Friday, May 26, 2006

Spokane, Washington

After my twelve month tour I asked to be shipped close to Jean’s family as she had to be with my family in Kentucky. I got orders for Fairchild AFB Spokane, Washington. This was a SAC base and for the first time I felt like I was in the Air Force on a real base. It had the large B52 bombers and KC147 refuel planes. This was exciting for me here. We stayed for 4 years. I began to feel like I was home there. Jean’s brother-in-law Andy was a big hunter. We would hunt mule deer and he had a son about Jeff’s age (Hooper). We would take them hunting and fishing with us in the mountains. It was a lot of fun for all of us. You had to wear orange to hunt. I needed an orange coat to hunt in. Money was tight and I did not think I could afford one. One day Jean brought this real nice hunting jacket in she had bought for me so a hunter would not shoot me. I got tears in my eyes when she gave it to me. I still have the jacket. It is quite worn and is too small for me but I will always keep it.

While stationed at Fairchild AFB in Spokane, Washington I landed a couple of military jobs on base that allowed me to get part time jobs cooking in Spokane in my off hours. One job I had was a night chef at a fancy restaurant. At the same time we moved our family house trailer to a private lot right under the flight path of the big planes and jets that came in to the base coming over not 2,000 feet high above us and they would rock the trailer as they passed by.

By this time I had three stripes and was running the flight kitchen that provided flight meals for the crew on the planes. I had this job about a year and then got a job running the accounts for the five dining facilities on post. This was my first office job and I felt like I was among the best then.

Jean and I decided to sell the house trailer and move into military quarters which was for low ranking Airman. It was a little 2 bedroom house we liked a lot. While here we decided we wanted another child. I always thought I would like to have two kids, one boy and one girl and five years apart. So when our second child came it was a beautiful brown-eyed girl. When Jean was ready to deliver she was loosing water. I was trying to get her out of the house. She decided she needed to sit down and have a cigarette. I was going nuts to get her to the base hospital which was 10 miles away. I drove 90 miles an hour to get her to the hospital. When I pulled up to the emergency entrance a man met us with a wheel chair and took Jean in and told me I would have to park the car. They took Jean straight to delivery.

I parked the car and went back in the hospital and a clerk said come over here we have some paper work to fill out. He said, “What do you want to name your daughter?” I asked “How do you know it will be a girl?” He said, “She is already born”. I thought, “whoa, I hope I can keep up with this little girl all my life!” I told him we are going to name her Windy Jo but I meant Wendy Jo. But for the records her name is spelled wrong due to me. I caught a lot of lip over this so I was in trouble over her five minutes after she was born.

After the paper work I went up to the room Jean was already in. Wendy was already in the nursery. I checked on Jean and went to the nursery and looked at Wendy through the glass window and I knew she was the prettiest baby in there.

I had to call in and take a ten day leave so Jeff and I could take care of things. He was only five at this time and no problem and a lot of help for me. Jean was to stay in the hospital for three days. When I went in to pick them up they brought Wendy into the room. I dressed her. Jean was trying to get dressed and got desperately sick. I called in the nurse and she called the doctor. He decided she was having some kind of spinal attack or something and I had to leave her in bed for a while longer. She could not even move her head.

I asked what about the baby? Doc said you are going to have to take her home. She can’t go back to the nursery since you have touched her. I thought, “My god. If I have to Jeff and I can do it for a day or two but if Jean has to stay in the hospital for seven days I don’t know if we can!” Jeff and I brought Wendy home. I had to sterilize bottles and feed and bath her. I must have gone through two cans of baby powder. I kept her white as a ghost. Everything went just fine except that all of the women in the project just knew I was going to kill the baby, but we were doing fine. Wendy was happy and so were Jeff and I. The only way I could get any rest was to sleep when Wendy slept but the nosey ladies would keep ringing the doorbell so I made a sign and put on the door “Baby and father sleeping, do not disturb”.

By the time Jean got home I had Wendy sleeping all night and eating baby cereal. It was probably one of the happiest times of my life. I loved that baby so much. If anything had happened to her I think I would have died. I call her my special daughter. And she knows that because she could and still gets away with things. I am so proud of her.

Fairchild was a good assignment for me. I was at an age where I was taking my responsibilities in the military seriously. I wanted my family to have all the things they needed and worked after hours just about all the time. Of course we had our ups and downs. One time we needed a loaf of bread so Jean and I took the backseat of the car out looking for change. We found what we needed. I really don’t look at this period as hard times. It was a learning time for all of us. Things progressively got better.

By now I had got another stripe and was a Staff Sergeant. This put me among the senior airman and I was eligible for senior NCO quarters on base. We moved into a nice quarters right on base with a basement. This is the first time I had ever had a place with a basement.

There is a lot of snow in Washington. One morning there was about three inches of snow on the ground and I was at work. Jean was home with Wendy and Jeff, (early) Wendy was still wearing her slip-on pajamas. Jean looked around and could not find Wendy. She got panicked and called the Air Police. They came and started a search and followed the foot prints in the snow and found her in the corner of the yard playing in snow. She was just beginning to walk.

I had spent my four years here and was authorized for a transfer to a base of our choice. We decided to go to Florida this time and chose McCoy AFB Orlando, Florida. So my family of four now loaded up and drove the 3,000 miles. The government shipped our furniture.

We drove all the way across the country after dropping down to California to visit Jean’s sister Connie. We put the suitcases behind the front seats so the kids in back could have a flat area to lay down and play. We didn’t use seatbelts much back then.

Florida

The move to Florida was a short one, the person I worked for and I didn’t get along at all. He had his favorite pets and I did not work in very well. I did a little fishing and worked part time at the laundry on base and let Jeff find and keep all the change at the bottom of the dryers. He could then walk across the street and go to a 75 cent movie and I that would be his babysitter while I worked. Jean worked at the officer’s club and when she saw the other side of life with the officers, well, things started going downhill for us. We both did things we are not proud of. I could see it was falling back on the kids but I decided they were two small for me to leave Jean. I needed to be with them more than anything else.

The good things there were we bought a cute little 3 bedroom house in a new subdivision. Jeff and I built a rabbit cage and he had pets. Wendy had a little girl to play with next door.

One time I caught a catfish and when Jeff held it up it was as long as he was.
The only way I figured out I could get off McCoy AFB was to apply for AF Recruiting. I did and was accepted in to the program and went to Lakeland AFB Texas for training. I made it through the school and we all wound up in Louisville, Kentucky on recruiting duty.

Kentucky

Air Force recruiting probably was the most rewarding assignment I had as far as having good experiences and it seemed to work well for the family as well. We were living in town like civilians in a nice three bedroom brick house we had rented and were close to school and shopping.

My job was especially rewarding to me. I learned about sales, advertising, public relations and how to meet and talk with people. I was on production recruiting recruits for a short time and then went in to the advertising and publicity department. This was a lot of fun. I would take displays to all the county and state fairs and set up a display booth and talk to all the young guys that would listen. I would give speeches at career days to high school seniors, make radio spot announcements and talk to the DJ on air. I got there in 1964 so Jeff was about 9 and Wendy 4. They were big enough that I could do a lot of fun things with them. Jeff always had something going. He was in scouts, baseball, guitar music lessons and others things that I don’t even remember. Wendy was so cute and has such beautiful dark skin and real dark eyes like mine. She started school here and seemed all grown up.

I was taking a display to Bowling Green Kentucky for the county fair about 125 miles from Louisville. My brother had a farm down there. I took Jeff with me so he could visit my brother Trenton while I worked the display. My brother’s farm was way back on an old country road that was just gravel. I was not supposed to take the government vehicle there. We topped one of the hills and ran head on into a car but it did not do a lot of damage. But we had lots of broken glass.

The farmer got out and said, “you hit me. We need to call the police”. I knew I was in trouble if he did because I was not supposed to have the truck there.
I told him you can call the police if you want to but this is a government truck and there will be investigations about this and it is going to worry you to death because I am going to say that you ran in to me. He asked, “Well, what will we do?” I said you fix your car and I will fix the truck. I then thought about changing the scene of the accident. We all picked up the broken glass and put it in a paper bag. I took it with me to the display and parked the truck in a special place, poured the glass on the ground and called the police and had them make me a police report. I took it back with me, turned in the report, they fixed my truck and I guess the farmer was happy because I never heard from him again. It was wrong thing to do but I did not want to get busted for a simple thing as going to see my brother.

In 1965 my Dad died. He had a bad stroke and it made it hard for us to take care of him in his last days but it was worth it. I was glad to be around during this time because I had been away a lot in the past.

Jeff graduated from elementary school here, Wilkinson Elementary, and when we went to the graduation he was so big by now he was wearing my shoes. Jean and I were in the audience when they gave out the awards. When they called his name for the academic award I almost fell out of my seat. I did not know he was in the running for an award like that. This whole assignment was a good one for us. I put in for a Warrant Officer’s commission in the Army there just before our time was up in Kentucky. While waiting for it I got my orders for Howard AFB in Panama.

Jeff graduated from elementary school here, Wilkinson Elementary, and when we went to the graduation he was so big by now he was wearing my shoes. Jean and I were in the audience when they gave out the awards. When they called his name for the academic award I almost fell out of my seat. I did not know he was in the running for an award like that. This whole assignment was a good one for us. I put in for a Warrant Officer’s commission in the Army there just before our time was up in Kentucky. While waiting for it I got my orders for Howard AFB in Panama.

PANAMA
The move to Panama was a short move. I went ahead of the family and got things set up for them to come. We lived off base in Panama City. I was worried because the windows did not have any glass in them. They were completely open so the air could come in and you just had steel bars covering them. Big lizards would be everywhere and you could play behind the house in an area that was just like you lived in a jungle. There was some sort of factory behind us but it had dead trees along the fence line with huge ugly buzzards that would sit in them. Jeff used to go out and try and shoot them with a bow and arrow. We would get fresh banana stocks and hang them up in our house and eat bananas until we found out they were full of huge ugly spiders. We even had a maid’s apartment in our building and we had someone help with our wash and clean. It was so cheap. It was fun.

This is where I taught Jeff his first two words of Spanish, glass and milk (Vaso y leche). These were the only two words I knew. It was so hot that the heat seemed to come from the ground.

We only stayed in Panama three or four months before I got my orders commissioning me to Warrant Officer. One paragraph was my commission and the next sending me to Vietnam. I shipped my family back to Kentucky again to stay while I was gone for a year.



VIET NAM

While in Panama I got my orders commissioning me as a Warrant Officer in the Army and then the next paragraph was sending me to Vietnam. I moved my family back to Louisville while I served the twelve month tour.

After getting all my Army issue of clothing, I was on my way. On my way over we went through Hawaii for a couple days and then on to Vietnam.

My first stop was in Cameroon Bay for further processing. There they checked your records and skills to see what type of unit to send you to. With all of my education in food service they assigned me to Mac V Headquarters at Long Bin. I was assigned to General Westmorland’s staff, the four star that was in command of the war. While there I asked why did I get the High Command assignment? They said it was my record and experience. I was a WO-1 and that was a WO-4 slot. I thought I will never handle this. I don’t know anything about the Army, I was an airman.
After getting cleared in and shown my office I looked at settling in. I had a clerk and a Sgt. Major as my assistants. Just think, it was a week earlier that I was calling Sgt Majors Sir! I said SM I don’t now how to tell you this but I have only been in the Army a couple of weeks and I don’t even now where to start. He said, “Well Chief, I have 8 months to go. If you let me I will teach you all you need to know. If you don’t I will sink your ship”. I said that was fine with me. Then came time to report to my commanding officer who was a full Colonel about 6 foot 6 inches tall. I went into his office and stood at attention. He had his back to me looking at a big map on the wall behind him with a bunch of stickers on it of the different hot spots of war. Another chart of his entire staff office was also on the wall, which I was added to later.

In about two minutes he wheeled around in his chair. I snapped to and shouted and said “Sir, Warrant Officer Wells reporting for duty!” He was a tough looking, tired dude and I could see the war was getting to him.

He returned my salute and said, “Chief, See my list of staff officer?” There was about 30 of them. I have a lot of officers and a problem with all of them except my Warrants and I don’t expect any different from you. I will give you two chances. The first one I will forgive you and second I will fire you (so he really wasn’t giving me but one chance!). Now get out of here and go to work I have a war to run”. All I could say was, “Yes sir!” (I sure didn’t want to tell him I had only been in the Army two weeks).

I had assigned to me a helicopter and pilot, jeep with driver, the Sgt Major and a clerk. I was heading up the entire food service program for the 3rd and 4th corp of Vietnam which is half of Vietnam. My quarters were an open, round metal building with sand bags all around it with about forty other Warrant Officers in the same area. Most of them were pilots except for about seven of us who were specialists in a different field.
I spent a good 60% of my time in the air over there. I got them to teach me how to fly a helicopter. I could land one and take off as well as the pilots, which was a lot of fun to me. I would fly combat missions with some of the other pilots. Some pretty hairy type missions where I did not need to be taking the chance. I created some seventy direct combat hours which earned me the Air Medal. As combat flights were not my job I just volunteered for them. It meant that another crew member could stay on the ground. So, to fly, all I had to do was ask. I flew door gunner, co- pilot and did it all.

Our duty hours were called three sevens--- 7 in the morning until 7 in the afternoon 7 days a week. It was so hot in that metal building you could not sleep at night. The sweat would fill your eyes if you lay on your back. We had a bunch of doors where you had a way into your own bed and one little window. I got to looking at this and got the idea to fix this. I went to the engineers and scrounged (stole) a bunch of lumber and ply wood and closed my room in and found me a little window air conditioner and put it in the window. I had a better room than the Colonel. I made me a sink and ran me a water hose from the water tank to it. Now I had running water. I would bring food in from the mess hall and eat in my room. A tomato plant came up where the water ran out on the sand but the sand was so fine it would not grow. I figured it needed some cow manure on a trip to black horse. I took a can and while my Sgt Major was driving through the countryside I was looking for some water buffalo droppings. I saw a big pile of it and stopped the jeep to get it. I was out scraping it in the bucket and all of a sudden the dust jumped up all around me and then I heard “Bang, Bang, Bang”. They were shooting at me! I looked at the Jeep and SM was taking off. I had to run and jump in the jeep from the back. I think he would have left me there.

Night was a hard time sleeping. “Charley” would drop mortar rounds in on us just to keep us awake I think. Outside of the quarters were sand bag bunkers. We would run in when the mortars came in. I got tired of running every night so I would grab my mattress and roll it over on me in the floor and pull it up over me. One morning I had an early flight and we got mortar rounds that came in. I had one of the alarm clocks with the button on top sitting by my bed. When I rolled out of the bunk I hit the alarm clock with my knee. It hurt like the dickens but I could not come out from under the mattress until it was clear. When I did, I had a cut on my knee. I thought I better go to first aid and get it taken care of. There were 4 or 5 there getting scrap wounds taken care of. The medic gave me a form to fill out. When I asked him what it was for he said the Purple Heart medal for wounded in action. I handed it back and told him I wasn’t wounded but that I fell out of bed and hit my knee. That would have been a cheap way to get a Purple Heart. It would have cheated the heroes that earned them.


On one of my inspection tours to Doing Tal the manager came to me and said, “ Chief come and go with me to the dump and watch this.” He had a truck with some cans of garbage from the mess hall on it and we went to the dump and dumped it. We pulled away and stopped and looked back and kids of all age from three years and up came out of the bushes and started wading and digging in the garbage for something to eat. This was very sad. I could remember when I had hard times. You could see there were some American children in the bunch because the war had been going on for several years and the GIs had babies they left over there.

Near Saigon there was an orphanage that had about a hundred or so kids living in an open building with three mamasons taking care of them. I would visit them when I had time and give the kids stuff. They had nothing to play with. I came up with the idea to get the GIs at the base with the commander permission to build them a playground. We put in a real nice one and the kids had a ball on it.



Since I was a Warrant Office and a specialist I had a different experience than one that a GI would have fighting in the jungles. My combat experience was from the air. I do not talk about my personal experience in combat because I don’t believe in killing or hurting anyone and it is nothing to be proud of. War is hell where no one wins and all loose. When I talk about it or think about it I get nightmares and can’t sleep for a week. That is why some of the returning war vets go off the bad end. They can’t forget. When I talk about it, it seems like I am talking about what happened to someone else.

However on one of our missions we received gun fire and they disabled our chopper and we were going down. I grabbed my M-16 and a handful of clips (ammo). As we were going down we could see “Charley” running for the spot we were headed for. I was not afraid of dying. I just did not want to leave Jeff and Wendy until they were grown up and had what they needed. But, just in case, I was going to protect myself but I decided to save one bullet for me in the last round. I was not going to let them take me alive because I had heard how they treated our POWs and that was not my idea of dying. Whether I would have used it or not I don’t know but my gut feelings say yes. When you fly combat missions like this there are several helicopters in the air. If one gets knocked down your buddy will dive down and get you out. That is what happened to us. I just wanted to explain about the bullet.

After being in Viet Nam six months I went on R&R to Australia. It was a fun trip. I got to relax for a week and lay in the sun which unfortunately I had had enough of in Vietnam.

Eight months had gone by now and my SGT Major was rotating. He was a great man and a lifesaver to me. I would have promoted him on the spot but he had all the stripes you could get. So I put him in for the highest medal I was authorized to give. I sure hope he is fine. SGT William Hudson.

About a month before I was to rotate I put my room up for sale to the highest bidder. A 2nd Lt. bought it for 300 bucks. I get a kick out of that when I think about it.

My orders were sending me to Fort Knox, Ky. When we (a plane full) returned to the United States at the airport we had to head for the bathroom and take off our combat uniforms as there were a lot of protesters there hollering and throwing things. My thoughts were we ought to be fighting here, not in Vietnam. I got harassed more than a lot of them because I was carrying an SK-47 rifle I had taken while there. I gave the gun to Jeff. I wonder if he knows how much trouble I had getting it home? This was June 1970.



Note from Jeff, September 19, 2006

Well, at this particular time this is all I could get my dad to sit down to write and share. His back aches him and he is not a good typer or speller now so I commend him for sitting down in front of his computer to do this. He would sit down and spend an afternoon thinking about some aspect of his life and then he would e mail it to me and I would paste it in to the growing story of his life. I also think that it was an exercise where he might have felt he was doing a bit too much reminiscing. He has told me recently that the older you get the more you look back to the past. He said that can be fun and sad at the same time.

I will be able to continue this story with more information at a later date but suffice to say that he continues to be my hero and is becoming a hero to his grandkids as they get to know him through this reading and things that I share about him.

Since 1970 he divorced and remarried Irene Quinn in 1973 and they have lived the whole time since at 4209 Blevins Gap Road in Louisville, Kentucky. They have quite a few acres and he has kept busy building outbuildings, putting in gardens each year, mowing ten acres every week and doing things in his shop. He always has a ton of personal projects going on and is not scared to take on new interests like painting, learning the computer, finding out how to surf the internet and he even recently bought a mechanical cross bow and arrow. He also has been having fun racing a toy speed boat on one of his ponds. His interest in life and learning is remarkable.

This story will continue and live on even beyond his years because his story is a good one. The people that he has touched love him and they will want to make sure that his heritage continues on inspiring all of us to walk out of the woods of despair and challenges and create our own opportunities and make something of ourselves. His life is an example of not letting your circumstances drag you down but actually causing you to reach for higher ground to improve and then to eventually contribute back to society, the world and most importantly our progeny.

This story has been about my hero, my Dad.
Warmly, Jeff Wells, son of Harry and father to daughters April, Marcie and Tara.

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