"Patriotism is like salt, too much or two little will kill you."
I am a draft dodger. I graduated in May 1970 from Alma High School in Alma Arkansas USA and with no encouragement from my family or school to attend college I worked at Gerbers in Ft Smith until I was drafted. Probably the greatest reason I wasn't interested in college was ministers had been preaching for most of my life that the world was about to end, Jesus was coming back maybe tomorrow so I had little interest in doing anything that required much expensive or effort, after all if it was all going to end, what was the use? But Jesus didn't come back and on August 5th 1971 my government drew the numbers for men born in 1952 and my draft number was 18 out of 365. I received my notice to report for my draft physical in fall of 1971. That was the last year for the forced draft into our military, they took all men who passed their physical up to number lottery number 96. In my entire life I have never won but one lottery and this was it, lucky me. I passed my physical and not long after I receive my greetings and I was given 30 days to get my affairs in order and report for induction into the Army. Rather than be drafted as a ground pounder, I joined the United States Air Force November 9, 1971 to avoid combat in Vietnam.
Why did I dodge the draft? Maybe for the same reason that George W Bush choose not to go to Vietnam and "defend our nation". As far as I know our former President has never given his reason for doing all he could do to avoid combact in Vietnam but I will tell you my reason, I didn't believe the war was just, that we were in the wrong and should not be fighting in that war. I didn't then and don't now believe we have a right to insert ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Vietnam was a civil war with its beginnings as far back as WWI and occurred because of unfair dealings at the hands of the US, Britian, and France and I couldn't see that much difference in the communist government of the north and the corrupt government of the south. I didn't buy into the American hysteria towards communism that pumps up so many Americans into a "Patriotic" murderous fury against their fellow man and frankly I believed with all our social programs and movement towards a police state dominated by religion that there wasn't that much difference between what America was becoming and communism. They told us the same exact excuses then as they tell our nation's youth today as to why that war was necessary. We must go to defend and protect our "way of life" and I know a Green Beret who did exactly that only to have his American dream taken from him as he was forced into bankruptcy by home grown capitalist dictators. It wasn't the communist who threaten our way of life, it is Americans who pass laws to take from us our hard earned liberties and freedoms to live and work as our founders intended. Abraham Lincoln spoke a great truth when he said "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." I had no problem serving my country, my problem was with the Vietnam War and the reasons given for that war. My opinion hasn't changed I still believe that the Vietnam war was wrong and many brave and loyal Americans lost their lives fighting for a cause that in the end wasn't just and was based in lies. Our nation's most decorated Marine a two time Medal of Honor winner Major General Smedley Bulter got it correct 70 years ago in his book titled "War is a Racket: The Profit Motive behind Warfare". Many survived Vietnam war only to be lost from their Vietnam experience. I have the greatest respect for the men and women who returned from that war.
I enter the USAF on a delayed enlistment and guarantee job programs. I had scored high on my military tests given during high school and both the Air Force and Navy had recruited me in my last year in high school. The Navy wanted me for their Nuclear program but I would have to enlist for six years and the Air Force wanted me as an air traffic controller on a four year enlistment. I took the air traffic controller position. and was to report in January 1972. When that day came, I kissed my parents and girlfriend good bye and boarded a bus for Little Rock. When I arrived in Little Rock I spend many hours at the induction center setting around waiting until finally, I was given a voucher for a return ticket and told to go back home and report to my recruiter. In proper military fashion, I was given no explanation for my return. I did as I was told.
My family was very surprised when I called and asked to be picked up at the bus terminal in Ft Smith. I reported the following day to my recruiter who told me that when I had arrived in Little Rock they had reviewed my draft physical and discovered a problem with my color vision. I had to have 100% correct color vision and the physical reported I had faulty color vision. That was news to me I had no ideal I had color vision problems, so the recruiter arranged for me to be tested by a civilian doctor who reported my vision was 99% correct. A pale shade of purple appeared as gray to me in electric lighting but I could see it correctly in sunlight. That was enough to disqualify me as an air traffic controller.
My recruiter recommend PMEL or Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory. According to his tech order that career didn't require prefect color vision. It took several weeks to get me reschedule and then in late February I once again kissed my family and girl friend goodbye and took another bus to Little Rock only to return 12 hours later. The induction center called the PMEL training center to confirm they didn't require perfect color vision and they declined to take me. So here I was, high test scores in electronics but unable to obtain a job in that field because my color vision was less than perfect. "So what do you want to do", my recruiter asked me? "Well since I can't have anything that will equate to a good job in civilian life when I discharge, how about a job where I can wear my dress blues, work in air conditioned office, and make rank quickly", I asked. "Oh, you want base supply", he replied. So March 21, 1972 I once again traveled by bus to Little Rock and this time they kept me. They put me on a plane to San Antonio Texas and Lackland Air Force Base (copy of orders) where my government was going to make a man out of me. I flew out of Little Rock with Billy Dean Elmore and Glenn Russel Hart both from Camden, Carlos Cark of Mineral Springs, Charles Thomas King of Pocahontas, and Richard Lee Real of Tyronza Arkansas. We were assigned to the 3701 Training Squadron, Flight 0309. My TIs were SSgt Oglesby and Sgt McDaniels. I have a partial list of the names of those I trained with in the spring of 72 but my wife's dog ate the top off my flight photo so some of the names and photos are lost to me.
I completed my basic training with little to tell. It was, well pretty basic. I was offered an opportunity to try out for Air Force Pararescue. A handful of new recruits were pulled out of training one morning and we were shown a film about this elite group. I had never heard of them, and I was told that we were selected because we had no broken bones, didn't wear glasses, and our test scores indicated we would make good candidates. The film made it look good, daring and dangerous, going behind enemy lines to rescue down pilots. Briefly it talked about the training taking many months and was very difficult. Most who tried to become part of this elite Air Force unit failed. Being young and stupid and desiring to impress my girlfriend I thought about it, then I was told I would have to extend my enlistment from four years to six years and well, after all I was a draft dodger so I decided I would wait and give the service a try first before I did anything real stupid like extend my enlistment by two more years.
I came out of Basic with my first ribbon, the small arms expert ribbon. That resulted from a single day on the firing range where I fired the M-16 single shot at a target down range. The day before we had demonstrated to us how to field strip the M-16 and the next day we marched to the range where M-16s were in blocks on the ground in front of us on the firing line. We were given ammo and told when to load and fire keeping the barrel always pointed down range. When we finished we were instructed to return the weapon to the blocks and stand up and step back from the firing line. I don't recall how many rounds we fired, but it wasn't many, maybe 40 rounds and as a result, I received my first ribbon as a small arms expert.
By the first week of May I had completed my basic and boarded a plane for Denver Colorado, home of Lowery AFB where I would attend eight weeks training to become an Inventory Management Specialist. I left Texas in my 1505s and stepped out of the Denver Airport in almost a foot of snow. I dug out my winter coat in a hurry and boarded a shuttle bus headed to base. After checking in, I was taken to my temporary barracks then a few days later transferred to my training barracks. They had just started building college dorm type housing on base but my barrack was an old WWII style that had been converted into rooms that housed two airmen with a bath shared between two rooms. For free housing it wasn't that bad. The food was excellent with a chow hall on both sides of the runway. On Sundays they would serve t-bone at one hall for the noon meal and then at the other for dinner. T-bone twice in the same day, what a life and going to school in the military wasn't that much different from working at a civilian job. No KP, no formations, just show up for class and learning my subject then roaming Denver in our off hours, and going to movies on base costs almost nothing. Uncle Sam provided my room and board and I got to keep all my check which at that time was $180 a month, no small amount considering the only expense I had was a $30 car payment. But considering I had been forced to leave a job that paid $90 a week and I had free room and board at home, well I took a pay cut when I was forced into the military.
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I am on the bottom row, second from the left. Notice I don't have my small arms metal on. I had no ideal at that time that I was authorixed that metal. It was later when I was at base going over a records review that I was informed that I was out of uniform because I didn't have the small arms metal on my uniform that my records reflected.
There was an airman's club on base, and a lot of pressure to drink and smoke. I don't like the taste of beer or loosing control, and I certainly didn't like smoke, so outside of movies and checking out Denver, there wasn't a lot of other things to do that interested me.
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After my eight weeks training, I was given my first duty assignment, Blytheville Air Force Base, in Blytheville, Arkansas. Where the hell was that? Well I found out, it was on the opposite side of Arkansas. I grew up in the foothills of the Ozark Mountains in Northwest Arkansas and Blytheville Air Force Base was next to the Mississippi River on the North East part of Arkansas. Like night and day.
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Picture in my room June 1972
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Join the Air Force to see the world and they sent me to Blytheville Arkansas. Well actually they gave me three base choices and I asked for Keesler in Mississippi, Little Rock Air Force Base, and Blytheville as my number three selection. It turned out to be one of those "be careful what you ask for, you might just get it" moments that was to last my entire enlistment. (Blytheville AFB was later changed to Eaker AFB before it was closed in December 1992.)
I was assigned to the Strategic Air Command (SAC), 2nd Air Force (8th AF 1975), 42nd Air Division, 97th Bomb Wing, 97th Supply Squadron. Once in SAC always in SAC that is what I was told by those with a lot more stripes than I had and I guess that was true because most of the guys I served with had been in SAC all their career. I arrived on base July 15, 1972. Blytheville was a dud compared to the western side of the state that I returned home often on weekends. It was 316 miles from the base to my parents home and most of it was Interstate Hightway which was 70 MPH in those days. I left Blytheville via I 55, went south to West Memphis where I turned west on I40. In 1972 there was a section of I40 around Ozark and Mulberry that had uncompleted bridges so we were forced off I40 at Clarksville and we had to drive US 64 to Dyer where we were allowed back on I40. Sometime in 1973 these bridges were completed and I could travel via Interstate all the way. I could leave on Friday night from the base and be home by midnight and then leave on Sunday about 3PM and be back on base by lights out. I owned a 1966 Ford Mustang and a 1972 Suzuki GT750 motorcycle. I loved this motorcycle and during the summer of 1972 I would normally ride it home for the weekend. In September my girlfriend and I decided to get married and that slowed down the trips to home to one maybe every three months. It was expensive to setup house and we just didn't have money to waste on gas. Coming home became even more difficult in the fall of 1973 and till late spring of 1974 due to the OPEC oil embargo against the US for our support of Israel. Gas prices went up and stations ran out of gas sometimes by noon. Making it worse, the speed limites on the Interstate were reduced to 55 MPH to conserve fuel making it take two more hours to complete the trip. 316 miles required one gas stop and one could not count on any stations along the way being open. We sold my Mustang and bought a Ford Pinto (that was a painful downsizing) and the range of the Pinto was about 275 miles so we had to carry a 5 gallon can of gas inside this Pinto hatchback. It wasn't awful. Even my Suzuki motorcycle required a gas stop every 225 miles so it was no better. In 74 when the embargo was over because the Interstate speeds were still at 55 MPH we began to take other routes to see new places. At 55 one didn't really gain that much time via the Interstate over some of the shorter routes that went through cities and towns. Over time we had less desire to go home and cut our trips down to only about two a year. I think it was harder on my wife than on me but when I discharged in 76 neither of us wanted to live back in our home town in western Arkansas so we settled in Northwest Arkansas and have been there every since.
My recruiter didn't lie to me. I made rank fast. I was an E5 Staff Sgt in 37 months. Everytime I would receive a promotion my Date of Rank would be set back by the five months because of the delayed enlistment allowing me to qualify for my next promption before most of my peers. There were so many in the 645x0 supply filed that there were always someone getting out which made room for rapid promotions. Upon my arrival on base I spent a few months at Base Supply getting to know my way around but my first real assignment was as an aid to the Procurement Supply Liaison Officer, who was SSgt. I arrived on base in July and by September I was in Procument where I remained until the spring of 1973. I only received about three or four months working in procument when my SSGt received orders to Guam. Because there was no one else and I was the most experienced I had to fill the shoes of a SSgt, and with the help of my 5 months delay enlistment time counting toward promption time, I was promoted to Airman First Class (1 Jan 1973) and given an Airman as my aid. Life was good and I worked mostly unsupervised as my supervisor, Capt Slaughter work in Base Supply which was about a half a mile away. I was never sent overseas like a lot of those around me, I spent my entire enlistment at Blytheville. When I arrived at Blytheville the Air Forces had been sending three level or apprentice level personal overseas but almost to the day of my arrival this policy changes and they began to send skill level 5 personnel which were mostly Sgt and SSGT ranks. By the time I was promoted to Sgt (E4) (1 May 1974) the war in Vietnam was mostly over and they were bringing people home from overseas and allowing many who were on their second enlistement to get out early if they wished.
| In apprecation for doing a good job my supervisor put me in for Supply Sq Pride Airman of the month which I received (15 Feb 1973) and this qualified me for consideration as PRIDE Airman of the Base an award which I also received (15 June 1973) a few months later. My picture went in the base paper and the local city paper, I did a few ribbon cuttings, and I went over and shook the hand of the base commander, received a night out on the town, and the local Ford dealer gave me a big new shiny Ford to drive for the weekend. Not long before this I had married my high school sweet heart and we bought a mobile home off base. All was well in my world. |
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PRIDE Airman of the Base 1973 |
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April 18, 1973 I was moved from Procurment to NORS Control (Not Operationally Ready Supply). NORS was kind of an elite group within supply. The function of SAC was to be ready to launch B-52 bombers setting on Alert pads on a moments notice in the event of war and when one of those birds would go down for a part, it would be declared NORS or Not Operationally Ready and our office which was manned 24X7 was tasked with finding the part if it was not in stock in our warehouse. We had a bank of phones that allowed us to call around the world looking for a replacement part as to get the alert bird back up and functional. We would call one of five supply depots first and if we couldn't find the part we needed we would then call other SAC bases to see if they had the part in stock. When a bird was put in NORS status, any base that had the part was required to surrender it to us. The part would then be put on the nightly Log Air flight and when it arrived we would send it out to maintenance. That was my life for most of the rest of my enlistment. I worked for Tech Sgt Arthur Briggs one of the nicest military and professional supervisors I have ever had. TSgt Briggs was a black man and coming from Northwest Arkansas I had only known two or three blacks in my entire life. All I really knew were the stories about how blacks were stupid, lazy, and untrustworthy, but TSgt Briggs was anything but that. He was a man I would trust my life to. The fact that he was black, became a non issue, he was a true professional and an all around good guy. I learned a lot just by being around him.
Because of my Airman awards and working in a SSgt slot when I was only an AIC, my CO put me in for Superior Performance Pro Pay. I took a written test and scored high enough that I receive bonus pay for the next six months (15 April 1974). That was welcome money and then 15 days later I was promoted to the rank of Sgt (E4) (1 May 1974). Sorry new Air Force guys, in my day because of the war and the large number of airman to be supervised E-4's were Buck Sgts and NCOs. Major James Bailey was our Commanding Officer for most of my time at Blytheville. He left just a few months before I was discharged and he was a man that was easy to respected. He was claim, very professional, and I never saw him angry. Captain John Slaughter was the officer in charge of the department that NORS was assigned to and he too was professional, fair, and really a very nice guy. I don't recall having a bad supervisor throughout my Air Force experience.
I worked some day shifts in NORS but most of my time was night or weekends. We had three after hours shifts. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 5 PM to 8 AM, Thursdays from 5PM to 8AM and Saturday from 8 AM to 8AM on Sunday then there was a Sunday shift from 8 AM to 8 AM on Monday with a Tuesday night shift from 5 PM to 8 AM on Wednesday. We had a cot and a TV and were allowed to sleep on the job provided we could wake up if the phone rang or the door buzzer rang. The building was locked after hours. Working in NORS was great because we were out of sight and out of mind most of the time and we were exempt from all inspections and formations. It was like working a civilian job but better.
When I was promotion to SSgt (1 May 1975), I had to leave NORS. As a SSgt I had to have my own area to supervise, and I was assigned in a work area in the warehouse as the supervisor of DIFM or Due in from Maintenance. The Warehouse was cold in the winter and hot in the summer but lucky for me, I was there only about a year. There were a lot of parts on planes that are rebuilt from the old parts and when a replacement part was issued, maintenance had only so many days to get the old part back to us where we prepared the paperwork to have the part send to the repair facility. DIFM was in terrible shape and my orders was to get it into ship shape. That is what I did. It was working in DIFM were I began to develop my supervisory skills which aided me so much in my law enforcement career. I had a sgt and an aic assigned to me and the sgt was pretty good but the aid just didn't seem to know how to get the job done. I worked out a plan where I would call him out to work at 2 AM in the morning when I found he hadn't done the job correctly. Of course I had to come out and be there while he was redoing the job, but it only took two of these events and he began to understand that unlike his last supervisor, he couldn't escape doing the job by leaving it for someone else. He had to do it and do it right. When he did do it right I praised him and when he began to excel, I gave him a few Friday afternoons off. He began to take pride in his work and I made sure that he was aware I had taken notice. Sgt Clayton was was on the promotion list for SSgt and had been selected as my replacement at the time I left.
In the fall of 1975, I was called to base personnel office where I was presented with orders to get my affairs in order and report in 30 days to go on a 13 month unaccompanied tour to Turkey. I had considered making the Air Force a career but that changed my mind. Turkey was not a place I wanted to go. I told the clerk I didn't think I would accept the offer and he laughed and told me I had no choice. I asked him if the Air Force was really going to send me to Turkey for a few months then bring me home in March when my enlistment ran out. He got a strange look on his face, flipped through some pages and said, I see you haven't re-enlisted yet, we can take care of that right now. I said, "no thanks".
Because I had work the odd hours with NORS for so many years I hadn't taken very much leave. I didn't need to, I was off a lot. I had almost 90 days leave saved up and I decided to take 30 of them as terminal leave and have they Air Force pay me for the other two months. That is what I did. I left the Air Force Feb 1, 1976 on terminal leave and two weeks later I was working undercover as a Washington County Sheriff's Deputy for then Sheriff Herb Marshall who told me that it was my Air Force experience and the fact that I made rank in just three years that caused him to hire me so for me it did open doors. I discharged from the USAF on March 20, 1976. I enjoyed my Air Force experience and I suppose the military did make a man out of me. I have been standing on my own two feet every since.
I am interested in making contact with anyone who worked at the 97 Supply Squadron between July 1972 and January 1976. Please email me at rick@okelley.org.
Visit May 2002 - my wife and I haven't been back to Blytheville since 1976 so in late Spring of 2002 we had traveled to Memphis for the barbecue fest and to see the Czar exhibit. Our oldest son, Shawn, traveled with us and we decide to drive up to Dyersburg and cross the river to show him where his dad was stationed during Vietnam and the Cold War. Just as we remembered, it was hot and dusty and we were shocked at how little the city of Blytheville had changed or grown in 26 years. They still had that crooked main street and to our surprise the mobile home we had first lived in 1972 in what was then Barkers Trailer Court was still there, still being rented. The base was open to the public and we were able to drive to the spot where I so often parked my 1972 Suzuki 750 motorcycle outside the Base Supply office just outside the NORS Control Office window. The building was in good repair and occupied by a business. It looked much the same as it did 26 years ago when I last walked out of the north entrance.
| In the photo one can see a tree between the two covered entrances. A window is behind that tree and that room was the NORS Control office. The corner of the building closest to the viewer was where the UNIVAC 1050-II was housed and the back side of the building was the warehouse with loading docks. |
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We drove around to see what had changed since 1976 and 1992 when the base was closed. My old barracks was gone, replaced with a newer one. We couldn't find the base hospital one of the main buildings on the base and after unknowingly having driven by it several times, we suddenly saw that it had been so neglected that it was hidden from view by over growth. Seems a shame that there was no need for that building, maybe as a nursing home since some of the base housing is being used for retirement homes. Setting lonely in the parking lot in front of the covered over hospital stood a platform topped by a bronze B-52 with a placket dedicated to the men who flew so many missions during the Vietnam War. Alone, neglected, and forgotten like so many of our veterans who fought in that war, I can wonder what a waste my life would have been if I had not choose to dodge the draft and I too had become one more name on the wall.
May 2010 - When I was discharged from the Air Force, I put that experience behind me. To be frank, I felt most of my country men and women blamed the military because we failed to win that unjust war. Far too many look at war the way they look at the local football game failing to understand that people on both sides die and when their team looses they are guick to assign blame. I know some like myself who just didn't advertise they had been in our military but recently something has changed. The four years I was in the Air Force and for many years after I was discharged, I never had anyone thank me for my service, that no longer is true. In the past year I have had people discover that I was in the Air Force during Vietnam mostly because some form I am filling out asks if I was in the military and what branch and I have had some asked if they can shake my hand and others who simply say "thank you for your service". After all the years of feeling ashamed, it is nice to no longer feel ashamed. We didn't pick that war and those who fought it and those like me who were at risk, could have been sent at a moments notice into the war zone, should not be blamed for the failures of our politicians who promise much but contribute little. More importantly we vets must stop blaming each other because that war was lost decades before it was fought.
In the days of old, the Kings would lead the charge into battle, in more modern times FDR's oldest son served in combat in WWII but I don't know of any President's children fighting in Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War, or the current and on going Iraq and Afganistan Wars. I believe we would have fewer wars and they would be fought only when truly necessary if every President and every member of congress had a child in the battle. It is far too easy to risk someone elses loved one and you truly don't know the real costs of war until it is your own who is in harms way. LBJ invested the lives of approximatly 19,000 young Americans to try to win Vietnam and Nixon invested another 39,000 trying to get us out of Vietnam "honorably" and for what? They told us we had to fight to protect our way of life, yet with each passing day our way of live is taken from us and today you can walk into just about any store that sells clothes and find clothing with the "Made in Vietnam" label. Young Americans honeymoon on the beaches of Vietnam that not too long ago ran red with the blood from both sides. Where do the almost 59,000 young Americans go to get their lives back? Where do those who survived go to get their innocences back? War isn't a sporting event, there are no winners when war is choosen, some just come out a little better than those who don't come out at all. To all my fellow country men and women who died because of Vietnam, "thank you for your service, I just wish our country had been wiser in your use and would have learned something in the process". Our foolishness continues.
Support our Troops by making peace in our world.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln
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