On
July 3, 1963 I held up my hand in the military induction center in
Memphis, Tennessee and took the oath of enlistment and was sworn into
the United States Air Force. At the time, I was still four months short
of my eighteenth birthday. It was the beginning of twelve years of a
life that very few, even those in the Air Force, never experience.
After basic training and aircraft mechanic's training, I as assigned to
a Tactical Air Command troop carrier wing at Pope Air Force Base, North
Carolina. The following August I was one of fifteen young aircraft
mechanics who were selected to cross-train into the aircraft loadmaster
field and take our places as members of troop carrier crews on the
C-130 aircraft. It was the beginning of a brand new life. Over the next
eleven years, I saw much of the world as a crewmember on C-130s, C-141s
and C-5A transports. I must say that my time on C-130s was the most
exciting. Most of my C-130 time was logged in the skies over Southeast
Asia, including over North Vietnam and Laos on classified special
operations missions. After eighteen months back in the States, I got
orders to go back to C-130s in the Pacific and to a new mission as a
crewmember qualified to drop huge 10,000-pound M-121 bombs. HAULING
TRASH is my story of those twelve years.