TURKEY - CHAPTER 9

 

 After a long day at the firing range we were sitting in the Security Police trailer cleaning our M-16's. We were all having a good time shooting the bull and busting each others chops until the subject of music came up. Someone started talking their favorite performer or singer and about half of our group were black Airmen. One of our White guys was from Massachusetts and for that reason we nicknamed him pilgrim. Somebody said that their favorite singer was James Brown and Pilgrim must have been so focused on cleaning his weapon that he totally forgot where he was. He suddenly blurted out that he didn't like James Brown because he was a nigger. You could have heard a pin drop for just a moment as everyone, black and white, looked at him in total shock. When he raised his head he had an (oh shit) expression on his face, like he couldn't even believe what he had just said. Some of the black guys went crazy and tried to get at him while others tried to deescalate the situation. He profusely apologized but it wasn't doing much good. This is the bad thing about using racial slurs on a regular basis if you are a racist or you hang around people who talk that way because words may slip at awkward moments. 

 I was working 1st shift in the Alert Area one day when I heard tires squealing. Being close to the end of the runway I could see a fighter leaving behind a cloud of smoke as the pilot was standing up in the cockpit trying to stop before he ran out of runway. The fighter had lost it's brakes and ran into a net at the end of the runway where it bounced backwards as if it had been shot from a slingshot. Fire trucks and an ambulance responded and the pilot was placed in the back of an ambulance and taken to the hospital.

 Wild dogs roam free in Turkey and they can be very vicious. We would see them along the side of the road sometimes and on two occasions we had to shoot them when they wandered into the Detachment. I saw a SSgt empty his .38 revolver into one and on another occasion he shot a dog nine times with an M-16 before it finally went down. There were some exotic insects and a few animals that we ran across over there but the ones that I remember the most was the huge green grasshoppers and scorpions. The grasshoppers were bigger and greener than anything that I have ever seen before and the scorpions were a reddish brown. I once captured one in an empty canteen that was crawling near my gate shack in the Alert area. After I got back to the barracks I put the canteen in my locker and I forgot about it for about two weeks. One night I remembered that the scorpion was still in my locker and thinking that it had to be dead I shook the canteen until the scorpion fell out, very much alive. Another day I was sitting on the end of a bunk in the motor pool shooting the bull with a bunch of my friends. Suddenly I noticed something on my combat boot and the guys scattered as I kicked a scorpion off the toe of my boot. There was a cracking and squishing sound as I stomped on it as it tried to get away. 

 Our medic, TSgt Swope lived in the medical trailer that served as our dispensary. He kept a big glass jar on his desk that was full of snakes, bugs, and scorpions preserved in alcohol. Some of the men got together one night and decided that it would be fun getting one of the nerdy guys in the unit drunk. All night long I could hear their raucous laughter and cheering coming from a room downstairs. Late that night a couple of these men half carried him up to his room because he was drunk as a skunk. I helped him into bed and no sooner did his head hit the pillow than he felt sick. Needing to throw up he ran down the hallway to the latrine. The houseboys usually left their brooms in the corner near the entrance, but on this night the brooms had fallen and the handles were lying across the threshold of the door. This poor guy tripped over the brooms and as he was falling he grabbed the open door of a toilet stall. These stalls had heavy steel doors which were more like the doors in a jail cell than should have been on toilet stalls. As he was falling forward the door slammed on his middle finger cutting it off above the knuckle. Later that night I used the same stall and there was blood and meat from the finger smeared on the door. Doc Swope stitched up what was left of his finger and the rest of the finger was preserved in a jar of alcohol on his desk until I left for home.

During my last month in Turkey I wore a button that said "Short Hog" on it. We had a USO show that visited the Detachment from Hawaii in May 1971 called the Johnny Pineapple show. An incident happened during my last few days at Erhac that I have regretted all of these last 50 years. My Italian friend Joseph and another SSgt that I was good friends with were having a party with friends in their room. We were beginning to question Joseph's sexual orientation because of rumors being spread around the Detachment that he might be a homosexual. They were just rumors and as far as I know they were not based in fact. This SSgt was guilty by association and I got caught up in the gossip. One night I was leaning against a bunk in a friends room and right in the middle of spreading more gossip about my friends while we were all laughing at their expense, I looked up to see the SSgt we were talking about standing in the doorway of our room. He pointed at me and said "I gotcha". I was never more humiliated, embarrassed, and ashamed of myself as I was at that moment and I just wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere. After thinking about it I just wanted to apologize to both of my friends but I just couldn't work up the courage and I left Erhac regretting what had happened. If I knew how to contact them today I would give anything to apologize for what I did because I missed my chance.

 Mike Cannon, myself and one other Security policeman caught a hop to Incirlik where we spent a few days processing out of our detachment. I spent a lot of time at the swimming pool and horseback riding. Our bunks were in the transient barracks which were kept clean by a heavy set houseboy that was probably in his late forties or fifties. He was hilarious because he couldn't speak a word of English but he knew every curse word in the English language. Because of sickness I was skinny as a rail by the time I left Turkey. I only weighed 175 lbs. On May 31, 1971, we boarded a Turkish DC-9 for Ankara. Because of terrorist activity we were ordered not to wear our uniforms and the terminal in Ankara was an armed camp. About every twenty feet there was a Turkish soldier armed with a sub machine gun. Whenever someone got too close they were waved back from the window. Not long before I left Turkey, four American airmen were kidnapped by a terrorist group and the largest manhunt to that time was conducted by the Turkish military trying to find them. We all expected them to be killed but they were able to escape when their guard became distracted. Conditions were the same when we arrived at the Istanbul airport. I learned enough Turkish during my year in country to hold a very broken conversation. I had some satisfaction, however; when the hordes of men and boys converged on me again wanting to carry my bags. Each time one would run up to me I would say "Yoke Abby, getmek, yoke gelmek". In essence I was telling them no and to go away. They would look forlorn as they realized that I was no longer fresh fish and they would turn away disappointed. 

 As I began boarding my plane at Istanbul it finally sunk in that I was really going home when I saw that big beautiful PAN AM 707 waiting for me on the tarmac. Turkish policeman were checking ID's and doing wall searches on all of the male passengers. I was ordered against the wall but when the policeman saw my military ID he told me in English that I was clear to board. After a short layover in Frankfort Germany we flew on to London. In the London  Times I was shocked to learn of the death of Audie Murphy in a plane crash. From London we boarded a PAN AM 747 bound for the good ole USA. We landed at JFK and I was thrilled to hear the agent welcome me home as I cleared customs. It was here at JFK that I would say goodbye to my good friend Mike Cannon who I had served my first three years with at three different bases. Lackland, Kingsley Field, and Erhac and it would be almost fifty years before we would see each other again. He now lives in Provo Utah. Mike and his wife were able to visit us in Murfreesboro a couple of years ago and I saw him again this past October 2020 in Sedona Arizona. We reconnected about 2015 when he contacted me by a letter and we have been in contact ever since. I said goodbye to Eric Erickson in Turkey because he still had a month yet to serve when I left.

  After dark I boarded an American Airlines 727 bound for Nashville but unfortunately it was a milk run because it landed in at least six cities before we arrived in Nashville. It was a beautiful, clear, peaceful night as we approached the lights of the numerous cities and communities far below. I was bursting with excitement as the plane touched down in Nashville and taxied to the terminal. Walking through the terminal doors with my carry on bags I saw Debbie, Donna, and Didi waiting for me. I had fantasized about this moment for a year and without thinking I threw my bags down on the floor and took Debbie in my arms, kissing her passionately. Without thinking I threw my bags down right in the doorway and everyone was having to step over them. It was probably two or three in the morning when we arrived at her parents house on Boscobel St. Robbie was asleep when we got home but we woke him up anyway. I was shocked at how much he had changed in just one year. He was a large two year old and it obvious that he didn't know me. We would have to be reacquainted over time. After spending the rest of the morning talking to everyone and passing out souvenirs it began to grow light outside. 

 Debbie and I left to look for a motel where we could have some privacy and we drove to the Holiday Inn on Trinity Lane next to I-65. I was in civilian clothes and the two of us looked very young. The desk clerk, who was a middle aged woman, refused to give us a room because she probably thought that we were under age. I am a different person today in that I would have stood my ground and demanded a room but instead I meekly left and looked for another motel. We stayed at the Matador Inn near the Jefferson Street bridge which is no longer there today. I had not slept for two days and of course I would not get any sleep that day. By the time we returned to Debbie's house later that night I had been up for three days straight. I was so tired that I was starting to act like a drunk man. Everything was funny and I was laughing hysterically whether someone said something funny or not. That night I crashed and slept well into the next day. I was home and with my family again and I slept the sleep of a man that knew that the worst was behind him and excited about the days ahead.