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CODE SPOOK CHATTER

The first part is about my Tour of Duty.

Later let other readers hear about your Tour of Duty

Enlistment and Training

When I entered the USAF in August of 1955 and took Basic Training at Sampson AFB in Geneva, NY as a member of Flt 4563 in the 3691st Squadron, I did not realize what an interesting and exciting time I would have for approximately the next decade.

I'm last on the right in the second row.

Fortunately for you, you won't have to bear with this discourse for that long.

Late in August 1955, I enlisted in the USAF in Albany, NY and was put on the first flight of my life.  I flew to Sampson AFB in Geneva, New York in the middle of a gigantic thunder and lightning storm on a C47 "Gooney Bird."  My memory is a bit sketchy about what followed, but I remember that Basic Training was not such a traumatic event for me because of my 3 years with the Army National Guard Infantry drill training during the year and my four weeks at Camp Drum for combat and arms training.

Because of my Army infantry training, I was made Corporal of the Guard and had the dubious duty of scheduling and supervising Barracks Guards for the entire Squadron.  I even had to pull CQ duty for the Squadron during my training venue.  These duties, however got me out of KP during Basic, but did not exempt me from Base Duty, one of which was cleaning out the sanitation pits near the lake.  That duty, although smelly, (it was warm during the day) was supervised by a civilian and he gave us all (about 4 of my buddies and I) 1/2 day off because we finished in record time.  I remember, that we spent the rest of the day until dinner lounging along the lakeside.  After training, I was assigned to Radio School for my technical training.

I took Radio and Electronics training at Keesler, AFB in Biloxi, MS in November of 1955 and encountered my first direct experience of segregation. As a New York City boy, I had never encountered segregation, nor blatent prejudice. The deep South was at the same time charming and hateful. I'll never forget that experience.<

As a code student, I was so quick at picking up code that I was denied airborn radio op status and put in high-speed morse interception class. For any of you who were at Keesler in the 50s, you know what a good time it was getting weekends in New Orleans. 50s music was great and plentiful as were Jazz and Blues in the Big Easy. I couldn't stay away from that town.

I'm in the first row, 5th to the right.

Anybody remember the "President" and dance cruises on the Mississippi?

Or wandering out into the Gulf about a mile and still being able to see your knees, and being brushed by some of the ugliest and trashiest fish in the ocean?

How about all the Article 15 warnings about sunburn. There were lots of hurtin' guys who wouldn't go to sick call for help with the burning back and chest syndrome. For all us palefaces from the Northeast, that Gulf Coast sun was powerful on our pale skins. Anyone remember the part of the Airman's Club called the "Corral Room"? In 1956 it featured a Country/Western singer named Elvis Presley, that is, until his record "Heartbreak Hotel" came out introduced in January of 1956.
We spent a lot of time on the beach in front of Gulf Park Women's College.  "Where the girls are..."  I'm second from the left.

Upon finishing radio school, I found out what Security Service was, because I was posted to the 6981st Radio Group Mobile in, Anchorage, Alaska and sworn to "everlasting" silence and confidentiality.

(Please leave your tour experiences in the"Remembering Assignments" section that follows.)

Alaska in 1957 was a wonderous, step-back-in-time kind of place. Holstered guns on the street could be seen, wooden sidewalks (Palmer), and it was kind of like the early West. I'll miss Alaska as a Territory, even though I was there when Congress passed Statehood.

Hunting and fishing was superior to anything I encountered anywhere in my life. Camping was an incredible experience, except for the bird-sized, hard-shelled mosquitos.

But I get ahead of myself.

I was sent to Elmendorf Air Base to locate in our Operations Center and Barracks in the 6981st Radio Group Mobile. Our "home-away-from-home was in a remote end of the base. We were so remote on the base that moose roamed freely outside the barbed wire fence. We lived, ate and worked in a compound surrounded by barbedwire fencing. There was an Air Police guard on duty at the gate 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. Even though we could come and go from our barracks (we weren't prisoners, I think...), which by the way, housed our dining hall, admin offices and a large area underground for operations, we had to show a badge to leave our "homes" and a badge to get back from Main Base to eat dinner and sleep. (pretty long and complex sentence, huh?)

Just after my second winter in Alaska, I was released from bondage and relocated to jolly ol' England in Bedfordshire, UK to a base called RAF Chicksands, the home of the 6950th Security Group Mobile (later to become 6950th Security Wing. Why they ever called these brick and mortar Squadrons and Groups "Mobile," I will never figure out. Everything was so nailed down that I doubt if it could have been mobilized if anyone wanted to take it somewhere.

I was, many years later, posted to the 6948th Security Group Mobile. The 48th was actually a mobilized group where we packed up tractor trailers with com gear, tents and the like, and traveled to such lovely places as Mojave desert and the "jungles" of Arkansas and Missouri where we practiced our art and participated in war games. We called ourselves Captain Mo's Go-Rillas, but that's another story.

Where was I when I rerouted my story? ...oh yes,jolly old England, home of the "Fighting Chicks." Anyone ever been there?

There was a Service Club with a very old Pool table and a gniP gnoP table with wooden paddles and plastic balls, not much else.
There were bomb shelters here and there around the base and they were unused, but filled with trash from lovers trysts during and after dances. Of course girls were bussed in for the dances, and some of them got to see the inside of the bomb shelters.

The base had beautiful verdant green fields of grass (probably because there was a steady rain-mist most of the time)and great ball playing fields (from which came coo coo bird calls during the day (I never heard one of those birds until I got to England). We played American Football, (Soccer)Football, Baseball, Softball and Horseshoes. To one side of the base was a very large barbed-wire compound with some impressive wooden, derrick-like antennae. We told the Brits that they were oil rigs, but of course, they didn't believe that. By and large, the base had good security as it was a USAF Security Service base, after all.

As I remember, the base had an Officer's Club, an NCO Club, but no Airman's Club until the NCO Club moved to a new building, then the Airmen took over the old NCO Club. Ah, RHIP after all!

In 1958/59, there were many bombed out places in London, and, since I had not been to a War zone before, fascinated me. Most of those areas were rebuilt by 1960 or 1961. London was (as my son would say) Wicked Great! There was so much to do and so much to see that the UK, especially London, was a constant adventure of discovery for me, a guy that had not been outside the USA until then. Even though I grew up in NYC, London provided a Big City Boy like me a new point-of-view.

Anybody ever see pea-soup FOG? Back in those days, most of Britain was heated and fueled by soft coal. The coal dust was everywhere in the air. When we got a good fog, it would be so full of the coal soot and dust that it would be visually impenetrable. I mean, one couldn't literally see their hand right in front of their face. I heard about it when I lived in NYC, but never believed it because I had seen fog, but nothing like that.

I guess I went Brit because I started drinking Guiness & Bitters (Black 'n Tans)and playing Football (soccer). At first I played for our Base Team "Fighting Chicks" all American GIs and later played for the RAF at Henlow Camp a technical training base for the Royal Air Force (kinda like Keesler AFB was for me when I was learning Radio Electronics and Operations. I studied at the University of Maryland Overseas program and won a scholarship to Cambridge University to attend an International Relations Institute program. I guess I did my job pretty well because in October of 1963 I won the Wing Outstanding Airman award.