: About Me

I am a 64 year old, Viet Nam Vet that is 100% disabled due to the junk they spread all over the place.

I live in Central Texas, close to Fort Hood and the VA hospital to be close to medical care.

I spent 20 years and 15 days in the U.S.Air Force, beginning as an aircraft mechanic and after two years of that, retraining to be a Loadmaster for the C-130 airplane, starting out in the "A" model and progressing to the "B" model. After being reassigned to Ohio, I was back on "A" models Again until 1967, when I received my orders for Viet Nam.
I ended up in the 14th Aerial Port Squadron at Cam Rahn Bay,RVN. Because I was a qualified Loadmaster, I was assigned to the Aerial Delivery/Mobility Section of the squadron. This meant that I carried blanket orders on me at all times and we would launch out at any given time to make our way to some out of the way airfield and be the receiving or departing end of a large movement of Army personnel and equipment from one place to another. Our job was to determine weights, load, tie-down or unload as the case may be of anything that came in to our little bitty place of the jungle, no matter the type of cargo or the type of airplane.
After 9 months and 2 days in country, I was reassigned to Ohio and within a year, I was promoted to E-5 and reassigned to Sheppard AFB, Tx to teach the basic Loadmaster course to new incoming personnel just out of basic training.
I remained an instructor for the rest of my career and finally retired on the 31st of January of 1982, moving to the Northwest to be closer to the wife's family.
After the children graduated from High School, we moved down here to Central Texas mainly because our daughter had moved down here and was living with a girl friend from school and my brother was also living down here.
So now I have be retired for more years than I was in the service, we have bought a house and live in a smaller community close to Fort Hood and not that far from the VA hospital where I get all my medical stuff done.

Creative Writing > Memoirs Memoirs: Military memories

7 of 15

Even War Time Can Be Fun, From the nightmares of a student loadmaster assigned to C-130 Squadron at Sewart AFB, Tn. It was August 1964 and we, that lived in the barracks, were getting ready for bed as it was about 11:00 PM .. Then the phone rang. Because it was on the wall next to my bed, I was the one to answer it. A booming voice said.."This is a recall...Pack your bags and be in the briefing room in 30 minutes". Well, we all groaned as we had been having practice drills like this for a few months now. I figured..what the heck, so I packed up what little I had and put on my flight suit a...

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