My Ribbons
US Air Force Veteran
I am a draft dodger. In 1971 my number was 18 and I received my notice to report for my draft physical in fall of that year. I passed my physical and was given 30 days to get my affairs in order and report to the Army. Rather than be drafted as a ground punder, I joined the United States Air Force 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". I didn't believe the war was just, that we were wrong and should not be fighting 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 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 communists that pumped up so many Americans into a murderous fury against their fellow man and frankly I believed with all our social programs and movement to a police state that there wasn't that much difference between what America was becoming and communism. I had no problem serving my country, my problem was with this war and the reasons for this war. My opinion hasn't changed I still believe that war was wrong and many brave, loyal, and patriotic Americans lost their lives fighting for a cause that in the end wasn't just. Many more survived that war only to be lost because of their Vietnam experience and I have the greatest respect for the men and women who returned from that war as I do for those who returned from our forgotten war, Korea, as well as WWII.
Having said that I was a draft dodger, I enter the USAF on a delayed enlistment and guarantee job program in November of 71 solely to avoid being drafted into the Army and facing combat in Vietnam. I had scored high on my tests and both the Air Force and Navy had recruited me fresh out of high school. The Navy wanted me for their Nuclear program for which 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 a military fashion, I was given no explanation. 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, 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. 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 14 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 where my government was going to make a man out of me. I was 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. As one of a handful of new recruits pulled out of training 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 a 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 (64500). 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 barracks were 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 $220 a month, no small amount considering the only expense I had was a $30 car payment.
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. 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.
Picture in my room June 1972
Join the Air Force to see the world and they sent me to Blytheville Arkansas. What a bummer and it was a bummer that was to last my entire enlistment. (Blytheville AFB was later changed to Eaker AFB before it was closed in December 1992.) Actually, while in tech school we got to submit three choices for base assignments. I picked Keesler in Mississippi because it was on the Gulf, Little Rock because it was close to home, and Blytheville as my third choice. What a mistake.
I was assigned to the 97th Bomb Wing, 97th Supply Squadron, of the Strategic Air Command or SAC. 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.
My recruiter didn't lie to me. I made rank fast. I was an E5 Staff Sgt in under 3 years. There were so many in supply that there were always someone getting out which made room for rapid promotions and my delayed enlistment time gave me 5 months more time over others. While I was assigned to base supply, my first assignment was an aid to the Procurement Supply Liaison Officer, who was a SSgt who after two months was sent tdy to Guam. Here I was with less than six months Air Force experience, I was assigned to fill the shoes of a SSgt. My delayed enlistment time counted towards promotions and I now had my second stripe so they sent me a single striper to serve as my aid. I worked mostly unsupervised and my supervisor, Capt Slaughter was so impressed that he put me in for Airman of the month which I received and this qualified me for Airman of the year an award which I also received a few months later. I married my high school sweet heart and we bought a mobile home off base. All was well in my world.
Because of my Airman awards and working in a SSgt slot, my CO put me in for a cash award program. I was accepted and after taking a written test, I scored high enough to receive that bonus for six months. That was welcome money and by the time it ran out, well I was promoted to the rank of Sgt and moved from Procurement to base supply where I was assigned to NORS (Not Operational Ready Supply).
NORS was kind of an elite group within supply. Being in SAC we had B-52 bombers setting on Alert and when one of those birds would go down for a part, it would be declared NORS. Our office was manned 24X7 with 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 start calling 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 Author Briggs one of the nicest military and professional supervisors I ever had. TSgt Briggs was black 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.
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 was a man that I respected greatly. 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 worked some day shifts in NORS but most of my time served 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.
After my promotion to SSgt, 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 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 four personnel assigned to me and two of them just didn't seem to know how to get the job done. I worked out a plan where I would call them out to work at 2 AM in the morning when I found they hadn't done their job correctly. Of course I had to come out and be there while they were redoing their job, but it only took two of these events and they began to understand that unlike their last supervisor, they couldn't escape doing the job by leaving it for someone else. They had to do it and do it right. When they did do it right I praised them and when they began to excel, I gave then a few Friday afternoons off. These two screw ups began to take pride in their work and I made sure that I had taken notice. I help tutor one of them in his exams and by the time my enlistment ended, he was on the promotion list for SSgt and had been selected as my replacement.
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 January 30, 1976 on terminal leave and two weeks later I was working undercover as a Washington County Sheriff's deputy for then Sheriff Herb Marshall. 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 June 1972 and January 1976. Please email me at rick@okelley.org.
Blytheville AFB Links
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 that 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 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. 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.
