickup basketball at the field house and walked the campus, much of which I would see later in the film, BREAKING AWAY.
From Indianapolis, I caught an American Airlines BAC-111 that stopped at Canton-Akron before proceeding on to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
When my twin-engine commuter flight approached the Morgantown airport, merely a top of a mountain sheered off with a runway paved upon that sheered off peak, the rain and wind were so strong that we definitely crabbed almost sideways onto the runway for the landing. Chuck Gover informed me that a similar commuter plane crashed when it tried to land in similar conditions on another West Virginia mountaintop airport.
My commuter flight back to Pittsburgh was cancelled, with a twin four-seater Beechcraft substitute for the return flight. We landed amid a few jumbo jets, taxiing around us, making us look even more dwarfish. While sitting in the airport, awaiting my next flight, a plane from Denver, CO, disgorged a huge number of Academy cadets.
From Pittsburgh, I took a Northwest 727-200 to Philadelphia, to meet up with David Zito. We toured Philadelphia, seeing all of the major sites there after having Thanksgiving with the entire Zito family, meeting Den and David's father and mother. Their dad showed me his leg and the war wound that he got from WWII that still seeped all of those years later.
Unfortunately, the long fall trip finally caught up with me; and I started to come down with a terrible cold--the dampness of Philadelphia feeling even worse than the dry cold of North Dakota. I took whatever medications I could find in the Philadelphia airport before boarding my American Airlines 727-200 flight for LAX via Dallas, Texas. I felt miserable and hated being so sick and potentially spreading my germs to my fellow passengers on this packed aircraft. I think I even had the middle seat in the row, making my flight even more uncomfortable for everyone around me.
When we landed in Dallas, I saw a parked Concorde as we taxied toward the terminal. Not long after that, we departed for LAX, where mom picked me up at the airport. I was happy to be able to stay with her for several days and recover from my cold before I had to return to Minot.
I took a Continental DC-10 to Denver. Unfortunately, the Frontier flight to Minot had been cancelled. I was put on another 737-200 Frontier flight to Fargo, North Dakota, instead, where I caught another North Central DC-9-30, into Minot. I had been gone for almost three weeks, having been to, or through, 14 or more airports and almost that many cities.
Two more Arch slides follow before I return to photographs of my final two years at Minot, 1976-1978.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Darryl, his dog and me at Christmas, likely 1975
Darryl Butler was still living in Riverside, CA. I usually visited him on each of my trips to Southern California when I was in the Air Force in Minot.
Dad, Willene, Lorri, Mark (Ann's husband), Ann and Me in Garden Grove, CA
We visited dad and Willene, and I had my camera.
Top picture: Mark, Willene, Ann, Lorri, me and dad.
Bottom picture: Lorri, Mark, Ann.
Usually we visited them at Christmas, but I see no decorations anywhere, so it must have been some other time of the year.
Mom and Greg at the Huntington Gardens.
The top picture is of mom at the Huntington Library. The second is mom and me standing on the Japanese bridge in the Japanese gardens. The third is another picture of the Japanese bridge reflected in the water. In later years, the red color was removed and the bridge was a natural color wood.
Mom at the Japanese Tea House in the Huntington Gardens
Not only did we go to the South Coast Botanic Gardens, we also went to one of my favorite places, the Huntington Gardens.
Here are two pictures of mom either behind or in front of the Japanese tea house in the Japanese Gardens.
Mom at the South Coast Botanic Gardens, Palos Verdes
Ann, Mom and Greg in San Pedro, Christmas 1975
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This was likely before Christmas of 1975. In 1974, I did not own the Canon camera that was able to take these. After 1975, mom was living in the senior high rise in San Pedro rather than the house on 13th Street where these pictures were taken.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Greg makes the Minot AFB base newspaper
Grand Forks had a good volleyball team. The guy blocking my shot could jump and could block. However, if you notice, he's blocking my spike our of bounds, either a side out for us or a point for us. Their team complained that our refs called so many overhand passes as carries, and we agreed with them but could do nothing. Our base had to mostly play bump ball because the refs called so many carries if anyone tried to set the ball over hand.
The back of the photograph reads: "Official USAF photo Minot AFB ND by SRA Walt Crowell".
Second 91st OPS Volleyball team, Minot AFB
Mike Durr is on the floor.
The front row: Unknown, Unknown, Terry Stahl, Dave Alexander, Brian Lawler
The middle row: I don't remember any of their names right now.
The top row: Unknown, me.
The shirts have our names on the back, but of course, we'd all have to turn around.
91st OPS Volleyball, 1975-78, Minot AFB
All three slides are of the first volleyball team 91st OPS fielded when I was at Minot. Bob Grace, on the far left of the front row, along with the guy next to him, were our two tall players. Mike Durr recruited me onto the team. Dave Alexander is wearing the white head band. Brian Lawler is wearing the glasses in the center of each slide. Mike Durr and I are in the back.
We would manage to beat Grand Forks AFB missile operations teams when we played them once a year.
We played Grand Forks four times a year: once each in flag football, basketball, softball, and volleyball were the four major sports. We'd also play them in minor sports: tennis, badminton, and more. We were often more successful in the minor sports than the major ones.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
My launch pictures at Vandenberg AFB, May 1975
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The top photograph is of the initial explosion out of the hole. The middle photograph is the second shot. You can see the smoke ring that forms after each launch. The bottom is of the missile streaking aloft and heading down range.
The three launch crews at Vandenberg AFB, May 1975
Tim Sholtis is in the background, crouching down, as I am in the foreground. The entrance to the capsule is behind all of us. I am wearting the dark blue Air Force light jacket. None of us is wearing his "dickie," the color scarf that snapped in the back and indicated which Minot squadron you were a member of: blue (742nd), red (740th) or green (741st). The instructor shop crews wore yellow; stand board crews wore orange. You can only see the name tag of Captain Bullock and Captain Sholtis. The guy sitting next to me was a model airplane nerd and Sci-Fi geek. When we left Vandenberg, he'd bought a ton of paperback novels. He gave them to me because he would have exceeded the weight limit, even in those days, with all that he was bringing back to Minot.
We departed Santa Maria airport on an Air West F-27A for LAX. From there we would have taken either a United or Continental DC-10 to Denver. From Denver, it was almost always a Frontier Airlines 737-200 for Minot, with an occasional stop at Bismark.
But, of course, we still had the launch to perform the night before we left.
Greg in the LCC at Vandenberg AFB, May 1975
Here I am on alert.at Vandenberg. The configuration of this ground level capsule is somewhat similar to those in Minot and elsewhere. The commander's console is at the front, directly behind me in this picture. The bed is where it usually is. The deputy's console and chair are in the same position, too.
The bottom picture is of me outside the LCC and just inside the security fence.
Trajectory
There should be times
when those temporarily tired of this living
would be left alone.
As with waves crawling over each other
to collapse on the land,
crossing takes strength and will,
diluting purpose.
So many stones unearthed are slow to flight.
Still solid with the soil
none has desire to trade
one orbit for the next, or another beyond.
We have not gone farther. And in this betrayal
our vengeful, silver vessels
cross only the war-like palms of our limitations:
A trick turning on the present crowds
who marvel at each trivial jump
exceeding their own.
Some future sense
poised off receding planets
may survey back before launch
and see between our few floating muted metals
those who spun off their chance to escape.
Pave Pepper launch site at evening, Vandenberg AFB
California Coast
I have heard them stepping off
above the beaches of Vandenberg
to splash a foot down the test range.
All those prints on Kwajelein
pattern a new misuse of the islands,
as closer we are
to shedding the wings on our weapons.
Yet Pendleton against the sea
fails to prove any urgency.
There I understand a sadness to the feeling
that men of earth still train to be tough.
They roll up eroding shores,
while a sense of dust
wears at the fiber of ex-Marines
who washed ashore years before.
South to San Diego I saw
efforts for our defense now outnumbered.
But as leisurely as most of the growing seems,
the age is years of losing youth through the wars.
Like the vessels in the harbor
no longer in commission,
even the view that is Point Loma will be sold.
Scraps in the way and discarded.
Ann, Greg and Mom at Vandenberg AFB, May 1975
When we arrived at Vandenberg, we met with the liaison officer for our missile launch. Only two of the three crews who would monitor the missile before launch would actually turn the keys on the night of the launch. The third crew was for alert duty over the next two weeks, as well as be a backup crew in case something happened to one of the primary crews. When I looked at the schedule, I realized that the backup crew would get an extra full day off during those two weeks in California. I propsed to Tim Sholtis, my commander, that we volunteer to be the backup crew to get that extra day off. We would still be in the Launch Control Center (LCC) for the launch itself. We just would not actually be turning the keys. He readily agreed.
Those two weeks performing duty at Vandenberg would be paradise compared to pulling alerts in Minot. Southern California was incredible, and the base itself was much better to live on.
Mom and Ann drove up and spent a day or two. I am sure I took them to the Far Western, the bar and steak place in Goleta, CA, where everyone took visitors while stationed at Vandenberg. I believe that mom even loaned me her 1968 Ford Galaxy while I was stationed there so that I could more easily drive down to see everyone on my days off. I believe that I flew back to Santa Maria on a DeHavelind Dove when I returned the Ford to her.
I was still a 2nd lieutenant then. The top picture I am holding my Canon camera and the shot was taken with mom's Instamatic. In the lower picture, Tim must have used my Canon to take the picture while mom is holding her camera.
Vandenberg AFB flight line in May 1975
Several Air Force Sabreliners and KC-135 tankers are waiting on the flight line of Vandenberg AFB.
We had arrived while the Olympic Arena annual missile competition was wrapping up. Wing Commanders and Squadron commanders and crew members who had been prepping for this prestigious competition for the better part of the previous year would take these aircraft back to their Titan and Minuteman missile bases at the conclusion of the competition. We were just hitching a ride to Vandenberg on the tanker that would take the Minot competitors back home.
The Olympic Arena competition would toss all kinds of alert problems at the crews, most not likely to occur in a real alert environment. The winning crew would bring a fancy trophy and prestige to his base, for a year anyway. The winning crews would likely be upgraded to the instructor shop or the stand board evaluation shop after the competition, especially if they did well during the competition.
Greg in the air refueling position aboard a KC-135 tanker
Grand Tetons from refueling boom operators position aboard Air Force KC-135 tanker
We flew aboard an Air Force KC-135 aerial tanker non-stop from Minot AFB to Vandenberg AFB in May of 1975 for the Pave Pepper missile launch.
The refueling boom operator let us lie flat on his position where he looks out at the aircraft he would be refueling in the air. Here are the Grand Tetons from that vantage point.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Official Air Force Pave Pepper missile launch photo, Vandenberg AFB, May 16, 1975
This is the official photograph that we three crews were given by the Air Force after we launched the missile at night from Vandenberg AFB.
A Minuteman III missile carried three multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRV's) as its warheads. They were far more accurate than any Soviet counterpart. The Soviet's, on the hand, had bigger missiles that the U.S. They made up for the relative lack of accuracy by putting bigger and more powerful RV's on their missiles.
The U.S. Air Force decided to develop even more RV's for its Minuteman III missiles. At the time the number of smaller MIRV's packed onto the Pave Pepper missile we launched was classified, though the Russians had spy trawlers stationed near Kwajelein atoll so they could monitor U.S. missile tests. They likely clearly saw how many MIRV's splashed down in the Pacific.
I was the deputy on the crew commanded by Captain Tim Sholtis. Tim was a personable guy and well liked in Minot. So, when Minot was selected to provide three missile crews to launch the missile, Tim and I were chosen from the 742nd Squadron. Another crew was chosen from the 740th and a third from the 741st.
Pave Pepper Missile Launch, Vandenberg AFB 1975
This phenomena of manning flight
have lost significance
(and remember the expense).
But launching missiles preserves the Fourth of July.
The flashing of thrust and the roar
is a wonder never everyday.
With all the tense anticipating of a match
set to the first fuse,
we waited for the tilting thing to lift its big foot
before putting down--
adding some grains of pepper
to all this SALT talk.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Kenny Juliano outside his BOQ room with his Chevy
Kenny marched to a different drummer. When I knew him, he was in the Instructor Shop, training or re-training missiles crews.
In sunny weather, he would sit in a lounge chair outside his BOQ, which was the former two-man room building, directly behind where he is standing. He would simply lie there and bake all summer long. Usually, though, he was very tanned on his front side only. His back side would be many shades lighter--why he did not often turn over was another of his quirks. He also worked on or cleaned up his car, which he almost never drove. He usually walked everywhere, even if weather did not always permit.
He almost always had a sunny disposition, and he laughed a lot. One of the cheeriest guys in Minot.
In meetings, I would glance over and he was often rocking in place, as if he were listening to music from headphones that nobody else could hear. He was a really nice guy. He also took an early out and returned to Southern California, near San Diego, probably in 1977, along with Tim McConnell and others.
Missile Career
For Kenny Juliano
...we miss your frequent laughter
I sense the tensions
aging throughout our existence.
This is not a normal competition.
From the bitter to the crazy,
we are all here, longing to be elsewhere,
as if where we beach ourselves
is the difference.
Whenever we lose any smiling
to that perpetual leaving,
a slowly saddening loneliness,
the missing of men in combat,
unsettles.
Greg in front of the Minot AFB BOQ, 1975-6
This is my favorite photograph of me in uniform at Minot.
I am in front of the BOQ, and the room I would occupy in my final months. If you notice, they planted a tree where, in earlier pictures, no tree existed, just behind me.
Tom and Tim and the Minot AFB BOQ, circa 1975-6
The top picture is of Tom Brundige in his BOQ room, which, in the bottom picture would be just out of frame toward the photographer. He was at the very end, just before the exit. Originally, the guy who lived in that room was Eugene Cheeks, who was in my squadron. Larry Dowling, the third T-33 pilot in the BOQ lived just across the hall from Tom.
The reason Tom is laughing is that the previous photograph that I took, which I must have given to him, was him in the same position, but with his right arm folded up and over his head, in a forlorn pose.
The bottom photograph is of Tim McConnell standing outside the BOQ at sunset.
BOQ Buddies, circa 1975, Minot AFB
This was probably in the fall of 1975, note the Jack O' Lantern in their hands. These were taken using my new Canon camera, so they are certainly after the Spring of 1975, when I first got the camera.
I may have made my Jack O' Lantern punch for the occasion: apple cider, Orange Crush, cloves, Jamaican All Spice, and cinnamon sticks, all heated over a low burner for about an hour or more.
The top two are guys lived in my BOQ building. Wilmer Mitchell is the guy on the right. I want to say that the guy on the left in the top photograph is Bill Mauney, who also lived down the hallway from me, but I'm not sure.
The guy in the bottom photograph, playing the headless horseman, is the fellow who would build my record shelves for me, as well as the stereo equipment shelves in the earlier picture. He lived in one of the bungalows.
That all must have happened after these pictures were taken because those are Air Force-supplied Oak shelves, and I soon filled them up with albums and needed something bigger. And the stereo equipment on the top was the first I owned in Minot, replaced by what you see in the earlier photograph of the large shelf.
Monday, August 6, 2012
Greg with his new Sony Betamax in the Minot AFB BOQ, 1978
This was the first one-hour machine. Note the timer on the top of the unit. The first recording I made was an episode of M*A*S*H.
I read that Sony had no idea in the beginning that people would want to record and then preserve TV shows and movies, creating vast libraries for their repeated watching.
Elaine, Steve & Greg Schurr, me, as well as Mike, Christie and Debbie Durr in Minot, mid 1970's
The young woman wearing glasses in the middle of the photo was the Durr's neighbor, Sally, whose husband was a sky cop.
I am holding Augusta, the Durr's cat. This might have been a birthday party for me at the Durr's house in the housing area. I got adopted by the Durr's after the Schurr's left Minot. So I still managed to get free meals from kind people during my whole tour.
That foam German bi-plane on the couch armrest was a gift for me which I kept for years.
ADC Spittin Kitten T-33 mid-1970's
Here is one of the Spittin Kitten T-33's in flight. Roger may have been piloting this aircraft while the back seater in another T-33 took the picture.
Aerospace Defense Command Spittin Kitten F-106 Christmas card
Roger sent this to me one Christmas after I had left Minot for the Academy, probably 1978, but I included it here with the poem.
The all-weather F-106's would have been used to intercept Soviet bombers on the way to attack the U.S.
Aerospace Defense Command, F-106 Touch & Go
A trio of linking triangles
tires to tap and cross again,
rolling a turn aloft,
as if a thing advancing
from some other world.
Another slight of air amazing,
where wizards of night and weather
practice as our protection.
Roger Benninger in my BOQ room, Minot AFB
Here is Roger, the Wisconsin Badger, sitting on my single bed. That may be Tom's legs in the foreground.
The afghan on the bed was made by my Grandma Sanchez not long before she died. I was still stationed in Minot when she succumbed, visiting my Uncle's family in Mexico and was buried there.
Here is the poem I wrote for Roger, Tom and Larry, all T-33 pilots living in the BOQ. All four of us met on Sunday mornings and made eggs with cheese and hot Pillsbury cinnimon rolls.
The T-33 was a target aircraft, playing the part of a Soviet bomber, which the ADC unit's F-106's sought out and attacked.
T-33 -- 5th Fighter Interceptor Squadron
(target aircraft)
For Roger, Larry and Tom: In
friendship, admiration and envy.
(What radar fails to sweep)
There!
A gray motion crossing the noon sky--
A reflection,
crying for all to attack,
in sight and then in scopes.
Locked in the dual vision, as in love,
when we see and then we feel.
In short, slow turns against the sun that shadows,
skill escapes.
Tightly together targets and attackers move,
wise to the way each eludes.
But these missions,
simulations for some effect,
end in no conclusions,
just results.
And targets return in two's.
Above the base, they turn nearly as one.
I watch them as parallel;
almost bound together.
Knowing each pilot grips tightly to this formation,
this joyous discipline to perfection,
just beyond the point of contact.
It is like that with my love,
as in this tension.
Holding firmly in the seconds of eternity
it takes to land, we touch ground.
Never too close to collide
or crash.
