TURKEY - CHAPTER 2

There was a crowd of young boys and men that swarmed around me speaking Turkish. I couldn't understand what they were saying but I soon realized that they were wanting to carry my duffel bag. Not knowing any better I let a boy carry my bag a few steps toward customs where he set it down and then asked me for fifty cents. I learned real quick to carry my own bags. Being in uniform late at night in a foreign airport was pretty overwhelming for me. Just then I saw two Black Airmen standing on the other side of the airport terminal and I walked up and introduced myself. They were as happy to see me as I was to see them and the three of us decided to hang out together. They were also on their way to Incirlik. From the time I arrived in Istanbul it was space available on Turkish Airlines from that time on. and we needed three seats to Ankara but we kept getting bumped. When it became obvious that we weren't going to get out of Incirlik that night we found a hotel room. It was hard to sleep because I heard car horns blowing all night long. For Turkish drivers a red light was more of a caution light than a stop light. They would lay on the horn as they ran the light and in essence they were saying watch out, here I come.

 For most of the next morning we kept getting bumped so we decided to look for the American consulate. The taxi's didn't have meters so you would negotiate with the driver for the fare. At the consulate they were friendly but were no help but after returning to the airport we managed to get a hop on an Air Force C-130 that was leaving for Ankara that afternoon. We arrived in Ankara and again we could not find a connecting flight to Adana. At the airport we ran into a white Captain and a White MSgt who were from Ohio who were also headed to Incirlik. Ankara is the national capital of Turkey and is located in the western part of Turkey but more centrally located. We found a hotel across from the American Embassy that had broken windows from an anti-American demonstration earlier that day. The hotel only had two rooms available for the five of us and there was just one double bed in each room. We decided to grab a drink before bedding down for the night and there was a smoky bar nearby packed with Turkish men only, My companions ordered beer and I ordered a coke. The waiter brought me a coke in a bottle that was already open which is a common practice in that part of the world. We walked back to the hotel and I was feeling fine until I put my foot on the bottom step of the stairs leading up to our room. Suddenly my head began to spin and I fell against the wall, clinging to the handrail. I thought that I was going to pass out and a wave of panic swept over me because I wondered if someone had put something in my drink at the bar. Each time I took a step I felt like I was walking on mattresses and I would feel this sensation for about 4 days. The others noticed me lagging behind as I slowly made my way up the stairs and asked if I was okay.

I followed the Airmen into their room and the MSgt and Captain called me over to talk to them. In a low voice the MSgt asked me why I was wanting to sleep in that room, I should sleep with them. I was promoted to E-4 at Kingsley, which was three stripe and at that time my rank was called Buck Sergeant. Being a lower ranking Airmen I felt like it was more appropriate that I sleep with them and to be honest I had developed a camaraderie with them. The Sergeant kept shifting his eyes toward their room and repeatedly insisted that I should stay with them. By his demeanor it finally occurred to me that he didn't think I should be sleeping with these guys because of their race. I was a little naive and slow to catch their meaning. Once the light bulb popped on in my head it made me more determined than ever to sleep in their room. Without saying another word I walked right into their room, closed the door behind me laid right down in the middle of the bed. The bed was not that big and it was a tight fit but I didn't care if they had been space aliens at that point I was feeling so bad and so weary from the trip that I slept very soundly that night. The next morning at breakfast the MSgt and Captain weren't talking much and they left our group after breakfast. I have always been proud of the fact that at times like these I am secure enough with myself to make the right choices because I am not a follower. The rest of us took a taxi back to the airport where we waited all day again for a flight out of Ankara. About 7:00 PM that night we were finally able to board a Turkish Airlines F-27 to Incirlik.

Incirlik was the largest American Air Force base in Turkey and is still a vital American air base today in the region. It was home to a squadron of F-4 Phantom's which were the most advanced fighters in the Air Force at the time. I would spend the next few days processing into TUSLOG Detachment 93, Erhac, which was a Turkish A.F.B. just outside of Malatya Turkey. The American Air Force in Turkey was under the command of USAFE or United States Air Forces In Europe. Incirlik was the lap of luxury compared to where I was going. It was an 18 month assignment for single Airmen and a two year assignment for the Airmen accompanied by their spouses and dependents. Erhac was remote and spouses and dependents weren't allowed to go there. Because of that it was a one year assignment. Incirlik had a nice base exchange, commissary, hospital, theater, miniature golf course, recreation hall, NCO club, Officers club, and chow hall and they even had horse back riding. I rode horses a lot when I was a teenager and rode them at the various times I would come to Incirlik during the year I was in Turkey but I haven't been on a horse since.

After a couple of days of processing I was cleared to leave for Erhac. Mike Cannon and myself were processed in together. We had been stationed together at Kingsley Field and our orders were identical. He told me recently that he originally had orders for Thailand but his orders were red lined for Erhac. Mike was from Los Angeles and was a very quiet and decent guy. We were scheduled to leave for Erhac early in the morning and had breakfast together in the Incirlik chow hall. I ate a heavy breakfast of link sausages, eggs, toast, SOS or as G.I.'s called it (shit on a shingle) and pancakes. SOS was toast with creamed chipped beef poured over the top and it was one of my favorite dishes. Nobody makes it like the Air Force and recently, one of my security officers, who used to be an Air Force cook, made me some. It brought back memories because it was so good. I had been stationed in a cold climate so I was wearing a long sleeved fatigue shirt.

For reasons I can't explain the plane ride to Erhac was like riding on a roller coaster. It was the roughest ride that I have ever had on an airplane and I have had some very rough rides. The weather was clear and the wind didn't seem to be blowing that hard. The plane would rise and dip like a ship on rough seas. It was a two engine prop job called a C-131 Samaritan and was used for transporting V.I.P.'s or as a medi-vac but in this case it was configured as a passenger plane. The air conditioning wasn't working and it was 125 degrees on the ground. After a few minutes I broke out in a cold sweat and was feeling very sick. I ran to the lavatory and even though my stomach was full from breakfast I wasn't throwing up that much food. It was what they call the dry heaves. The lavatory was very small and it was all I could do to stay on my feet with the plane rocking and rolling as it was. Every time that the plane dipped my head slammed into the wall and not only was I sick at my stomach but now I had a terrible headache. The dizziness that I experienced that night in Ankara was still with me and as I described earlier, when I walked it was if I was walking on mattresses.

When we stepped off the plane in at Erhac I was barely able to stand and as we waited for a vehicle to take us to the Detachment I could see the heat rising in waves off of the asphalt. For about three days I could barely get out of bed between the dizziness and nausea. I was able to take a picture, however; just after arriving at the Detachment. In the picture there are four Security Policemen. From left to right was a guy from Houston Texas named Herb Carter but I can't remember the second guy's name. The third man was my friend Mike Cannon, and the last man was a guy whose last name was Rogers from Memphis Tennessee. Because of the heat we were allowed to wear our tan 1505's while on duty. Whenever we wore the OD green fatigues we were allowed to wear our shirt tails out. I weighed 220 pounds when I touched down at Erhac and by the time I left one year later I only weighed 175 pounds. This was because I was frequently sick with diarrhea, which was probably dysentery. Troops today are able to avoid sickness by drinking bottled water but it wasn't available to us back then. Our medic, who we called Doc Swope, kept the water chlorinated but in my case it didn't help much.