CHAPTER THREE - HALFWAY HOME

  In the summer of 1988 my Air Guard unit was deployed to Hurlburt Field Florida. This was right next to Eglin AFB. While we were there we were tasked to guard aircraft with several different missions. Helicopters, special ops C-130's and the AC-130 gunships. At the time Hurlburt was one of only two AC-130 units in America. The AC-130 H Spectre is a badass. On the port side of the plane, in front of the wings, it was armed with two 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannons, or Gatling guns. One Bofors 40 mm cannon, or what they used to call the pom pom gun in the Navy, just behind the wing. Last but not least a 105 mm M102 howitzer near the rear of the plane. Since 1994 the two Gatling guns have been replaced by one 25 mm GAU-12 Equalizer cannon. It can lay down a tremendous amount of firepower and is used in close air support. 

 We were also there to work law enforcement. Days were set aside to do ABGD or Air Base Ground Defense training on Eglin's Army Ranger training area. I brought the family down for the entire two weeks of training and we had a ball when I was off. Hurlburt is near Ft. Walton Beach and we stayed at a hotel on Santa Rosa Island which is also close to Destin. While we were there we were able to visit the Naval Air Museum and Ft. Barrancas in Pensacola. The training was pretty brutal and I got heat cramps pretty bad but overall it was like being on vacation for the two weeks we were there. 

 My son Robbie had developed a bad attitude during the 1986-87 school year which was his senior year. Rob had always been a good student because it all seemed to come natural to him. Without even trying he made A's and B's. During his senior year, however; he skipped school a lot and at times I was afraid that he wouldn't graduate. Because of his truancy he lost an opportunity to earn a tennis scholarship. I bought a 1978 Chevy Nova in 1984 from our preacher at Giles Creek Baptist church. It had a powerful 350 V8 engine and I absolutely loved that car. I let Rob drive my old Chevette on the condition that he paid for it's upkeep. Rob got the short end of the stick but I just couldn't afford to keep it running. At least it would give him something to drive. 

Because the Chevette was in such bad shape Robbie started using the car as an excuse not to go to school. He would say that the car wouldn't start and go back to bed. I found out years later that he was rigging the car where it wouldn't start if he didn't feel like going to school that morning. After a while I got fed up with him using the car as an excuse and on a couple of occasions I made him walk all the way to Smyrna high on Hazlewood with me following him in the car. I found out much later also that he would go into the school and wait until I left. Then, he would walk over to a nearby pizza restaurant and play video games. I also found out later that he was getting Misty, posing as one of us, to write notes to his teachers when he was tardy, or late.

 Sometime in 1987 I paid off the Chevette and was finally able to trade it in. I found a brand new Mitsubishi Dodge Colt Vista at a dealership on Murfreesboro road in Nashville. The starter on the Chevette was bad and the top speed was about 35 miles per hour. Rob and I tied the Chevette to the Nova with a C-130 load strap and he steered the Chevette while I towed it all the way from Smyrna to Nashville. About a block from the dealership we took the load strap off and luckily it started right up and he drove it right into the parking lot. When they walked out to test drive the car around the parking lot it started right up and performed well. They gave me a pretty good deal with my trade-in and as I was getting ready to drive off the lot with my new car the salesman breathlessly ran up asking "Can you please start the Chevette so we can move it"? Rob and I still get a laugh out of that.

 One morning, not long after buying the Colt, Rob took me to work at Cumberland-Swan. A few minutes after dropping me off at work I got a call that Rob had been involved in an accident on the way home. When I arrived on the scene I had very mixed emotions. I was relieved that Rob was okay but my heart sank when I saw the damage to my new car. Three of my four tires were blown out. The rims were bent and massive damage was done mostly under the car. Rob worked at Shoney's on Broad Street in Murfreesboro and had been up all night. He went to sleep at the wheel and ran over a curb knocking down a stop sign in the process. The sign came down across the hood and roof denting them and cracking my windshield. The car continued through the yard stopping just short of a nearby house. Rob was very lucky that he wasn't injured. I had not even paid my first payment on the car. If I had it all to do over I would have tried to have it totaled by the insurance company. I tried to have it repaired, however; which was a big mistake. The frame was bent and the undercarriage was never the same after that. 

 After Rob's graduation his bad attitude continued and he had no apparent ambition. Which is pretty normal for an 18 or 19 year old sometimes. Then one day out of the blue, Rob asked me if I could make an appointment for him with an Air National Guard recruiter. He took his ASVAB test but before he met with the ANG recruiter he changed his mind and asked me to set him up with an active duty Air Force recruiter. I set up the appointment and when the day arrived he set off to the recruiters office. Later that afternoon I was surprised to hear that he was not joining the Air Force but the Navy. He said that he was on time for his appointment with the Air Force recruiter but the recruiter never showed. A Navy recruiter saw his opportunity and as they say the rest is history. 

 I was surprised that he didn't join the Air Force ,but not disappointed. Any branch of service was okay with me. It made me proud that he wanted to serve his country and it was just what the doctor ordered. He seemed to grow up overnight. In March 1989 we saw him off at the Nashville airport. He was bound for Navy boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. I knew something about what he was in for and I wrote him a note of encouragement that I slipped in his shaving bag. He later told me in a letter that he cried when he read it. This letter from him meant a lot to me.