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40 years ago today

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jackq

jackq

Jedi Knight
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Forty years ago today was the first day of my twenty year and month month career in the Air Force. Have never regreted one day of it and in exactly one month I'll have been retired for twenty years...Where does the time go.?? Family got to travel all over the world, wife and kids got to see some pretty neat places and see just how wonderful our country is. I've watched my son, who will be 32 in June, listen to people gripe how bad the country is and how they'd rather live someplace else. He stays cool and ask how much they need for a one-way ticket. Our daughter will be 37 in twelve days and she said the exact same thing to me a short time ago. Its not a perfect place...but I've yet to see an alternative.
 
Jack - congrats on your "twenty year month month" career!

As retirees often say - you survived to enjoy the future.

Tom
 
jackq said:
Forty years ago today was the first day of my twenty year and month month career in the Air Force. Have never regreted one day of it and in exactly one month I'll have been retired for twenty years...Where does the time go.?? Family got to travel all over the world, wife and kids got to see some pretty neat places and see just how wonderful our country is. I've watched my son, who will be 32 in June, listen to people gripe how bad the country is and how they'd rather live someplace else. He stays cool and ask how much they need for a one-way ticket. Our daughter will be 37 in twelve days and she said the exact same thing to me a short time ago. Its not a perfect place...but I've yet to see an alternative.
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Congrats Jack. I'm still 4 years away from my "40th" Retired after 24 years and one month and a few days. I enlisted on the 9th anniversary of Kennedy's assassination.

Basil
 
jacq, many congratulations indeed!, thank you for your service to our country, just one question, did we have "airplanes" back then? at least ones that had less then two wings? what type? i am seriously interested in knowing about the equipment you had been associated with, :savewave:
 
Congrats!

August of '70 I hit "The Green Machine" at Lackland.

Only stayed for four. DON'T ask me about "hind-sight"!!! :shocked:

goodonya BOTH. :thumbsup:
 
Started out on brand shiny new F-4s...worked all models..C, D,E and RF s. Left Homestead(first base)and went to Danang, again F-$s but got attached to a civilian concern because of a special talent they noticed during weapons qual. Anyhow...while with that bunch worked C-123s, C-130s, A-1s, C-119s, C-7s other stuff like many different helicopters. Left there went to Misawa Japan....more F-4s. Lucked out?? Went home to Griffiss in NY...F-106, F-101 and T-33s. Then on to Panama City Fl. More of the above except for bigger numbers. Then on the Charleston SC...two F-106s sitting hot alert for four years. Off to Mildenhall England on all model C-135s...KC tankers, RC snoopers and ECs that were trailing wire(five miles) for flying command post and submarine links...for possible missle launches. Then off to Cannon here in NM for almost seven years of the F-111..the dreaded triple threat aircraft..bomb them, strafe them..fall on them. Lost lots of them to mechanical failures..and more to faulty T/Fs..terrain following radar. After retiring...off to Alamogordo to civilian contracting on AT-38Bs..trainers that were modified to hold guns, rockets and bombs...3 years was enough..then on to civilian craft.
 
Jack said:
Charleston SC...two F-106s sitting hot alert for four years.
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Had a pair at Langley, too. I got a "B" model ride. T'was my first "real jet" ride as backseat baggage. Orange "poopy-suit" an' all. :laugh:
 
Two years into the tour at Charleston we got passed over to Langley..made sense as it was closer. Went up there alot for schools...was a hydraulic spec. but was cross trained to a B and C position on a weapons load crew, lost our personal equip. guy so went there for oxy. mask, flight gear equip. training and drag chute packing. Then they cut the envir. sys. slot...back for a five level school in that and then the crew chief numbers got cut...back again for that. Ended up crewing ..24 on...48 off....plus all the other jobs. Got run and trim/taxi certified. Also got a ride in a humpback B model while in NY...last flt. for an old Major who was retiring. Thought I ripped the wings off chasing aT-33 low level over the snow..got to buzz my house down in the Mohawk Valley...my wife and neighbors were bailing out of homes...she made me promise not to tell the old guy next door as he almost had the big one and promised to beat the fools in that damned plane if if ever met them.
 
Hmmm, April 1968, I had just qualified as a D1G nuclear reactor operator at the West Milton training site near Saratoga Springs, New York. Some how I managed to survive driving a TR4 through the winter there. In May I received orders to the USS Bainbridge in Mare Island Calif. Set off for that assignment in May '68 still driving the four.

The sphere that housed the prototype and D1G reactor for the aft engine room of the Bainbridge is still there, as is the aft section of the Triton prototype and the S3G plant.
D1G-1.jpg
 
tr6old timer, drove the tr4 through the winter, cool..ah i mean wow! i know they get some kinda snow up there as can be seen in your pict., didnt know they had all that reactor stuff. up there, maybe thats why em horses can run so fast.
 
Saratoga Springs....used to live in Balston Spa for a while...worked in Mechanicsville. Drove back and forth to Cooperstown every week-end,,,winters are just wonderful there, aren't they??
 
jackq said:
Saratoga Springs....used to live in Balston Spa for a while...worked in Mechanicsville. Drove back and forth to Cooperstown every week-end,,,winters are just wonderful there, aren't they??
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I too live in Balston Spa, my stay was from October 1967 to May 1968. Lived over a Grocery store, dated a Skidmore girl, and spent way to much time in the Rath Skeller (sp). That winter it went to -40 for seven or eight days. Lots of fun scrapping ice off the TR4's windscreen on both the inside and out.
 
We were there basically the same time....small world. Skidmore girls...by today standards they'd be considered tame....back them..well I was young and from the country...scared the crap out of me...
 
I TDY'd to Charleston a few times. My four years were '70~'74, first three at Langley, the last in Ubon. My "job" was goin TDY so I was all over the planet, mostly in short bursts.
 
My TDYs started mostly after I'd been in about ten years. While at RAF Mildenhall I lived out of a bag..kept waking up in different places..Azores, Greece,all over Europe..Egypt..other not so cool places. When I got to Cannon here in NM...same thing..Korea more times than I'd like, every Pacific island, nearly every base in the states(the F-111 couldn't leave and come back without a group of mechanics following to glue it back together) Got to see alot, but missed some quality time with the family so we're making up for that now.
 
I found this picture of my old TR4 taken in Balston Spa, NY, the winter of 67-68 after a mild snow, the winter and snow got worse. For the TR4 fans out there, you might note the wheels on the car are larger then stock. I actually made them wider myself and ran (I think) Dunlop SP190's. Never got stuck, nor used chains.

AR20080414_000102_edited.jpg
 
I'm 15 years into my retirement after 20 years in the Army....I remember a study done of retiring military officers back while I was on active duty...average life span after the military was 5 years! We beat it!!
 
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