For those who attended pilot training on the Mexican border it was the first foray into the international sex scene. Nuevo Laredo was just across the bridge from Laredo, and waiting across that bridge were places like Boys Town (not Father Flanagan’s). This Boys Town consisted of several brothels, which contained some very beautiful, reasonable and safe prostitutes. The girls all underwent weekly STD inspections from the Mexican health department. This folded neatly into the philosophy; condoms are for wimps, full speed ahead!
Back in India, when the discussion turned to Thai women and the possibility of picking up some killer STD strain, there was something to think about. Of course, Irv was a bareback guy (no condom). Shaky made a strong case for safety. He even had pictures from medical journals to prove his point. He had my attention.
We flew into U-Tapao, Thailand on a Thursday afternoon and were not scheduled to leave until Sunday morning. The airplanes were in rough shape after six weeks in India. These two days would give the mechanics enough time to prep the planes for the rest of the journey.
The Pattaya Beach area, northwest of the U-Tapao Air Base, was a famous R&R spot for US airmen and that’s where we went. The main drag reminded me of a combination of two party places I had been: Bourbon Street in New Orleans and The Strip in Las Vegas. An endless throng of people moving down the street lined on both sides with bars, massage parlors, eateries and brothels. Everything was ablaze with neon lights. Party girls handed out flyers advertising everything from “special” massage to .59-cent beer. Through it all, the faint odor of urine and vomit made this fantasyland all too real.
It seemed like a paradise for the lonely, overworked crewmember. We rolled into Pattiya Beach like Patton’s army. It was a true adult’s Disneyland but instead of riding Space Mountain we toured Yun’s Steam and Cream.
Irv led the charge. To say he went berserk was putting it mildly. His problem was there were too many girls to choose from and most of them were gorgeous, and available. Irv’s philosophy was to ask every girl he met to fuck. And I’m not sugarcoating his phrasing. That’s what he said: “Hey Honey, wanna fuck?” Of course, using that line on a street full of brothels will get you the right answer every time. Irv would stop at a likely candidate, negotiate a price and get ready to go but then he’d see one across the street who looked better so he’d break from one and sprint to the other. This happened five or six times before he finally committed to one, and off he went. I didn’t see him again until the next morning. The rest of us moved from bar to bar trying to maximize our fun before we had to move on.
Waking up the next morning at the BOQ was a truly awful experience. We had spent the night bar hopping and howling at the moon (at least I think that’s what I was howling at). We climbed into our beds just before dawn and, mercifully, had no real duties the next day. Somehow we overcame our massive hangovers and started to feel human again by the end of the day. Ah Youth! If I tried something like that today, they’d be hanging a toe tag on me.
Yakota Air Base, Japan, located about 50 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, was the next stop on our journey home. This was an important stop to all of us, especially the young guys. Our older crewmembers had been all over the world and they already had real stereo equipment. We, on the other hand, hadn’t been anywhere and had none. This was soon to change.
Japan was the stereo equipment capital of the world and we landed right in the middle of it. The Base Exchange (BX) stocked every major manufacturer’s line of stereo equipment and we got a military discount. I was in heaven. I’d been dreaming of getting a real stereo ever since I left college. I dreamed about stereos like Ralphie dreamed of BB guns. Most of my Instructors in pilot training were Southeast Asia vets and came home from their tours with top of the line stereos. So I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to buy. We certainly hadn’t spent any of our paychecks in India so we were ready to buy. I wound up with two sets of speakers (one big, one small); a turntable, a receiver, and a reel-to-reel tape deck, all for $500.
We were able to spend an extra day at Yakota and that was a good thing because we were able to find places to store the stereo equipment along with the cases of wine, guitars, sitars, globe bars, and room screens. The cargo holds of the airplanes now resembled an international furniture bazaar. Since we had three aircraft and six crews, the non-flying crew was stuck in the back with the furniture. The C-130 had webbed seating, which was snapped into position along both sides of the fuselage. The webbed seating was tolerable for a while but soon became uncomfortable. The trick was to claim a nice, flat equipment pallet and layer it with as many blankets as you could find. With all the stuff we were carrying home, space was tight.
Our loadmasters did a great job finding places for all of our treasures. In addition to our personal items, we carried extra tires, engine parts, cases of hydraulic fluid and oil. We carried all the hard to find equipment for a remote operation like Operation Bonny Jack.
When it came time to leave Yakota and make the jump across the Pacific to Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, our airplanes were maxed out. We took as much fuel as we could carry for the long journey across. The flight to Elmendorf was long, boring, and blessedly uneventful. Looking back after 45 years as a pilot, those were my favorite flights, the boring ones.
The best thing about Elmendorf was the bed. We were all so wrung out from the trip; it was heaven just to shower and sleep, and to be back in the USA.
A long flight from Elmendorf to Pope awaited, but at this point we didn’t care. We knew we were going home. When we arrived at Pope, the welcome was overwhelming. The whole base turned out. The band played as our aircraft rolled to a stop in front of the bleachers where our families awaited. We had been gone for seven weeks but it had gone by in a flash.
Now we had time to catch up with our families for the next few months. My daughter, Krista, had just celebrated her first birthday in June and the two-month separation brought about some big changes in her appearance. She started walking at 10 months and by the time I returned from India, she was zipping all over the place. With no regrets we said goodbye to Fort Bragg housing. We moved out of Fort Bragg housing and found a nice rental house in Spring Lake, a section of Fayetteville. Everyone was still paranoid about the band of crazed, hippie killers still on the loose waiting to strike at any time. Leaving Fort Bragg was not an option, we had to go.
Chapter 7
Another deployment loomed on the horizon. The C-130 community, like most military units, was gone from home frequently. Our “temporary duties” (TDYs) averaged three per year, with each trip lasting about six to eight weeks. This was hard on family life but we all knew what we were in for when we picked this line of work. We were all willing to do our duty. But that didn’t take the sting out of the separations.
The next deployment took the whole squadron to England. Since the end of World War II, the United States has maintained several military bases throughout Europe. Many of these bases housed permanently based Fighter or Reconnaissance units. These units were kept in place to keep our former allies, the communists, from breaching post-war agreements. What the US didn’t have permanently in place was airlift capability. All these bases needed resupply and airlift and this was accomplished by regularly rotating the stateside C-130 outfits through Europe. Our turn to go was November of 1971.
There were two rotation bases for the C-130: Mildenhall Air Base in Bury Saint Edmonds, England, and Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany. The preparation for a rotation starts at least a month prior to departure. For the aircrews all training requirements had to be up to date prior to leaving. Tests had to be taken, check rides flown, passports updated, shot records checked. All legal matters had to be finalized before leaving the US. The families would be on their own for the next two months and they had a network of mutual support to fill the gap during our trip. The maintenance troops had a full schedule of inspections and tests to perform prior to departure also. The more preventative maintenance done now, the more reliably the aircraft would perform overseas. Some of the remote locations we flew into were not places you’d want to experience a breakdown. So the theory was that an ounce of prevention would keep our asses out of trouble later.