[GreenKeys] 50 plus years ago where were you? ---the Cuban missile crisis

[John Pierson]

You've got good memories to sustain you!!!  In Dec 1963 I was hitch-hiking
home for Xmas in snow up to my knees on US HWY 63, heading up to Albia,
Iowa.   I lost my pay check on the way and some kind soul found it in their
back seat, contacted the NAVY recruiter, he found out where I was stationed
and mailed it back to me!!!  It was there at NATTC MILLINGTON when I got
back---but it was a hard Xmas with no money to buy xmas presents for my
parents....the check was for $32.00 my 1st and 15th payment as an E2...I
made E3 Airman in January and got a whopping raise to 42 bucks a
payday...wow I was rich..  Met Don the following May when I reported to
VP-16 and we were transitioning in the NEW P3-A...smiles

John

On Fri, Dec 19, 2014 at 10:38 PM, Don Robert House K9TTY <
62.5milliamps at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was very busy flying out of NAS GITMO day and night finding and
> discouraging Soviet submarines.
> Most of the time was spent photographing Soviet ships leaving Cuba with
> Soviet missiles.
>
> Our squadron won the FAIRWING 11 Battle Efficiency "E"  I still remember
> most of the time there.
> By Christmas 1963 it was 100 degrees F in the day and Castro had cut off
> the water to the base.
> We aircrews were issued salt water soap, but it did not work.  The USO
> troop came to entertain us
> but at night in an open air theater all the insects on the island were
> attracted to the spotlights and so the
> poor entertainers looked like they were performing in a snow storm of
> bugs.  God bless 'em.
>
> One of the base technicians had fungus infections on his toes so badly the
> Navy doctor removed
> his toenails twice! Still had problems but the good old USN would not
> transfer him stateside.
>
> When working on the gear evenings we only had about half an hour to visit
> the base bar.  Each
> rum and coke was 25 cents.  We would order 4 or 5 at a time.  Very few
> sailors drank the beer as
> it tasted awful with whatever preservative they put in it. One of the guys
> got so drunk he could not
> stand so we carried him to the concrete barracks and rolled him onto his
> top rack.  Sadly we pushed
> a little to hard and he went over the other side and hit the cement deck.
> He did not feel well the
> next day.
>
> One evening I was driving a small service vehicle with a flat bed. Pressed
> the gas pedal just a
> little too much and knocked the APS 20 magnetron tube off the back end.
> Cost $$$$ I never did
> pass the yellow equipment drivers license test...
>
> Memories...
>
> Don
> K9TTY
>
>
>
> On 18 Dec 2014, at 3:20 PM, Ron Kolarik wrote:
>
> > Hiding under a desk for practice, duck and cover, an exercise in
> futility with a local SAC base and
> > 60 miles from SAC hq. 5 years later looking at the Hawk batteries on Key
> West still pointed south.
> > There was a standing joke that if the Hawks ever fired the barracks
> would be the only casualty, no
> > very comforting if you happened to be in one at the time.
> >
> > Ron
> > K0IDT
> >
> >
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