Chapter 24
BY THE SEA SIDE
(Marine Corps Air Station
Cherry Point, Havelock, North Carolina. Part 1: From late April 1971 to the end
of September 1972)
The
next morning upon reporting for work at VMT 203, I keep my ears wide open as I learn
much from official “lecturing” and thru the grapevine mainly consisting of the
fellow pilot trainees around me. Previously, upon reporting for duty at
Quantico and at Vance, I immediately started a rigidly structured
training program in which I mainly followed clear and firmly set schedules and
orders to the best of my ability. I liked the simplicity of that
because it made for smooth operation of that training. But right now at Cherry
Point, the situation is more “fluid” and in somewhat of a mild upheaval,
causing frequent frustration I had not thus far encountered on military active
duty. I now enter the nitty-gritty of military life.
At
this time the United States is steadily withdrawing its military out of Viet
Nam and nearby air bases in Thailand. The U.S. is soon to cease sending Marine
pilots to fight in Nam. Therefore they slow down this phase of pilot training,
resulting in the start of my advanced pilot training in VMT 203 being put on
hold for a few months.
I’m
told to report in to work each morning at 8 AM and to sit around in the ready
room thru noon. If the officers in charge find “busy work” for us, they assign
it to us. After the lunch hour, if no work had been assigned to me for the
afternoon, I’m free to leave for the day (on most workdays). So I suddenly find
myself in an entirely different life from my previous daily intense training. “Hurry
up and wait!” military personnel say of such (while shaking their heads
in frustration).
Each
morning in the ready room and at mealtimes at the officers’ chow hall, I listen
much and ask many questions trying to familiarize myself with this “fluid”
situation. I mention to a pilot buddy that I had to take a BOQ room because
they were available. “No, you don’t have to take that room! Those rooms are now
rated “substandard” because of the age of the old BOQ building. Because of that
rating, you can vacate that room, apply for your housing allowance and
get it.”
So
I do that, now wanting to live off base because I have that choice here at
Cherry Point. I check out of the BOQ and started staying nights in a cheap
motel outside the base gate as I look for an apartment to rent. That apartment
search quickly became frustrating, as rental “housing” in the immediate
surrounding area is full up because of the large number of Marines returning
here from Asia (mainly Viet Nam and Thailand).
Cherry
Point is presently bloated with Marines. Searching diligently several
afternoons, I find each prospective rental place to be full up. Daily rates at
the motel quickly add up to expensive lodging. Also, it’s a most unsettled
living situation. My few personal belongings are in boxes in the Thunderbird’s
back seat and trunk (which I always keep locked). I’m desirous to get out of
that motel into “more settled” living quarters.
Thank
God that in just a few days, while chatting with fellow pilots in the ready
room, Lt. Dudley mentions that an F-4 pilot he knows had bought a mobile home
and wants to rent out the spare bedroom in it. I quickly contact First
Lieutenant Will, soon drive the 8 miles or so down to Newport to find his
mobile home in a quiet and attractive “trailer” park setting on a back road.
Will shows me the small 2nd bedroom at one end of the trailer. I
rent it cheaply and soon move in “temporarily” while I keep searching for
something more suitable. It’s a great relief to finally to unload my belongings
from the car and put them into this room.
Will
gives me my own door key and charges me either $40 or $50 monthly rent but
doesn’t charge for utilities. I pay him cash each month. This rental
transaction is so simple, no bothersome contracts, fees, or any red tape; just
hand over cash to a fellow pilot to abide in his mobile home.
The
monthly housing allowance that I now start receiving is $120 (I think). With the
short commute of 8 miles one way (and cheap gasoline), I’m ahead financially
with this arrangement. It’s an immense relief to be out of that daily rate
motel tho it was a cheap one costing about $15 per night. (But multiply that by
30 to see it come to $450 monthly!)
So
I now share the living room, kitchen and bath with Will. Each of us is out of
the “house” much of the time, so there’s practically no conflict. Most every
day I eat lunch at the officers’ chow hall on base (and usually supper also on
the few workdays that I stay on base all day).
Along
about now, one day as I sit eating lunch in the officers’ chow hall, from off
to my side I hear a familiar voice call out to me.
“Hey,
Yerby!”
I
had not yet seen the caller. But I immediately recognized the voice as that of
Jim W. from Navy ROTC at Auburn. (Back in Chapter 21 I told you that Major
Cleveland at Auburn told me that Jim had been killed in Viet Nam.) So from that
day till this day, I thought my buddy Jim was dead. But this voice calling me didn’t
sound dead at all. I look up and there’s Jim, big as life. That was a joy to see! He joins me for lunch as
we catch up on news. I calmly mention to him what Major Cleveland had told me.
“No,
that was my brother that got killed in Nam.”
I
tell Jim I’m sorry to hear about his brother. Jim is now a RIO (a radio
intercept operator) that flies in the back cockpit of an F-4 Phantom.
At
this point, I’ll tell how my personal life is shaping up in North Carolina, as
I’m not flying or doing much on base. At the lunch table in the chow hall a
fellow pilot said he was looking for a house to buy. Upon hearing that, a light
bulb lit up in my dark brain. ‘Buying a house is a wise idea. Rental housing is
full up. If I can find a house to buy, each monthly house payment will build up
equity in that property.’ So I start looking for a cheap house for sale.
Till
this day, I had never considered buying a house (more space than a bachelor
needs, plus I won’t live in this area very many years). But (with time) I came
to know that it was God’s Will for me to obtain my own house here. By His
Grace, I did so, and living in that house and in its location became a tremendous
blessing to me.
Returning
to Will’s trailer early most afternoons, I frequently jog 3 miles or so on nearby
deserted, quiet, sandy roads. Most of the year at Vance, I had exercised
insufficiently (in my own opinion). So with plenty of free time now, I try to
make up for it and immediately see my stamina increase close to the level it
was at TBS in Quantico.
As
I jog thru loose sand that necessitates more effort (and thus gives a better
work out) I take in this new scenery of the “sand hills” of coastal North
Carolina. (To me, it’s not as attractive as the Virginia hills or Oklahoma
plains, but the nearby ocean is most beautiful.) By now
it is hot weather and I return to Will’s trailer soaked with sweat, take a
shower, change into clean clothes and eat supper. If Will is home, I ask him
how it is to pilot the F-4 Phantom and we fellow pilots chat about flying and
such.
I
think I arrived at Cherry Point on a Tuesday evening (having left Florida the
previous morning). The following night (Wednesday) I attended Pleasant Acres
Free Will Baptist Church about 12 miles from Cherry Point going west on
U.S. Hwy 70. The church is located on old US Hwy 70 (now a back road) near New
Bern. I knew about this church because I saved its name and address when I saw
it listed on Evangelist Bobby Jackson’s revival schedule some months ago
(because I expected to come to Cherry Point). The Wednesday night service and
the friendly people blessed me (especially Pastor Outland who was most
welcoming to me.) Each time I moved to a new place, the most important thing
was to go right to church to attend the services and to make Christian friends.
Upon
moving into Will’s trailer in Newport about 8 miles east from Havelock
(in the opposite direction from New Bern and Pleasant Acres church)
toward the coast, I start visiting the Free Will Baptist churches further along
that easterly direction in Morehead City, Beaufort, Davis and Stacy right along
the coast on an ocean hwy. Take a look on a map of the locations of these towns
in a lovely low-lying coastal and ocean area (with clouds of mosquitoes). I
just soaked in this lovely scenery that’s new to me and enjoy it to the
fullest. Each and every bit of God’s creation is most lovely and I relish the
change of lovely scenery each time I relocate to a different spot on this
globe!
Tho
I do not start flying for a few months, I have various other “work” to do at
intervals. First off, I’m scheduled for a pilot’s medical physical exam at the
Navy hospital on base to determine if I’m physically qualified to be a military
pilot. Going thru that checkup again, as soon as the Navy doctor’s ear was
available to me, I tell him that just a few weeks ago I had received a pilot’s
medical checkup at Vance AFB and passed with flying colors.
His
face immediately takes on a serious look (as the Air Force doctor’s face had
done about a year ago when I told him I had just had a checkup by a Navy
doctor). Now, this Navy doc firmly lectures me about how Navy doctors give
these exams correctly, clearly indicating that an Air Force doc might
not do so. It sounded like he was reading from the same cue card as that AF doc
a year ago, just reversing the places where he said “Navy” and “Air Force”. “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.” Truly, all that is of this world is vanity!
I’m
required to take a weeklong “Escape and Evasion” course that trains us pilots and
navigators what to do if we are shot down over Viet Nam and possibly captured.
In the classroom we are taught ways to evade the enemy that is searching for
us, to forage for eatable plants and animals in the nature around us, and such.
Then
we are taken out to the forest near the Neuse River to live off the land a
couple of days, eating plant leaves, roots, bulbs and such, digging clams on
the shore of the Neuse and killing and eating the snakes we saw. When I return
from walking thru the forest foraging for edibles, a moccasin was lying on top
of my canvas “lean to” that I had stretched out and tied between trees to sleep
under that night.
‘So,
you came to sleep with me, serpent foe?’ I kill him and we cut him up and put
him in the pot along with a jumble of such edibles and boil it all for supper.
Tasted terrible. It was apparent that poisonous serpent wanted to spend the
night with me. So I let him spend the night in my tummy and in a few buddies’
tummies. Likely he was more comfortable there than I was sleeping on the hard
ground with ticks crawling in, seeking a blood donation. I was definitely
more comfortable with him in our tummies than if he had been crawling
around on me as I slept.
Then
at the end of the 2nd day, they throw us into a P.O.W. camp, beat
and torture us as they interrogate us into the early night. Two other guys and
I hold out under torture and beating, refusing to answer any of their
questions. They cracked one of those guy’s ribs, kicking him as he lay on the
ground. The other 9 guys caved in and “squealed”.
After all that horror, they treat us with
chopped up raw earthworms in hot sauce for a late supper, served out of a
genuine (and dirty) turtle shell into rusty cans. Had I known what it was, I
would not have eaten it. We each ate that from our individual rusty tin can
with our fingers (no silverware was issued).
Personally,
I don’t think such suffering during training would help me do any better upon
encountering the real thing at the hands of the enemy. It did make us plenty
mad at the officers and non-commissioned officers who meted out that pain to
us. At the end of the course late Friday night, they haul us back to the main
area of the base, quickly dismiss us (because we were boiling mad at them) and
tell us to go home and come back the next morning for the classroom debriefing
of that training.
As
we each drive away that night in our private vehicles (mad as could be in our
bruised, scraped and somewhat bloodied conditions), if one of those
“instructors” had stepped off a sidewalk into the path of one of our cars, it
is possible that the last thing he would remember on this earth would have been
the roar of a car engine speeding up.
We
have to go to work Saturday morning to be debriefed on our torture. By then, we
are only slightly less mad at those tormentors who now debrief us. Last night,
we ate that supper not knowing what its contents were. The earthworms covered
with red sauce looked like noodles. We were not able to discern their taste
because the hot sauce set our mouths on fire. As they now debrief us, our
stomachs churn as they tell us it was earthworms. Last night, after each of us
ate 1 rusty can of hot sauce worms, those tormentors asked who wanted seconds.
Only one hungry guy (out of about 12) took seconds and ate them. Now when we
learn what we ate, we rib that buddy to no end. “But I was hungry,” he replied.
Good enough reason!
For
years, that “torture training” had been conducted for all Marine aviators. But
not long after I endured it without squealing, our nation’s government in
Washington, D.C. outlawed it as being unnecessary cruelty. I heartily agree!
Soon
after Sunday morning church the following day, I ride with fellow pilot Lt. Dan
M. (in his car) down to MCAS Beaufort, South Carolina for a week of classes on
the A-F Skyhawk, learning everything about that fast and deadly bird that is
required knowledge for its pilot. I sit thru those classes convalescing from
last week’s physical abuse, muddy water draining out my nose from my sinuses
because they had held me down, pouring swamp water over my nose and mouth to
induce me to talk. Thought I would drown! Still, I didn’t squeal.
It’s
the policy for Marine officers to annually return to the rifle range and pistol
range to practice target shooting and then shoot for score. (Must stay
qualified in the use of those weapons.) I had no chance to do that the year I
was on the AF base in Oklahoma. So I soon spend a week each on those two firing
ranges here at Cherry Point. I liked firearms and always enjoyed this annual
event. It was one of the easiest things I did in the Marines and I enjoyed the
challenge of getting a “Sharp Shooter” score several years. (From top down, I
told you the 3 divisions were, Sharp Shooter, Expert, and Marksman.)
Living
in Will’s cheap room is reasonably suitable to me, so now I don’t rush to
relocate. I visit realtors, searching for a somewhat old and small cheap
house (giving my work and home phone numbers to each realtor.) After some
weeks, a realtor located right outside the base gate tells me he had gotten a
listing I might be interested in. I ride with him to the house and look at it
and its 2 acres of property. The owner family is presently living in it, but
wants to sell and relocate.
The
small, white, wood frame house is simple and somewhat old. I think the total
price was about $12,000, including the 2 acres of property. The realtor
informed me that I could pay the owner the small amount of equity he had in the
house and assume his present loan that had a low monthly payment of $75. The
realtor said I could assume that loan thru the Veterans’ Administration because
I’m on active duty in the military. I had practically no knowledge of such. So
the friendly realtor (desirous to make the sell) was a great help. Prayerfully
considering all aspects for just a few days, I made the decision to buy that
house. In less than a year, I came to fully believe that was God’s Will
for me, and I thank my Lord for that provision. (Much more on this story
later.)
Upon
deciding to purchase, I must give the owner family sufficient time to move out.
Then I spend just a few days cleaning up the interior before moving in. It
helps that I don’t have to spend much time in VMT 203. I paint interior walls
and have carpet laid in the living room, borrowing money from the Cherry Point
Credit Union, which I recently joined. During that time, the Tipton family
stops by to visit me on their way from Ft. Myers, Florida to Fredericksburg,
Virginia on a summer vacation trip to visit family. I show them my newly
purchased house and ask for pointers on a few things regarding it. After 3
hours or so, they go on their way.
It
was about July 1971 when I cleared my few belongings out of my bedroom in
Will’s trailer, thanked him for his kindness to me, and moved into my own
house for the 1st time in my life (at age 25).
To
drive to my newly purchased house from Will’s trailer on the back road in
Newport, I get onto nearby U.S Hwy 70, drive west thru Havelock (passing near
the base gate) and proceed on west on Hwy 70 toward New Bern to the Riverdale
community about 10 miles from the Marine base’s main gate in Havelock. There, I
turn left off U.S. 70 to cross the railroad tracks less than 100 yards from Hwy
70. Upon crossing the tracks, there is an immediate right turn onto a narrow,
sandy road that parallels the tracks to the last of 3 or 4 houses along that
“trail” and on the left side of it (with the RR on the right side).
My
house is the next to last house on this short, dead end road. Gene and Evelyn
live next to my property in the last house with their son (Brian, about 7) and
daughter (Susan, about 4). They are members at Pleasant Acres church. So I
quickly become friends with these next-door neighbors. Pleasant Acres church is
only about 2 miles past my house going on toward New Bern. An elderly couple
Mr. and Mrs. Tomlinson live in the large old house just before mine. It felt
good to now be living between local people off base and to become somewhat a
part of the community.
While
living in Will’s trailer in Newport, I visited most every Free Will Baptist
Church on down the coast from Newport, as I previously related. Upon moving to
a New Bern address, I visit the other 2 Free Will Baptist churches in New Bern
(Ruth’s Chapel and Sherwood Forest) while visiting Pleasant Acres also. I
decide to make Pleasant Acres my home church while living here. It’s much
closer to my house than the other 2 churches in New Bern. Also, the people, the
pastor, the preaching and most everything about this church seem more suited to
me than the other 2 churches. Likely by September (1971), I’m firmly
gravitating toward Pleasant Acres.
During
college days, I attended Auburn First Baptist Church most weeks I was in
Auburn. Also I was active in the BSU. But I did not officially join that church
and was somewhat considered a visitor (being a student). The entire time I was
at Quantico and at Enid, I lived on base and was always a visitor in various
surrounding churches I attended each week.
Now
I choose one church, live off base amongst local folks only about 2 miles from
that church and my next-door neighbors are members of the same church. I soon
come to know without any doubt that this church was God’s Choosing for me.
So,
for the 1st time since moving out of Daddy’s house in early January
1965, I now feel like I am part of a community and a nearby church. Apart from
my boyhood home, this is the only other place I become a part of the local
neighborhood (before leaving the States for Japan). Thus, I am most grateful
for this particular experience in North Carolina.
I
do not start pilot training at Cherry Point till late November this year
(1971). Until then I have much free time, often leaving work at noon. I
continue to do minor repairs on the interior of this well-worn house. On the
first of August, I now have two years “in grade” (since receiving my commission
as an officer). That brings a welcomed pay raise.
I
attend revival services, Saturday night youth meetings and such “special”
services in churches in the area. Evangelist Bobby Jackson lives in nearby
Greenville, N.C. One weekend when he was at home, he let me come spend Saturday
night in his house and attend church with them on Sunday. This is a period of much rich Christian
fellowship that gives me spiritual growth and fans my desire to serve the Lord
full time.
On
23 August 1971 (exactly 2 years after graduating from Auburn) I fly in a
pilot’s cockpit for the first time at Cherry Point. This is a backseat (rear cockpit)
ride in my training squadron’s TA-4. When I did 2-plane formation training at
Vance, each of the 2 planes had a student pilot in the front seat and each of
the 2 students took turns “leading” and “following” as we went thru various
formation maneuvers. Here at VMT 203, the Marines sent up 1 plane with student
pilot and instructor pilot occupying the 2 cockpits.
But
the 2nd plane had no one in the rear cockpit, only an instructor
pilot in the front seat. (A waste of much taxpayer money, that empty seat.)
Anyway, any of us student pilots in the squadron could ask to fly along in that
seat. I began to do so to familiarize myself with the A-4. And the instructor
in the front cockpit would let me take the controls and pilot the plane a while
when we were up at altitude. Again the next day, August 24th, I take
another free ride in an empty back seat.
“Pilot
Richard, now that we have arrived at the beginning of the dates recorded in
your Navy pilot’s log book, you are going to bore us with many exact dates and
more details, aren’t you?”
‘I’m
afraid so! But you had better get used to it, because in just over 2 more years
I will start keeping a daily diary. Then I will have volumes more with which
to bore you.’
We
pilots are required to read military aircraft accident reports detailing
accidents of military aircraft in all 4 branches of the military. Those reports
come in to each squadron as accidents occur, and we are to read and learn from
them to glean wisdom that will hopefully save us from causing a similar
accident. Reading those reports regularly, I’m shocked to read of a Vance AFB
T-38 crashing, killing both instructor and student pilot aboard it. Vance AF
Base had one of the best safety records of all Air Force bases. Thus
this crash with 2 fatalities was most rare. This may have been the first fatal
crash of a Vance plane. The pilots’ names were not given in these reports (for
privacy). I wondered if the instructor pilot was one I had come to know at
Vance.
Likely it was along about now (late summer) that
Captain Doug ⑨
arrived here in my squadron at Cherry Point from Vance AF Base, to train in the
TA-4. Upon Doug arriving here from Vance, I asked him if he knew the name of
the instructor who was killed in the crash.
“Yes,
it was 1st Lieutenant R.”
I
told you of Lt. R. ⑩
coming to Vance as a new, green instructor pilot shortly before I left there
and that I considered him to be lax and careless, not nearly as
cautious and alert as an instructor pilot should be if he values his life and
the life of his student. He and a student pilot flew from Vance to a base on
the west coast on a cross-country flight. As they took off from that base to
head back to Vance, their departure route took them out over the Pacific Ocean
a ways. Departing in thick smog, their T-38 crashed into the ocean. Because
both pilots died, not many more details were available.
Even
as a student pilot, I knew that when flying in clouds, fog, smog, smoke (or any
such thing that obscures vision) the pilot is subject to vertigo and that he must
be most cautious and alert to fly using the instruments in his cockpit,
believing those instruments even tho his vertigo-disoriented head is telling
him differently. Very likely, this student pilot got disoriented from vertigo,
causing him to roll the plane at a large angle (close to inverted), which sent
it plunging into the ocean near below. In that smog, Instructor R. should have
had his
eyes most alertly glued to his instruments in his cockpit and should
have taken control from the student when he saw the student starting to “err”.
Likely
that crash could have easily been prevented had the instructor pilot been alert
and on the ball. Thorough search by air and sea failed to turn up any piece of
the airplane or the 2 pilots. All went to a watery Pacific grave to stay there.
Captain Doug’s time to die in a careless crash is coming soon. (You can see
that Captain Doug’s number is lower than Lt. R.’s number. That’s because I
number these “KIA” buddies in the order I met them, not in the order they were
killed.)
Coming
here to VMT 203 at Cherry Point, I again meet up with Midshipman Kurt ⑤ whom
I first met in OCS at Quantico in the summer of 1968. He is now a 1st
Lt., as I am. And he is 203 to train alongside me in the TA-4. He is still as
big a jokester as he was in 1968. He doesn’t take piloting seriously enough. He
is self confident, careless and lacks caution. The Grim Reaper is already
waiting at a future crash site to terribly crush Kurt to death also.
I
told of 2nd Lt. Wayne ⑥ graduating from Auburn University the same day I did (23 August
1969) and being commissioned as a Marine 2nd Lieutenant on that day,
just as I was. I think Wayne went straight from Auburn to Navy pilot training
at Pensacola, Florida. Now I meet up with Wayne here in VMT 203. He is ahead of
me in the TA-4 training here, and is now a 1st lieutenant, of
course.
In
late summer or early fall this year (1971) Wayne marries a young lady (that he
met in this area, I think). They have a military wedding in Cherry Point’s base
chapel. Wayne asks me to be one of the “Honor Guard” members at his wedding. I
agree to do so. I wear my Summer Dress White uniform with my sword. We 8 or so
Honor Guard members stand in 2 lines of four men each, facing each other across
an “aisle” with our drawn swords raised outward and touching the raised sword
of the Marine opposite each of us to form an arch with our raised drawn swords.
The bride and groom walk out thru that arch at the end of the wedding. (That
was the only time I wore my Marine officers’ sword the entire time I was on
active duty.)
Here
in Squadron 203, I meet 1st Lieutenant Joey ⑪ for
the first time. He is a good pilot, smart, alert, cautious, and he is outgoing
and pleasant to be around. Joey and I become quite good friends. He and
Lieutenant Wayne ⑥ will both be sent to MCAS Iwakuni, Japan (as I will be sent). From
Iwakuni, they will be sent back here to Cherry Point while I head to a
missionary language school after getting discharged from active duty at
Iwakuni. They will die together in the same plane when it crashes here at
Cherry Point in early 1975.
I
also meet First Lieutenant Jerry B. ⑫ here in 203. Training together, we
become quite good buddies. A few years later, both Jerry and his navigator will
eject low level from his A-6 shortly after takeoff here at Cherry Point. Each
hits the concrete runway hard shortly after each flyer’s parachute
opens. The hard impact crushed 1 or more vertebrae in the navigator’s upper
back. But he survived. One or more vertebrae in Jerry’s neck were crushed,
killing him instantly.
I
told you of meeting 1st Lt. Dudley here in VMT 203. (He told me of
Lt. Will and then I rented Will’s spare room till I bought my house.) Dudley
hung around with several F-4 pilots. In November, Dudley tells me a flight of 2
Phantoms is flying cross-country on a weekend with 1 or both rear cockpits
empty. I go over to the F-4 squadron and get permission to occupy one of the
rear cockpits for the weekend. The best part is that they are to fly to
Columbus (Mississippi) AF Base (near Daddy’s house) on Friday. So most
happily, I finally get to fly to Columbus, in that rear cockpit.
My
plans to go on this flight come up somewhat abruptly before it departs Cherry
Point, so I don’t have time to call any family members to tell them I’m coming.
The pilot of the bird I fly in is from a town north of Columbus. His Dad drove
to the base to take him to their house. I ask them if I can ride with them to
my brother’s (Joe) house in Smithville, Mississippi. It’s right on their way
home, so they readily agree to take me there.
Joe
and Mavis are somewhat surprised when I show up at their house unannounced,
about bedtime. We 3 soon get into Joe’s car and talk much as we drive to
Janiece’s house in Tupelo to visit with her just a few minutes. Then we drive
on to Dad’s house. I think Daddy was already in bed, and had to get up when we
come. Joe and Mavis soon head back to their house, so that was all I saw of
them and Janiece on this trip. (Fast moving, jet set, pilot boy!)
The
next day, Saturday, Daddy drives me the 12 miles or so to my other brother’s
(Sidney) house to visit briefly before Sidney drives Daddy and me back to the
Air Force base. Sidney works on that base as a civilian worker, so he has a
permit to drive onto base (tho my military ID would have gotten us thru the
gate). I take them with me into the flight operations building that I will exit
to go out to my airplane.
While
filling out my copy of our flight route, I hear a familiar voice call my name.
I look up and see Sam B. with whom I had worked in the girls’ dining hall on
campus at Auburn. He graduated about 2 years before I did. Sam went thru Air
Force ROTC at Auburn, became a pilot, and now he is an instructor pilot in the
T-38 here at Columbus. We tell each other what little we know of mutual friends
(from dining hall days) and soon it’s time for me to climb into that cockpit.
Daddy
and Sidney come out as close to our F-4s as they are allowed to do. We wave to
each other as our 2 birds leave the chocks and taxi out to take off in close
formation in full burner (afterburner). The next time Daddy wrote me, he said
that he and Sidney watched our 2 Phantoms rise in the sky till we disappeared
from their sight. I was glad I got to fly home and briefly see my family
(after 2 failed attempts to fly to Columbus from Vance). All my family was
happy also.
Taking
off from Columbus AF Base on Saturday, we fly 2 legs (flights) and end up at
Naval Air Station, Oceana, Virginia to spend the night. The next day (Sunday)
we fly 2 more legs and end up back home at Cherry Point. Truly, those days of my youth
were an adventurous life. On the spur of the moment, I rush to throw a
few clothes and things into a small bag, store that bag into a tiny compartment
of this fighter jet, and hop into the back cockpit of an F-4 Phantom to fly
here and there in the southeastern U.S. We called these free rides “joy rides”.
In
late November 1971, I start my official pilot training here in VMT 203, after
having taken several “joy rides” in the TA-4’s back cockpit. Now I get into the
front cockpit with my instructor in the back cockpit to yell at me. (Sometimes
I wish I had my own ejection lever for his seat, so that when I get tired
of his yelling, I could just pull that lever and shoot him out the roof of the
plane.)
On
11 different days throughout December 1971, I fly one training flight each day.
That’s a normal schedule for the present slow-paced pilot training here at
Cherry Point, slowed down due to our nation ceasing its military action in Viet
Nam. Several of my instructor pilots had recently returned from a year in Viet
Nam, attacking enemy targets on the ground from the A-4 Skyhawk. They had
interesting war stories to tell us.
I do
not go home to Vernon for Christmas 1971. I stay put at my house in North
Carolina and enjoy a few days off from work for Christmas and New Year’s. I
enjoy much blessed fellowship with Christian friends at Pleasant
Acres Church. The Hart family invites me to their house for their family’s
Christmas Dinner (lunch). That was most kind of them and I ate to the full of
the Hart ladies’ delicious cooking.
I
rejoice that Pleasant Acres steadily becomes my home church. Those kind people
accept me well and make me feel at home. The church has several Christmas
functions. I enjoy them all. They hold a young people’s Christmas banquet. I
ask a young lady in the church to be my date for that banquet, and was most
happy that she agreed. We two start dating and continue to date till I leave
that church to go to Japan.
God
gave me blessed Christian fellowship when I was stationed at Quantico and
at Vance. But from Quantico I drove over 20 miles for that fellowship. At
Vance, I drove about 110 miles for the good Christian fellowship I found. Those
long distances were inconvenient. Now I feel richly
blessed to be in a good church only 2 miles from my house, with the
family next door to me also members of the same church.
Capping
the history of 1971, I may not have gotten a COLA pay raise in November this
year. In a dumb attempt to halt runaway inflation, President Nixon froze all
wages and prices in our nation (for a period of time). You might want to search
that history briefly to study how greatly that act shocked our nation, and the unexpected
immediate shocking results that popped right up.
For
example, evening TV news showed a chicken farmer burying 10,000 or so baby
chicks because if he fed them out and sold them at the current price a few
months from now, he would lose big money. His profit margin was hinged on
creeping inflation. If the price remains locked, his best financial option
(upon our nation’s president’s stupid command) was to immediately cease feeding
his chicks, kill them, and bury them all. Seeing that news, the nation cried
out in shocked unbelief. That was a lot of chicks that didn’t make it onto
anyone’s dinner table. And it wasn’t an isolated incident of such. If you care
to search our nation’s history from 1970 thru 1974, likely you will be plenty
shocked at similar upheavals never before known in our nation.
1972
arrives and I soon turn 26 years old. From the start of 1972 thru mid-April, I
take from 10 to 17 TA-4 Skyhawk training flights each month, now going at this
pilot training regularly. In January, I fly a cross-country to Pensacola,
Florida, (with a major in the back cockpit instructing me) spend one night and
fly back the next day. In February, I fly the Skyhawk solo for the first time.
Oh, how I liked leaping into the air in a small fast jet with no other human
soul aboard. I felt so free up in the high sky all alone.
I
practice day and night formation flights. Practicing night formation maneuvers
in small, fast military jets will keep you on your toes, elevating your
heartbeat and blood pressure to about the same high altitude the plane is
flying. Getting into my T-Bird after a night formation flight, it felt so
easy to drive that car on 4-lane, divided U.S. Highway 70 as I drove
home.
I
practice dive bombing (dropping inert 26-pound practice bombs) onto Bombing
Target (BT) 9 or BT 11. These bombing targets are stationary barges anchored in
the waters of Pamlico Sound near Cherry Point. These small inert bombs have a
smoke charge in the nose that detonates on impact and sends up white smoke, so
the pilot can spot the impact point and keep trying to improve his aim.
I
practice dropping napalm on a target range on land. I practice low level
strafing with the plane’s 20 mm cannon at that same “land” target range. Every
5th shell (or so) is a tracer. I roll in, line up on target, squeeze
that cannon’s trigger on my control stick, listen to the muffled “burp-burp”
sound and watch those flaming tracer shells fly out in front of the plane in
automatic fire! That strafing was most fun, as was firing the inert
2.75-inch rockets! Roll in on target! Squeeze (trigger) off one rocket! Watch
that flaming torch shoot toward its target on the ground! Fun! Fun!
“Pilot
boy Richard, you sound like a big kid.”
‘Ditto!!
Lots of males wish they could be such a big kid!’
I practice
low-level fight at about 500 miles per hour, 100 feet above the ground,
skimming the treetops in those pine forests, keenly watching the
ground radar altimeter in the cockpit. Those pine trees just a few feet under
me sure flash by fast!
One
instructor pilot kept yelling at me to get down to 50 feet above the ground (to
stay under enemy radar). I didn’t obey him well. I’ll take the chance of flying
that close to death in actual war with actual enemy radar searching for me. But
that is how Captain “Law” ⑦ gets
killed along about this time. TBS Class Honor Graduate was skimming treetops at
500 MPH in a TA-4 when he got just a little too low. Those trees shredded
his airplane, shredding his body and his genius’ brain.
Thank
God I was dumb enough to fly just a few feet higher to allow God to keep my
body (along with my 3 brain cells) intact, though the functioning ability of my
3 brain cells is presently deteriorating with old age, especially the one brain
cell that writes my autobiography.
“That
is most apparent to both of us readers, writer boy!”
We
practice aircraft carrier arrested landings and catapult shot takeoffs at
nearby Bogue Field, built like a carrier deck. I fly solo for most
of this training, the pilot instructor standing on the ground beside my
touchdown point. Captain Barksdale was “Paddles”, standing beside the touchdown
point at Bogue Field, instructing us on the radio as we practice many touch and
go landings.
After
several practice flights of touch and go landings only, the time comes when his
voice comes into my headset inside my helmet. “Drop your hook.” Student pilot’s
blood turns to ice water in his veins, as he strives with minute power and
altitude corrections to touch down at the exact optimum point for the hook to
arrest that thick cable lying across the narrow metal runway. That abruptly
stops the fast jet, just like a clothesline across your neck when you are
running full speed across the backyard in the dark. Nighttime carrier landing
practice is what really gives a pilot premature gray hair.
Catapult
shot takeoffs are fun, like being shot from a slingshot! This kid enjoyed
practicing those (day and night)! I taxi the TA-4 over the catapult installed
into the metal housing beneath. The ground crew fastens the catapult to my
bird. I release brakes because that strong fastening holds my plane firmly,
even as I now go full throttle with the power. I must be careful to keep my
feet off the two brake pedals because the catapult’s strong power will shoot
the plane down the short runway (anyway) and it will blow both tires if my dumb
feet are pressing the brake pedals.
With
my left hand grasping the throttle at full power, I wrap those four fingers
around the metal bar “holder” attached to the firewall just in front of the
throttle grip. That is to prevent the strong inertia of this slingshot from
inadvertently causing me to pull the throttle back, reducing engine power. I
have the elevator trim set at “takeoff”. I take my right hand off the control
stick and place it on my right thigh. If I grasp the “stick”, the inertia will
cause me to pull the stick back, sending the plane into a steep climb (which
would bring on a stall).
At
full power, I give each of my engine instruments a quick glance (final check),
nod my head to the ground crewman and then firmly push my head (helmet) back
against the headrest. If I do not, the inertia will slam my head back against
that headrest. Upon seeing my head nod, the ground crewman signals the catapult
operator who releases the slingshot and this kid flies out of there and is
immediately airborne. As soon as the catapult’s inertia fades, I grasp the
stick to now maneuver the plane myself, release my left fingers from the grip
bar, insert one hand into my mouth to push my heart from my throat back down
into my chest, and fly on. Fun! Fun! Big boys’ toys!
I
fly many carrier qualification flights in March, having 2 flights a day on 2
different days.
I
practice day and nighttime aerial refueling, flying the Skyhawk up behind an
airborne C-130 (just below that plane to avoid its prop wash), aim my plane’s
fueling probe into the cone-shaped basket and on into the “socket” in the
center of that basket at the end of a fuel hose (about 100 feet long, trailing
behind, and a little below, the C-130). When my probe completely fastens into
that socket, the C-130 pilot radios me that he has received that signal on his
instrument panel. Then he throws a switch to send fuel into my plane’s tanks as
we continue carefully flying (hooked together by a hose with jet fuel
flowing thru it). This procedure is most difficult and dangerous in the
dark.
“Pilot
boy, do you say that to make us admire you or feel sorry for you?”
‘Take
your pick. I’m not practicing mind control!’
(A
different subject now.) One Friday I was duty officer. After doing all the
evening duties and checking the guard posted on the flight line, I hop in my
bunk there in the squadron building for sweet dreams. About 11 PM, my duty
clerk awakens me. “Sir, base police (MP’s) just called. They have arrested
Staff Sergeant B. for drunken driving.” I get up, get into uniform and drive to
the MP hut next to the main gate. The police release our squadron’s drunken
sergeant into my custody. (He will stand trial later.) His wife and daughter
(about 14 years old) are here. I release him to his wife’s custody and order
him to go home and sleep it off. So the wife gets into her driver’s seat to
haul her 2 folks home.
I
drive back to my squadron and again hop into my rack in search of those sweet
dreams. But it was a vain search. Less than 2 hours later, my duty clerk
awakens me again. “Sir, the police have Staff Sergeant B. in custody again.”
‘He
got back into his car again and went driving?’
“No,
Sir! This time the charge is assault and battery on his wife.”
I
drive back to the same MP hut, they release him into my custody and I tell him
I am taking him to the squadron building to sleep it off there, instead of
taking him back home to beat up on his Honey. He doesn’t like that news and
says he must go home and get a few articles he will need to spend the night on
a bunk in the squadron building. So I drive him to his simple mobile home in a
low class trailer park about 2 miles away. His wife greets me with pain, grief
and anger ever so profound on her face, showing me light wounds on her face,
arms and legs. Their precious daughter is quiet and despondent.
I go
in, sit down, and make friends with them (about 2 AM). I speak of Jesus and
invite them to come to church with me on Sunday. He shows me his commendation
hanging on the wall that he received for valor in Viet Nam. Both he and wife
are drunkards. I feel so sorry for them as he shows me that piece of paper in a
frame, trying to focus on something great in his sin-ruined life.
‘Sir,
please let me stay at home tonight. I’ll behave.”
‘No
way! I can’t take the chance. Let’s go!’ I take him back to the squadron and
hop into my rack for about 4 hours of sleep. He racks out in a different room.
He comes back to me early Saturday morning, anxious to go home. I take him
home, after a duty night of U.S. Marine Corps drunken, violent nightmares
instead of sweet dreams.
On
21 March 1972 (as lovely spring arrives), I fly my last training flight in the
Navy Skyhawk in squadron VMT 203. Soon the squadron has a small graduation
ceremony. I take the Air Force silver pilot wings off my chest and pin on Navy
pilot wings of gold (along with about 4 other fellow pilot graduates).
Those wings are supposedly the most coveted pilot wings, worn by a
pilot who can land fast jet aircraft on a moving aircraft carrier at sea.
“Well,
cream-of-the-crop pilot boy, did receiving those U.S. Navy pilot wings of gold
puff you up with vain pride?”
‘Much
more than it should have!’
(Never
again will I fly in a plane alone. From now on, I will be the only
pilot in the A-6 I will fly many times. But another aviator is
always in the Bombardier/Navigator’s seat beside me. I relish the many
times at Vance and here in VMT 203, that I flew all alone high and lofty up in
God’s second heaven.)
Upon graduating from 203, I immediately transfer to squadron VMT 202 to start pilot training in the Navy A-6 Intruder (attack jet). This squadron 202 is adjacent to squadron 203. I have already walked there several times on business (about a 5 minute walk). So this transfer is a most simple move next door.
I
take about a week of leave and drive to Daddy’s house near Vernon to visit
family. The main reason is because my sister is moving from that area to Arizona.
Her husband’s job (that changes locations occasionally) is now in Arizona. Thus
she is moving far away from us. I enjoy being with Janiece, the rest of my
family, and some friends for those few days.
At
this time, my stepmother (Lucille) is in poor health and is in a care facility
recently built onto the Vernon Hospital (where my Mother died). While I am at
Vernon, Janiece and I go together to visit Lucille (who is bedridden). On a
different day or 2, I go with Daddy to visit Lucille. Her mind is slipping. She
is sad, depressed, and cries a lot during our visits with her. That’s sad to
see. I rejoice that she’s a Christian, journeying to God’s Perfect Heaven to
ever live in perfection. Where are you journeying to abide
forever?
Janiece
leaves for Arizona a day or two before I drive back to North Carolina. Daddy’s
heart felt plenty empty, seeing his only daughter move far away for the 1st
time and me departing for my residence far away. Lucille’s approaching death
weighed heavily on his heart. It was a time of heavy sorrow for Dad. Thus,
these matters lay heavily on my mind as I drive the long trip back to my house
near New Bern, North Carolina. I report back into my new squadron (202) for
duty the next day.
I
receive much verbal instruction on flying the A-6 Intruder, because it has only
one pilot seat with only one set of pilot controls. This will be my first
time to fly such an aircraft (no instructor pilot with his own set of
flying controls). Alone, I must be able to fly it safely from the
very first flight. Often the verbal instruction is one-on-one, or 2 or 3 of
us new pilots listening to an instructor pilot in an informal setting in the
ready room.
There
is a “simulator” trainer, somewhat more advanced than the airplane rides in a
video game room. I “fly” that “simulator” several hours. Student pilots just a
month or so ahead of me in training are assigned to take me out to a bird in
the hanger and climb all over it with me, showing me the entire surfaces of the
bird and lecturing me on things we look at on the outside of the plane and in
its cockpit.
Then
on 25 April 1972, I strap into the right side seat that belongs to the
bombardier-navigator (B/N) and observe and listen to pilot instructor Captain
Ward as he talks much from the time he starts the engines. He takes off, flies
around doing a few basic maneuvers, flies back for a few “touch-and-go”
landings, and then taxies back into our squadron’s flight line. Leaving the
engines running, we two unhook, unbuckle, open the canopy, climb out and switch
seats (sides).
Now
I pilot the A-6, with Captain Ward sitting beside me in the B/N seat observing
and talking. I really like this plane from the start. I thank my Lord for
overriding my 1st and 2nd choices when I requested a
plane to pilot, and in Perfect Wisdom gave me my 3rd and last
choice. The one cockpit with pilot and B/N sitting side by side is much roomer
than the cramped cockpits of the T-38 and the TA-4 (that I have flown thus
far). This “roominess” makes piloting easier. That is one thing I really like
about the A-6. Also, I come to like its “mission” best (over the F-4 or A-4’s
mission).
This
day, I take off and have fun going thru a few basic maneuvers, doing several touch
and go landings before my “full stop” and taxiing back into the chocks. It
felt good! From now, I will fly a few more times with an instructor pilot
sitting to my right in the B/N seat, instructing me verbally. Then soon, a
navigator will sit in his seat beside me each flight and I will be the only pilot
aboard, totally responsible for the safety of the navigator’s life and my own
life.
May
1972 arrives and I make the last of 36 monthly payments on my new sharp-looking
Thunderbird car I bought 3 years ago this month. I’m most happy and relieved to end
that debt, finishing those high payments of $173 each month.
Some
time ago, I ceased getting any loans from credit unions. I paid off all my
Quantico credit union debt. Just a few more payments remain on my Vance credit
union debt. Also I am steadily paying off my loans from the Cherry Point credit
union. By God’s Grace I will soon be debt free. With that big car payment now
finished, I purpose in my heart to give more unto God. By His Grace, I do so
and am most blessed for it.
(Now,
back to my life as a pilot.) I only get 7 training flights in May. Our nation’s
Marine Corps is always plenty financially strapped. Because our nation is
coming out of the Viet Nam war (ceasing to wage war for a while), training is
cut back to save money. From June 1st thru the 19th, I
have only 5 training flights.
During
this time, 1st Lieutenant Dudley graduates from squadron 203 and
joins us here in this A-6 training squadron. One day I am assigned to take him
out to a bird in the hanger to explain to him all the things visible in the
cockpit and on the exterior of the plane. As we 2 are climbing all over the
airplane, Dudley speaks up.
“You
know about that TA-4 crash out west (Arizona, I think) killing one pilot and
one pilot ejected and survived?”
‘Yeah,
I’ve read all the messages and bulletins on it.’
“Well,
the pilot that was killed was Captain Doug.”
I’m
plenty shocked and saddened to hear that. Back in Chapter 22, I first told you
of Captain Doug ⑨
training behind me at Vance. Then when he came here to squadron 203 (after me),
he told me that it was Lieutenant R. at Vance that died in that T-38 crash off
the west coast into the ocean.
Captain
Doug and one other pilot (in one TA-4) were flying quite low-level (about 1500)
feet over the desert. The surviving pilot testified that Captain Doug had
control (was doing the flying) and rolled the plane inverted and pulled back
stick. Pulling back stick inverted pulls the plane into an inverted dive. One
does such at high altitudes only, because the plane will rapidly
lose much altitude before the pilot can recover it from that inverted dive. To
do so at low altitude will immediately dive the plane right into the ground.
The
reports I read stated that 1 of the 2 pilots on board transmitted loud panicky
profanity over the radio (all such radio transmissions are recorded) at the
other pilot doing that deadly act of rolling the plane inverted at low-level
flight. One pilot then quickly rolled the plane upright and pulled “back stick”
in an attempt to pull out of the dive. The surviving pilot said that as he was
pulling his ejection lever he heard the desert scrub growth below already
scrapping the underside of the Skyhawk. Captain Doug was still in the plane
when it touched the desert and plowed across it, breaking the plane all apart
and killing Doug instantly.
I
cannot fathom a pilot being dumb enough to roll that fast Skyhawk inverted at
the low altitude of 1500 feet and pull “back stick”. I knew nothing about the
surviving pilot, having never met him. But as I questioned every fellow pilot
around me who knew anything about this fatal crash, some said the surviving
pilot was dumber than Doug. Crash investigators thought it likely that the
surviving pilot was the dummy that rolled the plane inverted and pulled back
stick. But they had no proof because Dead Doug tells no tales.
“Pilot
Richard, were there any smart pilots in the Marines?”
‘Yes,
the autopilot!’
Around
22 or 23 June 1972, Daddy phones me at my house at night. He asks how I am. I
reply and ask him how he is. He replies that he is OK, and then he falls
silent. I sense that he has called me to tell me that Lucille died. I wish he
would go ahead and tell me. But he doesn’t. So I ask how Lucille is. Dad
replies that she died that day. I tell him that I should be able to arrive
there day after tomorrow.
The
next morning, I report for duty at 202 and tell them that my stepmother died. I
ask for immediate emergency leave (of about 8 days). It was granted. The admin
office hurriedly types up my leave papers. I tie up loose ends at work, drive
home, tie up loose ends at home and at church, and pack a few things to take.
The
following day, I drive all way to Vernon, having made this long trip just a few
weeks ago. Arriving in Vernon 10 hours (or more) later (in the early night), I go
right to the funeral home where Lucille’s body is lying in state. Daddy and
Sidney are there (along with other relatives living in the area and neighbors
and church people). I visit with all the living souls a while, view Lucille’s
corpse, and drive on to Daddy’s house to sleep after this tiring trip.
Lucille’s
funeral is the next day. At it, I see other relatives and friends that I
haven’t seen in a long time. Both of my brothers and their family members come.
It’s too far from Arizona for Janiece to come. But she calls Daddy’s house
several times and I talk to her more than once. Over the next 3 or 4 days, Sid,
Lucille’s son-in-law (Lynn) and I help Daddy put a (badly needed) new shingle
roof onto his house. In all these activities, I visit with many family members
and friends, before heading back to North Carolina on the 8th day.
The
10-hour (or so) drive back to my house near New Bern is a time for deep thought
about my family. Lucille was a diabetic and died 2 or 3 years short of her 60th
birthday. During her last few years on earth, she suffered much physically, was
hospitalized from time to time, and finally had to enter a nursing home while
still in her 50s (not old age at all). When she moved into our house in August
1958, she had a paying job at the garment plant in Vernon. (I told you of both
Janiece and Lucille getting a large turkey at work that Christmas of 1958.)
But
a month or 2 after that Christmas, Lucille was laid off from work. Likely it
was because her poor eyesight resulted in her doing poor sewing. Likely (out of
charity) her boss kept her on, while she was a widow. But once she marries Dad,
he soon lays her off. After that, she babysat from time to time. She later got
hired at a different garment plant further away, but soon had to quit due to
failing health.
She
struggled to take care of herself and her ailing aged mother. Daddy struggled physically
and financially to take care of both of them while farming on
as large a scale as possible to try to pay many bills.
“Go ahead
and get it, and I’ll help pay for it.” I told you of Lucille saying that to
Daddy in the fall of 1958, when the salesman sold Daddy the siding job for the
outside walls of the house. But 4 months later, Lucille lost her job and was
not able to help make those monthly payments. Daddy went to his younger brother
(my Uncle Kilby) and asked for some money.
More
than 10 years later, as Lucille’s medical bills are adding up, the man who owns
the hospital pressures Daddy to give him a mortgage on our farm. Again, Daddy
goes to Uncle Kilby. He knows a somewhat high-ranking state government official
in Montgomery. Uncle Kilby pleads with that man for help. So (from an office in
the state capital) the State of Alabama calls the pushy hospital owner and
orders him to back off and wait, till they can set up for Medicare to pay those
bills. Given a little time, that came to pass, Medicare paying (all
the bills Lucille accrued, I think).
I
told you everything in the previous 5 paragraphs to say I greatly admire my Christian
Daddy. Upon marrying Lucille, he received two unhealthy women to take care of
(wife and mother-in-law). That stoic man toiled hard and diligently, doing all
he could possibly do (physically and financially) for those two women. He never
complained or whined.
Now,
as I drive to North Carolina, Daddy is worn out from his duty of caregiver.
Medicare has not yet come thru, paying the big medical bills. That debt is a
heavy burden on him. He is lonely, missing his deceased wife, and his daughter
and son who are far away. Thank God that Daddy was a firm believer in the
God Who is the God of all comfort. Thank God that the darkest hour is just
before dawn.
So,
in early July 1972, I check back in to 202 from my leave in Alabama. From July
7th thru the 28th, I fly 12 training flights in the A-6.
This month Daddy celebrates his 55th birthday, having recently lost
his second wife in death.
Now
in the A-6, I essentially practice the same maneuvers as I did in the TA-4. So
there is no need to bore you again with the exciting, fun details. I want to
now praise
and glorify my Lord God, testifying of Him again making
my way perfect.
From
the time I bought my house, I often pondered. ‘Was I mistaken to do that? I
don’t like a 12-mile commute to work. I detest spending the time fixing up the
house’s interior, painting walls and such. I detest buying a lawn mower and
cutting the grass. I detest fixing my breakfast (and sometimes supper) at home.
I much
prefer the simple life of living in the BOQ and eating the square meals
well prepared in the chow hall. The BOQ and officer’s chow hall is in a
peaceful, quiet, lovely natural setting, isolated in the forest near the Neuse
River. Would I not have enjoyed living there much better??’
But
likely I would have been plenty bored living in that isolated
quiet setting. Also, it would have been a long commute from there to any
church. Now, as Pleasant Acres church steadily becomes my church home, I come
to believe that God put me into this house only 2 miles from church. And now comes
the main event that assures me that God made me a house owner for a most
definite purpose.
On a
July day in 202’s ready room, the flight operations scheduling officer (a
captain) approaches me with his well-planned sales pitch. “At this time, the
Marine Corps Air Station on the west coast (California) needs one A-6 pilot to
locate there to fly the EA-6. So, Headquarters Marine Corps is to transfer one
A-6 pilot from here (Cherry Point) to California. You and 1st
Lieutenant Dan are at the stage of training that headquarters has set for the
transferee. Would you like to move out to exciting California to be stationed
there?”
‘No,
I would not.’
I did
not want to go live in that Sodom and Gomorrah 3,000 miles away, leaving these
many fundamental Baptist churches in this area and being over 2,000 miles from
my boyhood home, severely limiting my trips home. I soon get alone with buddy
pilot Dan to discuss this with him. The scheduling officer had asked Dan the
same question. Dan replied that he did not want to transfer. So Dan and I agree
together to let the “powers to be” pick the unfortunate pilot that gets shipped
to California.
Soon
the operations officer (Major F.) calls Dan and me together into his office. He
makes a sales pitch for the lovely California costal paradise and urges one of
us to volunteer to transfer there. I politely tell this high-ranking officer
that I recently bought a house here and that I could not quickly sell it. Dan
stated that he was settled down here with his new wife (though they did not
own a house) and did not want to move. Dan and I wait it out, sweating out
the soon coming verdict.
Two
or three days later, the scheduling officer announces to me: “We are sending
Dan. Typically
we would send the single guy as opposed to a married guy. But, because you own a
house, it would work more hardship on you to be abruptly uprooted.”
I
breathe a deep sigh of relief and thank God for causing me to buy this house. From
this day on, I fully rejoice to be living in it,
with no double-minded second thoughts about preferring to be in the BOQ. Before
I confronted this choice in July, I had planted tomatoes in my garden area. I
now cultivate them with more joy, enjoy my next-door (same church) neighbors
more, and fully rejoice in God planting me in this house to prevent
Headquarters Marine Corps in Washington, D. C. from abruptly uprooting me and
sending me to California.
Also,
I don’t like the EA-6’s mission at all (electronic countermeasures, jamming the
enemy’s radars and other electronics). The strong radiation emitted from the
EA-6 could easily do more harm to my body than the lesser emissions from the
radar in the A-6.
Come 1 August 1972, I now have 3
years “in grade”. That brings another moderate pay raise. Thank Thee, Lord Jesus!
During the month of August, I fly
only 7 training flights, one of them in the TC-4C airplane. I’m required to
familiarize myself with what the A-6 Bombardier-Navigator (BN) does as he sits
beside me in the same cockpit. I attend 2 or 3 one-hour classroom periods of
such instruction by a BN instructor. I sit in the B/N’s seat in a “simulator”
practicing his use of the radar to fix and track targets on the ground and drop
bombs on them.
After that I take 2 rides (1 each
in Aug. and Sept.) in the 2 engine prop TC-4C, sitting in the BN seat in the
rear of that bird with a BN instructor sitting beside me and talking me thru
various BN procedures that I performed. It was somewhat fascinating and I
enjoyed it.
First
Lieutenant Allen ⑬ is a BN instructor here in Squadron 202. He instructs me when I
fly in the TC-4C. Wayne ⑥ and
Joey ⑪ are
just a few months ahead of me training in VMT 203 (in the TA-4) and then here
in 202 (training in the A-6). Thus they each go from 202 into one of the two
A-6 tactical squadrons based here at Cherry Point before I soon join the
tactical squadron Wayne is in. Wayne and Joey go on to Asia before I go. After
I go to Japan, I’m with both of them at Iwakuni and briefly at Cubic Point in
the Philippines when we deploy there from Japan.
From
Iwakuni, Japan, both Wayne and Joey are sent back here to Cherry Point to VMT
202 as instructor pilots. I get discharged from the Marines at Iwakuni, going
on to missionary language school in central Japan.
Soon
after those 2 buddies return to Cherry Point, on a fatal day in early 1975
Wayne and Joey are pilot and co-pilot in the TC-4C. Allen (now Captain Allen)
is the BN instructor aboard their plane on that fateful day. Shortly after
takeoff, somehow a fuel line “cavitated” (or some similar rare
problem), causing all fuel to cease flowing to both engines at the same time.
Both engines quit simultaneously at that critical time just after getting
airborne. The ensuing silence (upon all engines quitting) is most
morbid to all souls on board. The plane immediately crashed into the
pine forest at the end of the runway killing all souls aboard (about 7 souls).
I did not personally know any of the other Marines aboard! I was deeply
saddened to hear of the deaths of these 3 flying buddies, together, in an
instant.
During
September 1972 (as I am eating the last of those delicious tomatoes I grew in
my own garden), I fly a total of 12 times in training squadron VMT 202. Then at
the end of the month, I am transferred a few doors away to the A-6 tactical
squadron VMA 121 (to join Wayne and several other flying buddies there,
available to our nation to fly over an enemy and rain down destruction upon
him).
Let’s
switch subjects now and go to church, where all is peace forevermore! For the first
time since leaving Daddy’s house, I am now firmly settled into
one church. Thank God! It is blessed to have a church home!
Ron
and Kathy are a young couple at Pleasant Acres church with whom I quickly become
friends. Ron (an enlisted Marine) gets discharged from active duty in the
Marines soon after I arrive here. He drives the church bus, and soon asks me to
work the bus route with him. I agree to do so.
The
pastor’s wife teaches the young adult Sunday School class that I attend at
Pleasant Acres. The time soon comes when she asks me to teach that class one
Sunday. So I do. She soon asks that favor again. Next, she soon asks me to
become co-teacher with her, she and I rotating to teach every other Sunday. I
agree to all these requests. Whereupon she soon announces to me that I
am to teach the class full time, but that she will
substitute for me any Sunday I am not there in church (on duty at the base,
deployed, or on leave, or such). I marveled at the creeping evolution of
that teaching arrangement!
Freewill
Baptist churches have Master’s Men and Ladies’ Auxiliary. Soon after I start
attending Pleasant Acres, I attend the monthly (week night) Master’s Men’s
meeting. In just a month or 2, they have their annual election of officers.
“Nomination is now open for president.”
“I
nominate Richard Yerby.” That brother was ever so quick on his toes with that
nomination. There were no other nominations. I was the instant unanimous
winner of that great, quick election.
Sunday
night preaching service is preceded by the teaching session time called
“League” or “Training Union”. I was soon elected leader of that adult class. It
wasn’t long before I was elected to be the “head” of the League hour, opening
it in the auditorium with a song, scripture, short speech and prayer (before we
dismiss to go to our various classes).
About
a year after I come to Pleasant Acres, I inherit the bus ministry completely
when Ron and Kathy move back to their hometown. So you can see that I come to
wear many hats at church (fill many positions).
From
the very lowest government elected position in our nation, all
way up to our nation’s president, greedy “money and power” seekers fight
tooth-and-nail to get into an office and to stay in as long as possible.
At
church, I saw (likely a majority of) elected officials most desirous to get
out of office and stay out of office. I saw them very
weary of and bored with running their religious machinery they had set
up. I saw them weary of ministering to our Lord of Glory. I saw them most
eager to pass the buck on to most anyone else they could get to take
it, and eager to just sit on a pew in church. Upon first settling into
church after leaving my boyhood home, that was one of the profound things
I experienced about church life as an adult. Truly, it was an eye opener!
Pleasant Acres
FWB Church is in the state’s FWB “Costal Association” (along with several
surrounding FWB churches). Those churches occasionally hold a joint youth
service on a Saturday night. Each church holds an annual revival. There are
other “special services”. Thus, I often attend such services in several
surrounding churches, being greatly blessed by good preach, singing and such.
My Lord did me ever so much good by planting me BY THE SEA SIDE here in costal North Carolina. He worked a miracle
to keep powerful Headquarters Marine Corps from uprooting me from here and
jabbing me down in Sodom and Gomorrah California.
In the New Testament, the person
spoken of as living by the seaside likely lived within a stone’s
throw of the ocean. Here, I live a few miles away. But it is a short drive to
the seaside. And when my A-6 Intruder lifts off the runway at Cherry Point, I
can soon see the ocean a few miles away. I fly over the coastal area much,
viewing the sea, the sounds and rivers going inland from the sea. When I call
at my sweetheart’s house (her parents’ house) on the wide Neuse River (just a
few miles inland from the ocean), sometimes she and I take walks along the
river’s shore.
I thank God
for a rich and blessed life in the sand hills and pine forests of coastal North
Carolina by the seaside! Keep reading of it in the next chapter.