How I Became a Member of The Wolfpack.

December 16, 1969 was the day I was “born”.

My life started on December 31, 1950 but I was born at Lackland in 1969.

Basic is a dim distant memory, much like how we remember our early childhood.  I have a few stories of my time there but that’s for another time.

Tech school at Sheppard AFB, TX was 12 weeks of learning to be an airman and retaining enough knowledge from the instructors to not hurt myself. Again there are stories from those days but that’s for another time as well.

My tech school classmates all got assignments to neat places like Myrtle Beach or California or Europe etc. Me, I got Cannon AFB, NM; a mere 300 miles west of Wichita Falls.

522 TFS                               F111s.

As it turned out Cannon was probably the best thing to happen to me. The F111s were still coming from the factory and we didn’t have many at the time so I was farmed out to Base Flight (T33A and C54), tire shop, wash rack, TA and the 524^th TFS (F100C & D). Occasionally I would get some experience on the F111 but not too much. Believe it or not I learned more in the tire shop than anywhere else. (I watched a guy who "knew it all" set an F111 on its tail when he screwed up the refuel.) 

One day I was feeling frisky and decided to ask the First Shirt how to go about volunteering for Viet Nam. I got all spiffed up, haircut and clean uniform, and went to the  orderly room. When I got there the shirt handed me my orders for Phu Cat AB, RVN. The AF beat me to the punch. Lucky for me because most of the wing and all of my squadron was moving to Mountain Home AFB, ID. Everyone that is except me.

Next: TDY enroute to George AFB, CA for FTD, 30 days at home then off to Nam.

I wasn’t scared or worried about dying because, hell, I’m in the Air Force. What's the worst that could happen?  My family was very concerned, I found out later, and a high school friend even suggested I should go to Canada with him.

Instead, I got on a plane in Philly and headed off to my war. It was 1971 and there was still a lot of protesting going on but that didn’t bother me.

I flew on a Pan Am 707 into Cam Ranh Bay. It was a great trip; fuel stop in Anchorage (they opened the bar for us and didn’t card anyone).

Change of Plans

When we got to Cam Ranh it was raining and the marshallers were wearing flak vests and helmets. Pretty exciting stuff. A couple of NCO’s from all the services came aboard to collect their personnel. The AF guy called a bunch of names, including mine, and told us that we were being diverted to someplace called Ubon, Thailand. Phu Cat was closing and we were needed elsewhere. I was pissed because I volunteered for Viet Nam, not Thailand. Not all of us were lucky enough to come to Ubon. Several F4 guys went to Bien Hoa to work on AT-37s. We had a rousing reunion when they came to Ubon for R&R.

That's how I ended up in A flight 25^th TFS, crew chief assigned to F4D 65-0786. There I met some of the greatest people I would ever meet. Time has dimmed the memories but they are still alive and Facebook has rekindled those memories.