Saturday, June 15, 2013

Memories of Mars

I miss men.

Now don't take me wrong.  It's not that there are no men in my life, because there are plenty.

They include but are not limited to my son, my grandsons, a my nephew, my brother, my brother-in-law, our wonderful cousins, husbands of cousins, sons of cousins . . . and guys I know from all the various periods and locations of my life including now.

(Some are only in virtual reality, some only in memory, some only in Spirit.)

Of course the most male-intensive time for me was the six years I spent on active duty as an Air Force officer.  I have always wanted to entitled the memoir about that period, "My Six Years on Mars."

In late January of 1983, the dead of a fairly cold dark winter in Anchorage, Alaska, I was easily marked as a newcomer to the second floor of the 21st Tactical Fighter Wing's Operations Building that housed the offices and common areas for the pilots and administrative support personnel of the 43rd Tactical Fighter Squadron. 

The main reason I stuck out was that I still had the kind of tan one obtains from living year-'round on a beach in Florida.  Part of the US Air Force cold weather uniform was a dark blue polyester ribbed sweater one could wear over the "Class A" shirt or blouse. Deep dark blue thick permanent press cotton or synthetic fiber blend epaulets and large under-elbow oval patches reminded me of uniform sweaters from English World War II movies. 

(Picture Peter Lawford in some movie where pilots who have been shot down are being rescued by British officers working with the French underground.  The color is not right, but the style of sweater just about is . . .)

The rest of my indoor uniform that day included long dark blue polyester slacks, a light blue long sleeved Oxford-style blouse with a scalloped collar and a dark blue "tie" -- more like a pointed down-pointing chevron, black socks and patent leather Oxford shoes that tied.  My short brunette hair had auburn and strawberry blond natural sun lights in it.  I was coming out of the break room where I had deposited my outerwear uniform -- a dark blue knitted cap; a thick long white knit scarf; a 15 lb military green parka with white inauthentic fur around the hood; a 17 lb pair of snow pants, which were called "leggings" in Chicago when I was a young girl; and very ugly thick heavily treaded clunky military green and dark green boots that laced up; green knit gloves; and big military green mittens.

(I only wore white thick rubber "bunny boots" with thicker felt inserts on top of wool socks and knee socks -- and tights or silk long underwear -- when I was going to be out on the flight line which  I had not been required to do up to that moment in time.)

Within a few days of having reported to duty on Elmendorf Air Force Base an exercise had been called. My boss and everyone else in my office knew that I was only minimally prepared to contribute to the air combat training exercise as a air intelligence briefer, trainer, analyst and reporter.  So I had been sent down to the squadron with one of our Staff Sergeants just to watch and learn.

Our office was in the Wing Headquarters Building down the street and a block south of the flight line and the huge hangars where the fighter planes for a squadron of F-15s and a squadron of T-33s were kept, prepared to fly, repaired and maintained.  Thus I found myself one dark-as-night mid-winter morning near the Cook Inlet of the Gulf of Alaska, standing like a deer in the headlights with my back to the squadron break room, facing the Operations (Ops) Center with its back-lighted thick plexi-glass board. 

A long counter fronting a table top desk full of phones, notebooks, computer printouts and computers; pens, pencils, erasable colored markers; and coffee cups -- sometimes with coffee in them, sometimes partially full of old spit-out chewing tobacco -- was attended to by two or three airmen or sergeants with officers in flight suits or in "Class A's" milling about in front of or behind the counter.

There was an open door to the Ops Board area on the left as one faced the counter.  Throughout the day ops officers occasionally popped their heads out of the room on the other side of the door or stood in the frame of the doorway to pass on messages, to check the Ops Board or just to keep the military members working there on their toes. 

As I stood watching the flurry of activity from the far side of space that opened up from a double doorway leading to the second floor landing and the broad  two flight staircase with a wall made of semi-opaque glass blocks on its street side, lit from within, not from without even though it was after 9 am (or 0 - 900 for you military types,) I realized that someone was looking at me.  A tall, broad-shouldered man in a flight suit with short brown hair was leaning with his right elbow against the far right side of the Ops Center counter,  his body turned on angle with his back to the opening to the stair landing, not quite facing me, but with his head turned facing me.

As I walked toward him, he stood up straight and asked, "Hey, lieutenant, are you the new intel puke?" 

("Intel puke" was a not-always affectionate name for members of the Air Intelligence support staff.)

My epaulet covers with bars embroidered with thick silver-colored threads that were vertical to the slope of each shoulder gave away my rank.  And like I mentioned earlier, it was obvious that I was new because of my tan and because no one outside of my office, the temporary quarters where the kids and I were staying, or the Base Personnel Office had even seen me yet.  Hardly anyone ever came to start working at a new duty station in Alaska in the winter.  The big PCS (Permanent Change of Station) times were in the summer when military members who were married and had kids found it easier to adjust to life in a new job on a new base because of summer vacation.

"Yep.  Kathy Brown," I answered extending my hand.  "Nice to meet you Lieutenant Preston."

(His name has been changed to protect privacy.)

The pilots' name, rank and wings were visible on Velcro-backed epaulets and name tags attached to his military green baggy no-mex (fire-retardant) flight suit, so I had the advantage over him in terms of being able to address him properly using his rank and last name.

He had no way of knowing mine unless someone had briefed the squadron that there was a new intel lieutenant named Kathy Brown (my married name.)  Most likely even if the pilots or other personnel of the squadron had been briefed or some other way had heard about me, they probably wouldn't have paid it much attention.  We were there to serve the pilots and the ranking was well maintained.

One of the reasons I liked wearing the big thick sweater besides how warm it made me was that you didn't have to fool around making sure your blue plastic name tag was attached properly with the two sharp tacks connected to them that held it onto a uniform blouse, shirt or jacket backed by little disks with two small clasps called frogs that could be pinched and released similar to the way some tie tacks work, maybe. 

(When my ex-husband was in Officer Training School and the kids and I stayed in temporary housing for his last six weeks when he could earn the privilege of living off base on the weekends, one of the other officer candidate wives called the frogs "turtles."  The rest of us "spice" -- a chaplains idea of a funny way to make the plural of "spouse" -- laughed and laughed.)

(You had to be there, I guess.)

"Call me Mike," responded Lt. Preston with a big grin.  "Welcome to Alaska.  Where were you stationed?"

We were both First Lieutenants, so could call each other by our first names.  The custom was that if someone was your same rank or below you in the pecking order, you could use their first names.  If a higher ranking officer allowed you to call him or her by his or her first name out of uniform that was acceptable.  But it was proper military etiquette to say only the person's rank and their last name -- or to use "sir" or "ma'am" when speaking to him or her.  I had been on active duty for nearly three years, so was comfortable with military protocol.

I told Mike that I had been stationed at Patrick Air Force Base near Kennedy Space Center, and he revealed that he had come from pilot training at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona the previous fall.  An Air Force Academy graduate, Mike had an easy way about him as he excused himself to head to the briefing room to prepare to "Step" and fly an ACT (Air Combat Training mission.)

"Stepping" was heading in a "step van" (kinda like the UPS guys drive) to the flight line with all their gear.

As Mike strode away I called out, "Good-bye and good luck," and turned to our Staff Sergeant (SSgt) who had just come up to me from wherever she had been in the squadron offices briefing the pilots and staff on the latest intelligence updates for the exercise.

Over the next two years I got to know Mike and the other pilots of the Wing very well.  It was actually in the regulations for intel personnel that getting to know the pilots personally was required so that they could learn to trust us when we trained them, briefed them and de-briefed them during day to day operations, exercises and real world situations. 

Sometimes I was deployed with up to twenty or so pilots and with four or five times that many support staff to places with air bases in Japan, in South Korea, on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida, and near Las Vegas.

I met Mike's girlfriend who had followed him from Arizona to Alaska and married him back down in the "lower 48" late in that first summer we on Elmendorf.  The whole squadron along with many members of the Wing and the Alaskan Air Command personnel celebrated with them when they came back to set up housekeeping.

And, sadly, we all mourned Mike's death when he fell climbing Mt. McKinley in the spring of 1985 several weeks before his first and only child was born.  Most of the squadron members and their wives were at the obstetrics delivery waiting room in the base hospital while Mike's wife was in labor to give birth to his sweet baby girl.  Over the years I have often prayed for them both.

I lost track of them a long time ago, but I hope they are happy.  No doubt they both think of Mike still, and maybe even especially on Father's Day.

We are very blessed to still have our Dad with us and I thank God for him.  As I have told you before, he is the most wonderful Dad in the world.  He has always been proud of me, and especially loved to visit us on air bases and near Kennedy Space Center.  My heart is full and I am sad I wasn't able to fly down to Florida to see Dad today.  The whiplash injuries from the car accident unfortunately made traveling not a good idea.

Whether your Dad is still with you on Earth or just with you in Spirit, I hope you have joy-filled memories and warm, loving feelings associated with him. 

If he is still with you, I hope you will be able to see him and let him know how much you love and appreciate him -- and also that you don't only do that once a year on Father's Day, of course.

If you are a Dad, may the Lord bless and keep you and all your family.  Sometimes guys are not biological dads, but blessed to be dads or father figures in other ways.  I thank the Lord for those men in my life, too.


And I wish all the guys who are dads in my life "Happy Father's Day!"  Besides my Dad, that includes my son, my son-in-law, my brother, my brother-in-law, my cousins, my friends . . . you are all wonderful and loving fathers!

Dad, Mom, Jenny and her family, Krista, Daniel, Seth, Jude and me celebrating Mom's and Dad's 60th Wedding Anniversary in 2010.

 
 
My son Tom and four of his kids, fall of 2011.


My daughter Krista and her husband Daniel and two of their sons, Seth and Jude.