Assignments
Lackland AFB, Texas, Air Training Command (ATC) – I arrived for Basic Training, 3708 BMTS, Flight 1610 on Dec 11, 1973. I remained at Lackland for Security Specialist school and while in that school, I was accepted into Patrol Dog school. I completed dog school in June, 1994.
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, 17th Bomb Wing (Heavy), Strategic Air Command (SAC) – I was a Patrol Dog handler and worked exclusively during the hours of darkness in the Weapons Storage Area (WSA) where the nuclear weapons for the B-52s were stored. The wing was deactivated about a year after I arrived, and once the weapons were shipped out everyone was dispersed to new bases.
Frances E. Warren AFB, Wyoming (SAC) – I worked Law Enforcement for a couple months while I waited for a dog to become available, but when that did not happen I was sent to Security where I worked the missile (Minuteman II) field. This was the one job in the Air Force that I truly hated and volunteered for a worldwide, any length assignment, which was essentially volunteering to be screwed. I had orders in less than a week, and only spent about a year at FE Warren.
Incirlik CDI (Common Defense Installation), Turkey, (USAFE) – I worked almost exclusively at night again, but mostly in Munition Storage Areas (MSA). An MSA stores conventional munitions rather than nukes. We had a few transient posts when we had extra handlers and that was a treat to get the hell out of the MSA. I was there for a short tour, which is a fixed-length of 15 months. While there, I extended my enlistment to have enough time left to accept another assignment so I would not be discharged in port when I returned to the states. I was told – unofficially – that I would go to an east coast base in a particular command and through the process of elimination I knew where that would be, and I was happy with that. On the day the photo below was taken I must not have been in an MSA because I’m carrying a pistol rather than a GAU (aka CAR-15, the predecessor of the M-4) like I would in an MSA.
Grissom AFB, Indiana (SAC) – Yeah, NOT east coast, or the command I was told. At this point I was sick of the Air Force and had no intention of making a career of it. I hated Security, and if it was not for being a dog handler I would not have lasted as long as I had. I set three conditions for myself to reenlist 1) Get promoted to SSgt, 2) Cross-train to Law Enforcement, and 3) Get my reenlistment Base of Preference (BOP). I got all three and reenlisted, but ended up declining my BOP. I was a Flight Chief and attended Military Police Investigator (MPI) school while there, but did not work SPI.
Ankara Air Station, Turkey, U.S. Air Force Europe (USAFE) – This was a 2-year Long Tour since I had gotten married. I was a Law Enforcement Flight Chief and Security Police Investigator. During the tour there was a military takeover and things got interesting for a few weeks, but nothing extraordinary happened. My wife was working when it happened and had to remain on base for three days and I was stuck in the apartment downtown while the Turkish military worked out a system to issue curfew passes to us so we could get to and from the base. I was bitten by a rabid dog on duty and shot it. When I left, everyone wanted my weapon since they knew it worked. There was no firing range available to us and we had to travel to Incirlik to qualify. We had strained relations with the Turks and they would not let us take weapons off base, so we had to borrow them at Incirlik to qualify. As a result, the ones at Ankara had not been fired for years. I was promoted to Technical Sergeant (TSgt) at Ankara. The photo was taken by the base paper for a story on the unit, which must be why I was wearing a tie and pretending to do something with the fingerprint kit. I’m also sitting at the NCOIC’s desk. And I see that his name plate is turned around so you can’t see that it’s not my desk.
MacDill AFB, Florida, Tactical Air Command (TAC) – This turned out to be our longest assignment at about seven years. I worked various positions and got hooked on computers when I had a two-week casual status at Lackland between a few schools. Rather than have me go back to MacDill and send me right back to Lackland, they left me there using the excuse that I had to requalify on the pistol for the next school – Emergency Service Team (EST, aka SWAT) – and there were no firing dates available at MacDill. Normally on casual status they would put you to work on details around the unit, but since I was a TSgt they didn’t want to do that, so the squadron at Lackland just told me to go away and come back when my class started. During my two weeks of downtime I bought a Commodore 64 computer on a whim, learned to program it, and I was hooked. We would have been happy to serve out our careers at MacDill, but a new Wing Commander arrived, and at his first Commander’s Call announced that he did not like homesteaders and suggested that anyone with more than a couple years on station should put in a dream sheet for assignments of our choice before he decided for us. I was promoted the MSgt at MacDill. I assume it was a photo below was for the base paper since I’m wearing ribbon, which I never did.
Lajes Field, Tercera Island, Azores, Portugal (MAC) – This was another two year tour. I worked as Flight Commander and Training NCO. Lajes was an oddball installation. It was a Portuguese Air Force base, but had no operational Portuguese aircraft. It had U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy units. The Air Force had a single aircraft, a Looking Glass plane, and maintained mass aircraft fuel storage. The Army ran the port so they had boats, and the Navy had a few sub sub-hunter planes they flew. In advance of Desert Storm we had dozens of aircraft parked all over the ramp and had troops housed in just about every spare inch on base. We knew it was kicking off when all the tankers that had flown in took off at intervals of 15-30 seconds. They were followed shortly by the C-141’s and the base was quiet again.
Keesler AFB, Mississippi, Air Training and Education Command (AETC, formerly ATC) – I was Flight Chief for the most part and filled in as LE Superintendent and First Sergeant for short periods. At the end I was the installation information security NCO. I was only there for a couple years before I retired and went back to school. In the photo below I was in civilian clothes so I would not have to get a haircut and shave, which did not make the commander terribly happy. At this point I was retired and I was never his favorite person anyway, so that didn’t bother me much. I had taken terminal, job hunting, and house hunting leave, so had been on leave for a couple months at this point.
Schools and Training
Security Specialist, Mar 1974
Patrol Dog Handler, Jun 1974
Security Police Combat Preparedness Course – Oct 1974
Law Enforcement Specialist, Aug 1978
Military Police Investigator School, May 1979
8th AF NCO Leadership School, Dec 1979
Command NCO Academy, Correspondence Mar 1982
Traffic Management and Accident Investigation, May 1983
Law Enforcement Supervisor, Jun 1983
Tactics For Emergency Services Teams, Jul 1983
Tactical Air Command NCO Academy, Dec 1984
Police Traffic Radar Instructor, Dec 1986
Terrorist Tactics and Negotiation, Jan 1988
Senior NCO Academy, correspondence, Jan 1989
Joint exercise with the Tampa FBI SRT
Information Security Management, Jan 1993
Competitions
SWAT Roundup 1984 and 1985. The SWAT Roundup was an international SWAT competition hosted by the Orange County, Florida Sheriff’s office. The MacDill EST was the first military team to compete.
Contending Warrior, 1984, 1985, and 1986. Contending Warrior was the selection process for the TAC Peacekeeper Challenge (PK) team. I coached in 1986 because you could only go to PK two years in succession.
Peacekeeper Challenge, 1984, 1985, and 1990. I was selected for the MAC team in 1990, but it was cancelled because of Desert Storm while we were the MAC training camp. Peacekeeper Challenge was renamed to Defender Challenge some time after I retired.
Watch and Respond, hosted by Portugal, 1990 and 1991. This is a Portuguese military police competition similar to the USAF PK. Spain, France, and our SP unit on Lajes also competed.
Defender Challenge, 1990. This was MAC’s selection process for PK. Not to be confused with the USAF level competition that has been renamed to Defender Challenge.
