It was good to be home even if it was just for a few weeks. I love Tennessee in the late Spring and Oregon can't compare in my book. All too soon my leave was over and my departure date of May 31, 1970 arrived. Orders called for me to fly from Nashville to New York on American Airlines, From there I would fly Pan American to Istanbul with layovers in London and Frankfort. At Istanbul I would change to Turkish Airlines and fly into Adana Turkey, with a layover in Ankara. Adana is the home of Incirlik AFB. There I would process into Tuslog Detachment 93, which would be my duty station for the next year. After processing in at Incirlik I would fly military aircraft to Erhac AFB near Malatya Turkey. This all sounded simple enough to me. My heart was heavy as I packed to leave that morning. Debbie drove me to the airport where I kissed her and Robbie goodbye. I boarded the plane and through my tears I could see Debbie waving from the observation deck while Robbie played near her feet, too young to understand what was happening.
I arrived at New York's LaGuardia airport where I took a bus over to JFK. I never expected to see a Pan Am 747 jumbo jet waiting there on the ramp. These planes had only been in service for about a month. I was assigned a seat in the middle aisle but I couldn't see out of the windows. My flying companions were a woman and a little boy that were also on their way to Turkey. The lady was flying over to meet her Air Force husband stationed somewhere in Turkey where dependents were allowed to be with their husbands. The take-off went well and the weather was good. I talked to the lady next to me for about forty-five minutes or so. After a while I fell asleep, which is unusual for me since I am a nervous flyer. How long I was asleep, I don't know because I was sleeping so soundly that I didn't feel the plane shudder or hear the explosion in the number four engine. Whatever happened it was enough to wake me up and I gradually became aware of passengers in the window seats to my left nervously looking out of the windows. Passengers from the middle seats were standing in the aisle looking low over their shoulders. The lady I had been talking with earlier told me that there had been a loud bang. The pilot's voice came over the intercom as he said ladies and gentlemen we are shutting down our number four engine and will be returning to New York. Our estimated time of arrival will be one hour and fifteen minutes and for safety reasons we will be dumping fuel.
Trying to appear brave in front of the lady my heart was pounding out of my chest. The flight attendants were walking through the plane turning off all lights except for the aisle lights, which was to conserve power. It was night and with most of the lights off the plane was pretty dark. A rumor began spreading among the passengers that a woman had passed out in the rear of the plane. After what seemed like an eternity the hour and fifteen minutes passed but there was no sign of New York. The pilot came on the intercom again and said that it would be another 15 minutes. I was getting worried by this time because the tail of the plane was very low and it reminded me of the listing deck of a sinking ship. Our pilot made at least two more announcements that the landing would be delayed. The lights of New York finally came into view but the tail was still low. Just before touchdown the plane leveled off and we made a perfect landing. The passengers erupted into cheers and applause. A tremendous wave of relief swept over me as I watched the red and blue lights of the fire trucks and emergency vehicles racing out to meet our plane on the taxiway. After reaching the terminal I spotted a stewardess crying and being comforted by another stewardess as we were filing out of the plane.
I was terrified at the thought of getting back on to another plane that night. This was probably the closest I ever came to going AWOL and it took all the courage that I could muster but I hung around. I felt like the frightened Confederate soldier at the battle of Stones River who was under heavy fire in the cotton field near the Nashville Pike as he saw a frightened rabbit scamper past him running for the safety.. The soldier shouted "Run cottontail. I'd run too but I have a reputation". This unplanned layover gave me one last chance to talk to Debbie before I boarded the plane again. It would be the last time I would talk to her for a long time. It was unsettling to learn that we were boarding the very same plane. After boarding we were fed while mechanics repaired the broken engine and it took several hours and the plane was hot without air conditioning. We were finally given the green light and it was off to London again. This time the flight was very routine. After a nine hour flight we landed at Heathrow Airport way behind schedule. I didn't know until a few years ago that my friend Mike Cannon from Kingsley Field was also on that plane but we didn't know it. He read this account on line from his home in Provo Utah and told me after we reconnected a few years ago that he was also on the plane that night.
Instead of the Pan American Airlines plane that I was originally scheduled to fly on I boarded a Turkish DC-9. As soon as I walked on to the plane I smelled the country of Turkey. It had a unique smell that I could never put my finger on. I smelled it the entire time I was in country and it wasn't a pleasant smell. We flew to Zurich Switzerland and then on to Istanbul, landing there around midnight. It was very late at night but the airport was crammed with people and was old and dingy. It reminded me of a scene from a movie. As I walked toward customs people were waving and hanging over railings in the upper levels of the airport. The dress of the women in the airport ranged from mini skirts, which were popular at the time in western countries, to women wearing the more moderate Hijab, and finally to women dressed in the more extreme Niqab, which was a Muslim woman's fundamentalist dress. The Niqab is a face veil worn by Muslim women in which the eyes are the only thing uncovered. Their bodies are covered from head to foot in black. Turkish men either wore western style clothing or what we called (Seven Day Shitters). The Turkish name for these pants were salvar, pronounced (shalvar).They were very baggy in the crotch and they usually reached just below the knees. Men that wore these were more prevalent in Eastern Turkey. M.C. Hammer popularized them in his music videos in the 1980's.
Many men also had mustaches and smoked god awful cigarettes that stunk to high heaven. Turkey was one of the most progressive of Muslim countries at the time. This was because of Kemal Ataturk who was the father of the modern Turkish state. He was a military hero that defeated the British at the battle of Gallipoli in WW1. Turkey was an ally of Germany then and because of that alliance the British conquered much of the old Ottoman Empire in WW1 and all that was left of it after the Versailles treaty became the modern day country of Turkey. The Ottoman Empire had been referred to as the "Sick man of Europe" before the war. Ataturk ended Sharia Law and secularized the country because his goal was to westernize Turkey and bring it into the twentieth century. After WW2 Turkey and Greece became a crucial front in the Cold War and the containment of the Soviet Union. Britain had been their primary defensive partner after WW2 but the war had nearly bankrupted the UK. This is when president Truman developed the Truman Doctrine in 1947 and established American military bases in Greece and Turkey. It is my understanding that since the rise of radical Islam Turkey is now moving in a more fundamentalist direction today.
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| TURKISH AIRWAYS DC 9 |
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| KEMAL ATATURK |
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| The Hijab |
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| The Niqab |
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| SDS |
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.
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| F-27 |
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.
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| F4 |
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| C-131 |
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Left to right Airman Carter, I cant remember his name, Mike Cannon and Airman Rogers- We had just arrived at Erhac
The (Hog) as we affectionately called Detachment 93, was a godforsaken place to be stationed. I realize that I could have been stationed in a much worse place like Vietnam or Thule Greenland but I hated almost every minute that I was stationed there. Erhac was a Turkish AFB and our Detachment was mostly made up of Turkish facilities. With the exception of our recreation hall, the motorpool, and the trailers that made up our dispensary and NCO club everything else was Turkish. The base was fundamentally set up like Kingsley but with a few vital differences. Our mission was to guard the American nuclear weapons that were uploaded on Turkish F-100 fighters. These nukes were at least three times bigger than our Genie tactical nukes at Kingsley. Because of their size they were strategic rather than defensive and were meant for targets in the Soviet Union. Our primary posts were the Alert Area and the Nuclear Storage Area. Central Security Control or CSC was in the storage area. Everything else was handled by the Turkish security forces. The perimeter of the storage area and alert area was guarded by Turkish Airmen armed with rifles, sub-machine guns, and K-9 patrols. There were four barns in the alert area and each one had a Turkish F-100 uploaded with a nuke. On one side of each barn was a guard shack the size of a telephone booth for the American guards and an identical shack on the other for a Turkish guard.
When posted we had to walk through a Turkish security building where guards would check our badges. The storage area had a building where two SP'scontrolled entry into the area. Only Americans were allowed around the nukes which were housed in bunkers on the inside of the storage area. Most nuclear storage areas in the Air Force had electrical sliding gates controlled from a panel inside the gate house. In Turkey the gates were secured by large master locks and we carried the keys. We were told that our Detachment building had been built in WW1 but I don't know if this was true but it was a large, old, and dilapidated building. It was on the opposite side of the base from the Alert and Storage areas. Our barracks were in the Detachment building, along with various offices including our Detachment commander's office who was a Lt. Colonel. Our chow hall was also in this building. Lower ranking Airmen were assigned to four man rooms and higher ranking Airmen to two man rooms. It was nearly impossible to take a shower during the day or early in the evening because the water pressure was so low. The best time to take a shower was late at night or after midnight. Many times you would be all soaped up and the water would just cut off. After playing basketball, football, or softball in the heat we would get dirty and smelly. Sometimes we would have to wait for hours to get a shower. |
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| A Turkish F-100 |
When I arrived at the Hog I was shocked to learn that Mike Cannon and myself were going to be Flight Chiefs. The Security Police unit had two SSgt's and one MSgt when we arrived. The MSgt's name was Buddy Wright and he was our NCOIC of Security. The two SSgt's were Flight Chiefs but we had four Flights. Since Mike and I were Buck Sergeants and the next highest in rank, we were given command of the other two Flights. I got off to a terrible start as a Flight Chief and my first night on duty was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. It was a midnight shift and I drove my men out to the nuclear storage area for Guard mount. On the way I had my first encounter with the Turkish security forces. Each night we were given a color code and it was the basic colors like red, green, blue and yellow. We would slip a colored disc over the lens of our flashlight before being posted. At some point on the way out to the storage area we would be challenged by two Turkish Airmen carrying the old Springfield bolt action rifles. When American Security Policemen challenged someone it would be at port arms but the Turks would point their rifles straight at you and you. I was looking straight down the business end of a rifle. One of us would point our flashlight with the designated color code at the guards and thankfully, we always had the right color. I was always a little nervous around Turkish Airmen because it was like no one ever trained on weapons safety. On duty sometimes I would see the Turks carelessly handling their weapons.
After reading the duty roster and passing along information to my men that first night I posted them in the storage area Then I drove the rest out to the alert area. If there is such a thing as Attention Deficit Disorder, I have it. Once I dropped my men off I was supposed to wait for the men that were being relieved while I waited in the vehicle outside of the alert area. From there I would drive them to the storage area, pick these men up, and take them all back to the barracks. Instead of waiting on the men I guess I was distracted by homesickness, and deep in thought, I drove all the way back to the barracks alone. When I arrived an Airman was waiting for me in front of the Detachment with a big grin on his face as he asked me if I had forgotten something. It hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized that I had forgotten the men that were being relieved. Luckily they were good natured about it and we all had a good laugh but they never let me live it down .
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| At our nuclear storage area |
I knew from the start that we wouldn't be Flight Chiefs very long. because we were only filling in until the new SSgt's arrived. About one month after we arrived at Erhac the two new E-5's arrived and I was bumped down to assistant Flight Chief. I became assistant to a Flight Chief who happened to be black. He wasn't very talkative and I just reasoned that this was just his normal disposition. He was one of the two E-5's that were already there when we arrived. I tried to establish a rapport with him but he would not talk to me unless it had to do with work and it was short and to the point. Ours was a very chilly relationship from the start. He would post me in the alert area every night and I was never posted at the storage area, which was a better post. Then I began to notice that my name was last on the duty roster and as assistant I should have been listed second behind the flight chiefs name. Everyone else was listed by their rank but my name was just Segroves. It didn't take me long to realize that I was being disrespected but I was clueless as to why. I had never mistreated this guy in any way because before I became his assistant I barely knew him. Confrontation is not my thing but I don't appreciate being bullied either. Everyday I endured this mistreatment my anger was building to the point that there had to be a day of reckoning and soon.
On one midnight shift I decided that I would confront him as we were being posted in the alert area. I waited until everyone left the truck, except him and me. He was driving and I was in the passenger seat. I looked over at him and said that I didn't know why he didn't like me but if he didn't start treating me with the respect that I was due I was going over his head. As I stepped out of the truck with my rifle and alert bag I told him that when he posted the duty roster the next night my position on the duty roster and my rank better be corrected. He became unglued and started screaming at me using every curse word he could think of. As I walked toward the gate house he jumped out of the truck and was screaming at me every step of the way out to my post. The Turkish guards were looking at him like he was crazy but I never said another word to him. I sat down in my gate shack with him hovering over me while he was telling me that he had better not come out on a post check and catch me doing anything wrong. He was so mad I was scared that he might try to shoot me. The Sgt stormed off and before he was even out of the area I was on the phone to the CSC dispatcher and I had him connect me with MSgt Wright. It was late and I woke Wright up. To that point I never cared much for TSgt Wright because he seemed arrogant to me and I thought that he would be upset because I woke him up. Instead he was very sympathetic and heard me out when I told him how I was being treated. The next day he sent word to me that I was being transferred to another Flight. My new Flight chief was also Black but we got along very well.
For a while after this experience I couldn't understand why I had been mistreated by this guy and I was venting to a friend one day when he stopped me. He said Greg, think about it, you have a Confederate flag on your wall. Until that moment I was pretty naive about the Confederate flag and how controversial that it was. I never really connected it to slavery or racism because I was just proud of being a Southerner and because I was proud wanted people to know where I was from. On our honeymoon I had bought a 3x5 Confederate battle flag at Six Flags Over Georgia. That flag went everywhere that I went while I was in the Air Force. I suddenly remembered the first day that I had met a black Airman from Memphis whose last name was Rogers. He had walked into my room after I hung the flag on my wall and asked me if I was a Rebel. I said no just proud to be from the South. The word got around among the Black Airman that I had a Confederate flag. This made perfect sense and I now understood why the Sergeant didn't like me.
In 1970 the Martin Luther King message of non violence was wearing pretty thin with many black people. Especially Northern blacks. There was the Black Power movement and the rise of Black militancy across America. It was common to see young black Airmen greet each other black airmen with the black power clenched fist salute. There was an irritating defensiveness among many blacks that whites had to deal with. Being from the South I always addressed men my own age as boy but I never called an older white man or black man boy. Whenever I would see a friend I might say hey boy how are you doing. or hey boy whats up. Many young blacks would respond with you must have said Lee Roy, there ain't no boy around here. Their defensiveness was irritating because I meant nothing by it. When Blacks accuse me of racism it is both irritating and funny at the same time for me. I was never raised to be prejudiced and when many of my friends were I resisted the peer group pressure to be like them. I can't tell you how many times I was called an N lover because I defended Martin Luther King and I was pro civil rights. The issue that really got me into trouble was interracial dating and marriage. I have always been in favor of it and there have been several times in my life that I thought that I was going to get my butt whipped for defending it. The first time that I ever witnessed a mixed race couple was at Incirlik AFB. I must admit that it took a little getting used to because I had never seen that before but I had no objections to it. My father-in-law was never crazy about me and I think that it was mainly over my racial views.
All racism and bigotry is bad, regardless of the race that espouses it. This Black sergeant treated me in the same way that he had probably been treated many times in his life. He judged me before he came to know me. I was judged because of the color of my skin, the region that I was from, and on the basis of a piece of cloth rather than the content of my character. The irony of the whole thing was that this same sergeant, although we never became what I would call close friends, warmed up to me and actually became friendly toward me before he left to go back to (The World) which was GI terminology for the United States. I had many Black friends in Turkey and after a while they began to realize that I wasn't what they had judged me to be. This experience taught me to stand my ground on principle and after deep introspection about the matter I felt that my heart had been in the right place and I had done nothing to apologize for. Therefore the flag remained on my wall the whole time I was at Erhac.
Over the years I have put much study into the issue of race in America, the true causes of the Civil War, the history of the Confederate flag, and I have learned a great deal just by observing human behavior. Today, I don't see history as a Northern and Southern thing. I see history as a Democrat Party and Republican Party thing. Although I am a Constitutional Conservative and not a Republican it was the Democrat party that was the party of slavery, the party that forced the Five Civilized tribes to leave the South on the Trail of Tears, the party that issued the Dred Scot supreme court decision, the party that started the Civil War, the party that created the Ku Klux Klan, the party that lynched blacks and white Republicans, the party that instituted Jim Crow segregation, the party that interned loyal patriotic American's of Japanese descent during WW2, the party that fought against the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution.
It is also the party that fought against the passage of the 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965 civil rights acts. Even though Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, was instrumental in getting these latter civil rights acts passed, it could not have happened without the unified support of the Republican party. Too many Democrats opposed those bills. Democrat social welfare programs have virtually destroyed the black family in America and are also destroying white families in the process. Democrat run cities are cesspools of crime and corruption where blacks are killing other blacks at alarming rates. Yet the Democrat run media focuses on the myth of white police officers shooting down unarmed blacks in droves and they are constantly exploiting the issue of race in order to keep and maintain power.
America would be able to heal our racial problems if we were only allowed to heal without interference from the Democrat party. Since the Communists have taken over the Democrat party they are pushing the Marxist and racist Critical Race Theory down our throats and spreading this poison in our schools. If you want to end racism in America then I suggest ending the Democrat party in America. It stands to reason that the Marxists are racists and have taken over the most racist political party in America because Karl Marx was a virulent racist and an anti-semite. Although he was Jewish himself, like many on the left he was a self hating Jew. Over the last few years I have lost my zeal for defending the Confederate flag because now I feel like I am defending the Democrat party when I do. I have come a long way since my days as a young and naive Airman. I still defend the fact that we should remember all of our history, the good, along with the bad. And I am not for tearing down statues, renaming buildings, and changing the names of army posts. I would remind everyone that it was the Democrat party that erected those statues, named those buildings and named the army posts in the first place.
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| Eric Erickson & Mike Cannon |
We had regular floor shows in our chow hall and on our patio about twice a month. The chow hall was our largest room but it had terrible acoustics. These floor shows were usually British but every now and then we had a German floor show. Before each show we had a tradition of initiating the new members of the Detachment with the following chant. ( You, you, f_ck you). Because of the language I never participated but Mike Cannon and myself had to endure this welcome when we first came to Erhac. Every week five current movies were flown into the Detachment. Each night after supper a bed sheet was hung from the wall and a movie was shown on a 16 millimeter projector. Because the chow hall was hot and the acoustics were so bad we began watching movies on our patio. We also started having many of our floor shows there or in the recreation hall. During a movie, if there was a nude scene, the projector operator would run the the scene over and over or freeze the frame to the boisterous cheers of the men. By the weekend the projector operator would replay the more popular movies of the week. If the weather was bad and our plane couldn't land the movies would get pretty old after a while.
Our food was excellent and one thing that I can say about a remote assignment is that you are fed very well. We had steak at least twice a week and were served four meals a day. An American civilian ran our chow hall and his cooks were Turkish. We had a recreation hall that had two pool tables, a ping pong table, and a foosball machine. The NCO Club was a large trailer and the only place in the Detachment with air conditioning. Needless to say I spent a lot of time there. We also had several slot machines in the NCO Club and I saw men blow their entire paycheck in those things. Beyond the occasional floor show, movies, recreation hall and NCO Club there wasn't much to do at Erhac. Many of our men spent much of their off time drinking out of sheer boredom and since I didn't drink I put many of these guys to bed or helped them walk it off.
Debbie and I wrote each other everyday while I was in Turkey. I felt very fortunate because I saw the look on many of my friends faces who rarely got letters from home or heard from their wives and girlfriends. G.I.'s today are very fortunate to have cellphones and computers because this makes it possible to communicate instantly with their loved ones. We had no way to communicate except by letter. I only had two ways to hear Debbie or Robbie's voice. That was either by cassette tape or driving 180 miles, which was about a 4 hour drive, over a dangerous two lane road which was narrow, curvy, and mountainous to our radar site at Diyarbakir. I was able to make this trip four times during the year I was there but we could only do it on our 72 hour breaks and we never did it unless we could go as a group. It was dangerous to go alone or with just two or three men. Usually we left in a group of anywhere from six to eight men and most of the time we drove a Dodge six pack or a mini bus leaving early in the morning. The Sally Fields movie, Not Without My Daughter, is a true story about a woman who with her small daughter, endured a harrowing escape from Iran. I believe that the scenes at the end of the movie were probably filmed in this area of Turkey where we were because the scenery is so barren and looks very familiar.
Along the way to Diyarbakir we passed a huge lake at Elazig Turkey and second only to Crater Lake Oregon this was the bluest water I have ever seen. The terrain around it was very brown and barren but the blue of the water really stood out. At some point we crossed over the Euphrates River and drove along it's banks and there was also a fascinating village that sat on the side of a mountain. You would see men squatting down on the side of the road in their salvars or (Seven Day Shitters) in the middle of nowhere. There was a high mountain range that we had to go over that had little or no guardrails and you would see the wreckage of trucks or vehicles that had gone over the side of the mountain. I had seen enough Turkish drivers to know that many of them were dangerous and they would sometimes drive on the wrong side of the road. On one of these trips I was rounding a very sharp curve going over a mountain when I suddenly swerved over into the left lane. My intuition had been right because a car was in my lane.
Another time we were riding in an International Scout and I was sitting in the last seat in the rear. It was in the winter and it was raining. The guy who was driving was driving like a maniac on these narrow curvy roads and I had warned him several times to slow down. Suddenly the Scout went into a spin and we made several revolutions in the middle of the road. Everything went into slow motion but finally the vehicle came to a stop and by the grace of God there were no cars coming in the opposite lane. I was wearing a parka and I covered my head as I bent down in the seat bracing for a crash. When the vehicle came to a stop I slowly raised my head over the back of the seat in front of me and everyone was looking at me. Since I was the ranking enlisted man in the group I told him that if I he didn't slow down I would drive the rest of the way but fortunately he drove very safe after our mishap.
As we neared Diyarbakir the terrain became flat and desert like and Camels and sheep became more prevalent. Diyarbakir was a very important radar site that was part of our Cold War early warning system. The Airmen that worked there bragged that they could hear the Soviet pilots brushing their teeth in the morning. Diyarbakir wasn't Incirlik but it was a larger Detachment than Erhac. The facilities were much better than ours and it had a nice chow hall, movie theater, bowling alley, NCO Club and a miniature golf course. In the middle of the Detachment was a huge stork nest on the top of a pole. The storks were the Detachments mascots. After arriving at Diyarbakir we would settle into the transient barracks and schedule our morale calls back home. Because of the time difference in the United States we had to schedule our calls in the very early morning hours. These calls had to be planned ahead and I would notify Debbie by letter when we were going to Diyarbakir. I didn't want to risk missing her after going to all that trouble. When our call went through the reception was horrible and we could barely understand each other. It was worth hearing her voice, however.
We would leave at some point the next day and return to Erhac. There were many Turkish people that were very nice to us but a few would show outright hostility. Once on the way back from Diyarbakir we stopped to ask directions from a crowd of men standing by the side of the road. I was sitting on the passenger side as they walked up and one of the men flipped a lit cigarette and it landed in my lap. Another time we were fairly close to Malatya when a lamb ran in front of our vehicle and we accidentally ran it over. A crowd of people came running up and were jabbering excitedly in Turkish but we had no idea what they were saying. We were apologizing for hitting the lamb but we didn't feel like it was our fault. It didn't matter because they didn't understand us and we didn't understand them. We drove the rest of the way into Erhac. The next morning our interpreter called us together and told us that an angry group of farmers were at the main gate demanding payment for the lamb. Not wanting to create an international incident, we took up a collection and paid the farmer what he was asking, who owned the lamb.
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| Robbie at 2 years old - 915 Boscobel Street |
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| Robbie at 2 years old -915 Boscobel Street |
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| Writing to Debbie in the barracks |
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| The treacherous route that we took from Malatya to Diyarbikir |
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| The Euphrates River |
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| A bridge over the Euphrates |
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| The Euphrates |
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| Lake Elazig - courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| Lake Elazig - courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| Mike Cannon on Lake Elazig - photo courtesy of Mike |
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| Lake Elazig photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| On the road back from Diyarbikir |
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| Turkish man riding a donkey on the road to Diyarbikir- photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| Sgt Horvat, Sgt Garland ( Chet ) Atkins and A1C Moran at the hillside village on the road to Diyarbikir |
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| On the road to Diyarbikir- photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| Sgt Horvat, Sgt Garland Atkins, and A1C Rogers I believe. Rogers was from Memphis- photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| SSgt Mike Cannon at a Turkish home- photo courtesy of Mike |
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| My first trip to Diyarbikir early in my tour |
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| Stork mascots of the Diyarbikir radar station |
One day I was working a day shift and at lunch time I drove over to the chow hall. I didn't understand the Turkish speed signs and I was driving too fast. The speed sign was in kilometers and had the number 30 on it and until that time I just assumed that it was 30 miles per hour. Thirty kilometers is about 19 miles per hour. In my rear view mirror I could see a blue compact station wagon closing in on me with small Turkish flags flying from the hood, a Turkish NCO was driving, and blue lights were flashing in the grill. I pulled over and a distinguished looking Turkish officer in a flight suit got out of the back seat and walked up to me. In a very polite but firm voice the officer told me in perfect English that I was speeding. I told him that I hadn't been in country long and didn't understand the road signs yet and I apologized for speeding. He told me to be careful and walked back to his car. Thinking that I had gotten off with just a warning, I drove to the chow hall. I was in the middle of my meal when our detachment commander walked into the chow hall and asked if Sgt Segroves was in the chow hall. Our commander had a perpetual smile on his face all the time but when I raised my hand the smile quickly transformed into a scowl and he curtly told me to report to his office.
After I reported he gave me a royal butt chewing. The Turkish officer that had stopped me was not only the base commander but was a general. Our colonel was more upset that I failed to show the proper military courtesy and rightfully so. I should have stepped out of the vehicle, saluted, and remained at attention until told to stand at ease. I didn't know who he was but I should have treated any officer with the same respect. It was one of the hard lessons that I have learned in life. The general was an accomplished fighter pilot and many times he would fly down to Incirlik and borrow an F-4 Phantom. It always seemed to be on those days that we had worked a midnight shift and were in a sound sleep. He would nearly take the roof off as he made a low pass over our barracks showing off in his F-4 and we would nearly jump out of our bunks.
It wasn't long after I arrived in Turkey that I learned about the compounds. Prostitution was illegal in Turkey, as it is in Nevada but brothels run by the government were legal. These brothels were run by the state through the prison system and they were referred to as the compound. I never visited one but a large percentage of our men did, both single and married men. The closest that I ever got to one was on a trip to Diyarbakir when I was driving and the men wanted to stop at the Malatya compound. I parked in a dark and smelly alley while everyone else went inside. It was scary sitting there by myself but I never saw anyone. Supposedly doctors checked these women on a regular basis but one of our guys kept getting the clap or gonorrhea on a regular basis. The following is a personal account of an Airman's visit to a compound in the late 1960's. It is from a blog called (Mighty MacBuddha's McBlog)
The Compound was pretty dark. The entry was a gate between two buildings, with a couple of guards manning the entry. Mostly they chased off kids, and turned back any women that might have wandered up. But mostly kids, who are pretty much kids, no matter where they are in the world.
Our group was pretty obviously all men, and we didn’t even get much of a cursory glance as we passed through the entryway.
The gate opened onto a one block street, walled over at the other end. There were a couple of low powered dim street lights casting a murky glow over the street. The three story apartments lining both sides of the street had light shining from all the curtainless windows, as well as through the open entry doors, so even though it was murky and dim, you could still see. Sort of like a carnival at night.
There were no automobiles parked along the street, but there were a couple of street vendors selling cashews and kebab. But that wasn’t why all these men were here, crowding the street. All the men were here because of what else was in all these rooms looking out on the street.
The windows had women looking out, and quite often, calling down to the throng. I’m pretty sure that I saw some boobies! Unfortunately/fortunately, I was a young, still idealistic kid, and these woman were “not beautiful.” Perhaps one or two out of the whole throng MAY have been noticeable, but that’s about it. No Turkish Delights here!.
But, what could I expect? This was a Turkish Women’s Prison/State Run Brothel. According to the old timers accompanying us, this was a program for some of the women prisoners to “work off” some time on their sentence! I actually saw an old fashioned shiny brass cash register right inside one of the entry halls!
I know that prostitution was illegal in Turkey, so I easily believed that the state might want to work out a deal with these prisoners. The way this was all set up, I really have to believe that participation in this “business” was voluntary, and probably made up of mostly arrested prostitutes.
Of course, there were many stories about the place, and more than likely, a couple of urban legends. I won’t go into them, some could be quite unsettling. However, according to “facts,” a prison doctor inspected the girls twice weekly.
The above airman goes on to say that he changed his mind and didn't partake. While I was in Turkey we had a Turkish strip show that came to our Detachment. In the days before it arrived posters were all over the walls of the rec hall of beautiful nude Turkish women. By the time the show arrived our young hormones were raging and I went to the first one out of curiosity more than anything because I had never seen to a strip show. Our pool tables were transformed into a stage and two plump middle aged women in mini-skirts danced seductively. After a while it became obvious that no clothes were coming off of these ladies and they looked nothing like the women in the pictures. The men began booing and hissing but they continued to dance anyway as the boos grew louder and louder. Finally, a Turkish man brought out a girl that looked no older than thirteen or fourteen years old. I felt very uncomfortable and it wasn't long before she was totally nude. The men were laughing at her because she was flat chested and had no boobs. She might have been even younger than I thought but I was so disgusted at what was happening to this girl that I got up and walked back to my room. There would be three more of these shows before I left Turkey but that would be the last one I ever went to.
We would go into Malatya as often as we could but it was at least a thirty minute drive into town. There were many items that were popular with G.I.'s such as tapestries, camel saddles, puzzle rings, rugs, water pipes, etc. I bought a lot of tapestries and a few other things but I regret that I didn't buy more. Malatya was an ancient city dating back thousands of years and the Assyrians called the city Meliddu. I enjoyed sightseeing and walking through the many shops. Whenever you walked into a shop the owner would run up to greet you and hospitality was part of the sale. Immediately they would offer you a chair and Turkish Chai or a Coke. Chai is Turkish hot tea and it is delicious. They served it in a small glass on a saucer with a spoon, sugar cubes and there were two flavors. Regular or cinnamon flavor. Every night the Turkish Airmen were regularly served chai and they would always offer it to us.
Turks love to barter and you never pay the price marked on the item. The Turkish currency was called Lira and I don't know the exchange value of Lira to American currency today but our money was highly valued then. It was illegal but I could buy pretty much anything I wanted with a ten dollar bill. There was a large Mosque in downtown Malatya and although Turkey was the most secular of Muslim countries the Islamic religion was very visible. You regularly heard the call to prayer and if it was prayer time Muslims would bow down to pray in the fields or anywhere they were at. Our Turkish barber in the detachment would pull out his prayer rug and pray right there beside the barber chair as I was getting a haircut during prayer time.
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| Notice the classic American cars |
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| My friend of Italian descent with sunglasses on the left- Can't remember his name |
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| Turkish market |
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| The camel saddle was a popular souvenir with GI's. |
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| Tapestries were also popular - I probably bought at least 10 of these |
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| Turkish puzzle rings were popular |
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| Turkish Chai tea |
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| Turkish money |
I had a friend from New York who was an American of Italian descent named Joseph Corleone, I believe but I am not sure about the last name. We met a Turkish Air Force officer who offered to give us a tour of Malatya. After walking around the city he took us to a ice cream parlor. I am using the term loosely when I call it an ice cream parlor because it wasn't very big and the ice cream was made out of goats milk and it tasted horrible. While we were eating I got up to take a picture of Joseph and the officer. There was a man sitting with a woman at a table next to us and I was not pointing the camera at them but just as soon as I snapped the picture the man jumped up in a rage. He was screaming Turkish in my face and I thought that he was going to hit me. Just then the officer jumped between us and said something to him in Turkish which changed the mans whole demeanor and he meekly walked back to his table and sat down. The military was respected and feared by the Turkish people and there had recently been a coup. Soldiers could be seen walking in pairs all over town carrying rifles and sub-machine guns. I can only imagine what could have happened if this officer hadn't been with us. We were warned to be careful when taking pictures, especially of women. I always asked permission before I took pictures of individual Turks and most seemed to enjoy having their picture taken but a few would tell me no.
While I was at Erhac I met a Turkish MSgt by the name of Hussein Guldur. He was a jet mechanic that worked on the F-100 fighters. Hussein would come by our barracks and we would talk about many things like the Turkish culture and traditions. Hussein asked me about life in the United States and about my family. I gave him Debbie's address because he wanted to write her, which he did on several occasions. Over time I visited his home in Malatya at least three times while I was in Turkey. On one occasion I took a friend from South Carolina who played the guitar while I sang. My friend also played the guitar while Hussein played the lute, which is a popular instrument in Turkey. I still have a cassette tape of that day I spent with Hussein. He had a great family which consisted of his wife and three children who were two boys and a girl. The Guldur's were very hospitable and fed us authentic Turkish food. One oddity of Turkish life was the toilets. Their toilet was a round ceramic hole in the floor with a foot pedals for your feet on either side. After planting your feet you would squat down over the hole and do your business. There was a sink and no toilet paper because I was told that the Turks wiped with their left hand and washed their hands in the sink. This was why we were told never to shake hands with a Turk. Hussein had one of these toilets and we called them bomb sights.
I had a friend named Garland (Chet) Atkins and his nickname was Chet because he was a fantastic guitar player. One night just before dusk we set off for Hussein's house and there was only one road into Malatya. It was narrow and curvy and along the way was a small Kurdish village. As we approached the village we noticed two Turkish men in civilian clothes standing in the middle of the road. They were waving for us to stop and one of the men had a rifle slung over his shoulder. Beyond the men the road inclined up and over a ridge. We didn't know who these men were and we weren't about to find out. Since we were not in a combat zone we were not allowed to be armed while off duty. I was driving and floored it as I swerved to the shoulder of the road in order to get around them. Just as we passed I could see the inside of the vehicle suddenly illuminated and hear the sound of a gunshot. I slowed down a little when I looked over and saw Chet slumped over in the seat. Thinking that he might have been shot I slowed almost to a stop and asked if he was okay. He looked over at me and said "Get the hell out of here". We were usually allowed to take the most ragged vehicles to town, the ones that nobody else wanted to drive. I was driving an old International Scout and although I had the pedal to the medal it was struggling to get up and over that hill. We didn't say anything to Hussein about what had happened on the way to his house. It was Chet's turn to drive when we left to return to the base and he drove it as fast as it would go but this time we did it without any trouble.
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| Turkish Air Force officer and yours truly |
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| A note that Sgt Guldur wrote to my wife Debbie |
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| Turkish toilet |
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| Turkish bathroom |
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| Sgt Horvat from Kansas City, Gaylon E. Allen the III from Memphis, and A1C Moran |
About a month after I arrived at the Detachment my good friend Eric Erickson from Kingsley Field arrived. Eric was from South Dakota and was quite but he had a dry sense of humor. Then there was Gaylon E. Allen III from Memphis and altogether we had 9 men at one time from Memphis. As far as I know I was the only Airman from Nashville. My friend Garland (Chet) Atkins came to Erhac in the summer of 1970 and we immediately became friends because as I said earlier he was an amazing guitar player. I have always been a singer but I was too shy to sing in public. There were several guitar players in the Detachment but none of them held a candle to Chet. We spent hours jamming and singing and over time we put together a list of songs that we practiced continuously. The Detachment made plans to have a Christmas Eve show that would consist of music and a beauty pageant. Unfortunately the beauty pageant was a bunch of guys dressed in like women but they would fit right in todays society.
I was going to sing for the country portion of the show and there would be a singer for the rock portion. We practiced songs like Wanted Man by Johnny Cash, Crystal Chandeliers by Charlie Pride, and sing Me Back Home by Merle Haggard. As usual we made a stage out of our pool tables and the show was opened with the beauty pageant, which was pretty funny. MSgt Brown, or (Bubbles Brown) as he was aptly called, won the pageant. By the time we got to the music portion of the show a good portion of the Detachment was pretty smashed. I opened the show singing Wanted Man with Chet playing lead guitar and during the middle of Sing Me Back Home, a fight broke out. Beer cans were flying but we kept on singing. It reminded me of the old westerns where the piano player keeps on playing while cowboys are fighting all around him. Our winter was short but cold and we even had a few snows. The deepest was maybe a couple of inches.
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| Garland (Chet) Atkins from NC, me and Herbert Carter from Texas |
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| Garland Atkins, I can't remember, me and Eric Erickson from Brookings SD. Everybody is drunk but me here. I was the designated sober guy and would usually help to get them safely to their bunks. |
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| A contestant in our beauty pageant on Christmas Eve 1970. |
One thing that I was always afraid of while in Turkey was being arrested for something. Turkish prisons were notoriously bad as was portrayed in the 1978 movie Midnight Express. This was a movie about the arrest and imprisonment of Billy Hayes, who was trying to smuggle 2 KG's of hashish out of Turkey in 1970, the same year that I was there. He served five years in prison and would have served a life sentence if he hadn't escaped. I was always afraid that someone would plant drugs on me or I would be arrested for some minor infraction because they had such weird laws. We had a Security Police SSgt that was arrested for DUI and running over a Turkish pedestrian. While he was out on bail and awaiting trial he went berserk in the barracks one night. He was a big barrel chested guy and all of a sudden started attacking people. Several men jumped on him and were trying to restrain him while I grabbed my nightstick. He would act crazy and all of a sudden he would seem to snap out of it. Thinking he was okay, the men would release their grip on him and for a few seconds he would be rational and then start swinging violently again. They would grab him again and this process was repeated several times. Our hallway was narrow and because of a heating unit we couldn't get him past it. Finally he calmed down and we were able to put him to bed without further incident but I always had the feeling that he was faking it in the hope that the United States government would fly him out of the country. He was freaking out at the prospect of having to appear before a Turkish judge. Eventually he would have his day in court. Unbelievably he got off with just a slap on the hand and how this happened I will never know. Ironically he would become NCOIC of Security after Sgt Wright left.
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I am standing with my Turkish houseboy next to the heating unit that gave us so much trouble
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Many times when GI's are stationed overseas the locals will hire themselves out to take care of the barracks or your living areas. Vietnam veterans would talk about their mama-sans that took care of their hooches or living areas. Being in an Islamic country only men performed these duties and we paid them to keep our rooms clean along with the common areas of the barracks and the latrines. For a fee they would also spit shine your boots. The fee wasn't very much and it was well worth the money. My houseboy was a kid that took care of me and many of the other men in the barracks. They ranged in age from teenagers to older middle aged men.
After the New Year Mike Cannon and myself began planning a trip to Athens Greece. I was getting "short" which was GI slang for getting close to my redeployment date back to the "world". I have always been interested in history but I did not appreciate the historical past of Turkey at the time. It was home to the ancient city of Troy and the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. The city of Istanbul was the ancient Roman city of Constantinople and the WW1 battlefield of Gallipoli was near Istanbul. Revelation's Seven churches of Asia Minor were in Turkey and it was the birthplace of the Apostle Paul. Mount Ararat, where Noah's Ark landed after the great flood, was probably 200 miles east of Erhac. Cappadocia's underground cities were in Turkey and Topkap palace, which was home to the Ottoman sultans was in Turkey. There were also many Roman ruins there but I was not aware of all of this in 1970 and 71. If I had known this I would have visited some of these places on my 72 hour breaks. I now regret that I didn't but I was very familiar with the historical importance of Athens Greece because of Nashville's own replica of the Parthenon and our nickname as the Athens of the South.
Getting around the Middle East and Europe is pretty easy if you are willing to fly on just about any kind of military aircraft that has space available. On the morning of Friday February 26th 1971, we flew to Incirlik on a C-130. Most 130's carried a certain number of parachutes but I never counted more than 14 and many times there were more passengers than parachutes. I always wondered who would get the parachutes if the plane went down. From Incirlik we boarded a C-131 Medi-vac which was a milk run and it seemed like we landed at every landing strip in Turkey and Greece to pick up patients. I learned to appreciate Air Force flight nurses as I watched them tending to passengers who in most cases were very sick or in critical condition. The whole plane was configured for stretcher bound patients and we sat in the few seats that were available in the rear. When we finally arrived in Athens I was ready to kiss the ground because we had been on that plane for so long. We arrived on Friday night and checked into the transient barracks. I slept on a bunk bed that didn't even have sheets on the mattress but before going to bed we ran into a friend that had been a cop at Kingsley Field when we were there. He got orders for Greece at the same time we had received orders for Turkey.
The next day we took a taxi to a car rental place where we rented a VW Beetle. Not thinking, we filled the tank up. A Volkswagen will run forever on a full tank of gas and we were only going to be there for two days. We drove along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea killing time until we could check into the Hotel Sivilla. The hotel was nice and had been recommended to us by others who had been there. I didn't know it at the time but the hotel was popular with many GI's because the housekeeping staff served both as maids and as prostitutes. On Saturday and Sunday we toured Athens and soon discovered that the Acropolis was in the center of the city. It is an amazing sight that can be easily seen from anywhere in the city because it is the highest point. The ruins of the Parthenon was on Acropolis Hill. Athens is a beautiful and romantic city and all I could think about is how much I wished that Debbie had been there to share the experience with me. The Sunday that I was there, February 28th 1971, was my 21st birthday. Although Athens had been the scene of terrorist attacks against the American military, and Americans in general, I felt very safe there. I was struck by how many beautiful women there were in Athens and you would see them walking alone by themselves late at night without a care in the world.
The weather was beautiful all weekend but on the Monday morning that we left it was dreary and rainy. We got a hop out on another C-131 that was configured for passengers this time. There must have been an in-flight emergency of some kind because one of the flight crew began searching around on the floor for something. When he found what he was looking for he took out a pocket knife and cut a square hole in the carpet. He then reached down into the hole and seemed to be turning a valve of some kind. The plane never seemed to be in trouble but it didn't do much to calm my nerves about flying. We landed in Istanbul and from there we got a hop out on a C-130 late that afternoon. The plane made a stop in Ankara after dark and I thought that we had landed there to pick up more passengers. Instead, the rear ramp of the plane was lowered and I noticed an Air Force ambulance backing up to the ramp. Thinking that we were about to take on a patient I was shocked to see a metal silver colored GI casket when they opened the rear doors of the ambulance. The casket was brought on board and strapped down right between our seats on either side of the plane. I later learned that it was the body of an Air Force Lt. Colonel who had been killed in a car wreck and he was being shipped home for burial. I hope that someone placed an American flag over the casket before it arrived at its destination. I was kind of taken aback when the load master propped his foot on the casket while giving us our flight briefing.
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| Standing next to our rental car in Athens |
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| Mike Cannon- photo courtesy of Mike |
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| The Acropolis |
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| The Parthenon - photo provided by Mike Cannon |
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| The Parthenon - photo provided by Mike Cannon |
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| Photo provided by Mike Cannon |
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| Photo provided by Mike Cannon |
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| Photo provided by Mike Cannon |
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| Photo provided by Mike Cannon |
I was counting the days after I returned to Erhac from my R&R to Athens. There had been another embarrassing moment for me when I got off a midnight shift one morning and took the keys for the nuclear storage area back to the barracks with me. For about thirty minutes nobody could get in or out of the storage area. We had an ORI or Operational Readiness Inspection during early Spring. An ORI was a regular inspection given at Air Force installations all over the globe to test their combat readiness. During the year the Turks never took care of their alert aircraft but we were tasked to guard the nuclear weapons uploaded on the Turkish F-100's anyway. These aircraft would sit day after day in the stalls without attention and over time the aircraft would be covered with pigeon poop. There was no way the pilot could even see through canopy if they had to fly and these planes were supposed to be ready to fly in a matter of minutes. I doubt they could have even been started, much less fly. The ORI was a comedy of errors even though the Turks cleaned their planes for the inspection. During a scramble one of the pilots ran to his fighter without his helmet and the truck that was supposed to start the fighters had to be boosted off. The Turkish Airmen had no concept of Two Man Concept or a No Lone Zone and I was pulling my hair out trying to enforce it.
Nuclear weapons, unlike conventional weapons, have to be armed in order to explode. Some of the training we received at Erhac was different from any training I had ever received at Kingsley Field. We were trained to arm the nuclear weapons on the ground and also to destroy them if we had to. In order to arm them we used a device that reminded me of a car battery. If needed Command Post would provide us with matching codes that would arm the weapon. There was also the possibility that the Turkish government could be overthrown by a regime hostile to the United States and if that happened we were trained to blow up the weapons with TNT and plastic explosives. A block of TNT was rectangular and had a hole in one end. We were taught to place a blasting cap over the end of a waxed fuse and then taking a pair of crimping pliers we would crimp the end of the blasting cap on to the end of the fuse. You were taught to do this while holding the blasting cap behind your butt in order to minimize the chance of serious injury in the event that the cap exploded. I was sweating bullets while doing this and then we would slide the blasting cap inside the block of TNT. The fuse was long and we had time to take cover before the TNT exploded. If your block of TNT failed to explode, you were required to buy EOD, (Explosives Ordinance Disposal) a case of beer because they would have to go back and disarm the TNT. We also trained with plastic explosives that kind of looked like putty. You would stick a blasting cap into the putty that had dynamite wire connected and then you would use a detonator to send an electrical charge to the explosive. It was all dangerous work and I hated that training.
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| TNT |
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| Crimping pliers |
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.
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| This is a restraining net landing on an aircraft carrier |
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.
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| Locust |
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| The kind of scorpion that we had at Erhac |
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| Me at Sgt Swopes dispensary |
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 my bags. 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.
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| We had this USO show just a few days before I left Turkey |
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| Sgt Eric Erickson and Sgt Horvat at the Hog Hilton |
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| Eric Erickson, Mike Cannon and Horvat - photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| The Hog Hilton |
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| Horvat and Erickson, the Hog Hilton- photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| Mike Cannon at the Hog Hilton- photo courtesy of Mike |
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| Eric Erickson- photo courtesy of Mike Cannon |
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| Me while processing out of Erhac at Incirlik AFB in Adana Turkey- I lost almost fifty pounds after being sick from the water for much of my time in Turkey. |
UPDATE
After the 7.8 earthquake of February 2023 much of Malatya was destroyed and hundreds killed. The historic Grand Mosque in Malatya was heavily damaged.
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