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After escaping the Englewood Corrections Center, I jammed four years of college into five, married a girl from Ho-Ho-Kus (Pat Stout) and in November of 1963 headed for Valdosta, Georgia...the first stop on a 28 year odyssey courtesy of the United States Air Force. Valdosta was home to Moody AFB by the swamp (Okefenokee that is) where I learned to fly and that chicken is a three syllable word. We added a daughter, attended RF-4C training in Sumter, SC (a true southern experience, even lived in a single wide trailer), then across the Atlantic to RAF Alconbury...picture the dashing young pilot with his beautiful wife, touring the English country side in his little green sports car. Obviously too good to last and soon the needs of the Air Force sent me to play in the Great Southeast Asian War Games. Taking pictures of castles in Europe was fun; taking pictures of people shooting at you was not. So I was not unhappy in 1967 when Uncle Sam sent me to Nellis AFB, outside Lost Wages, NV to check out in McNamara's Folly. The F-111 was big, ugly and controversial, but it also carried a lot bombs and flew very, very fast. In our spare time we added a son, built a two seat acrobatic biplane, and Pat got her pilots license. Vegas was a real bargain back then...would you believe a Louie Armstrong show for the cost of two drinks, or an Elvis Presley dinner show for $11, and the golf....
Four years later it was back to Europe for three years in England, two in Germany and one in Turkey. In England we lived in a small village where the kids attended British schools and learned to talk funny while I split time between defending democracy and supporting the local pubs. Germany was a bit more intense, a headquarters staff tour with lots of travel...garden spots like Incirlik, Turkey; Bandarabas, Iran and Karachi, Pakistan...but Pat & I did get to spend a week in Egypt. If you ain't been there no words can adequately convey the scope and grandeur of the ancient Egyptian culture. Then came the bad news, a year on a Turkish Air Base in the Eastern Provinces ...that's Turkish for the middle of no where while the family went back to the land of the Big BX. 1979 found us reunited at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. If you are into bright lights and music, this is not the place for you; but if you love the outdoors it is heaven. I got seriously into fly fishing and those of you similarly afflicted will recognize names like Silver Creek, Henry's Fork, the Madison, the Firehole...they were all within an easy drive. Of course it was often well over 100 degrees in the summer and -25 was not uncommon in the winter. I continued flying and got to do some really fun things like night air refueling with the Northern Lights as the background, dropping 24 x 500 pound bombs in a Fire Power Demonstration or participating in one of the Red Flag Exercises... picture yourself 300 feet flying Mach 1.3 (roughly 1000 mph), but once again the needs of the Air Force caught up with us.
This time it turned out that it was vital to the security of the nation that I become the Air Force Liaison Officer at Fort Hood, Texas...picture a huge sand box full of tanks. But the force was with me and I escape to the Northwest Air Defense Center at McChord AFB in Tacoma, WA courtesy of an old friend...not that spending your days in a three story concrete building with no windows was all that great, but it had its rewards. I got to fly with the Oregon Air National Guard. And what did their unit at Portland fly but the F-4C. So I had come full circle starting in the photo reconnaissance model of the Phantom and ending up in the fighter interceptor version. Ultimately the Air Force decided that I was having entirely too much fun and kicked me out...I reached mandatory retirement in December of 1991...and we chose to move to Spokane, WA.
We found a lovely house on five acres that used to be an orchard. Each year we enjoy cherries, peaches, pears, apples and three varieties of plums. These we share with the deer, elk, pheasant, quail and other critters. We are eight minutes from the first tee at Hangman Valley Golf Course where I play four days a week while Pat takes three mile walks with our dog. Early on we fell into the volunteer trap, but cut back to free up time for fishing, camping and travel. During the winter we enjoy hockey and theatre. Retirements tough, but someone has to do it?
