Still feeling patriotic the day after the 4th of July, I joined the U.S.Navy with a buddy of mine that I grew up with. I was 18 exactly one month earlier and decided I "wanted to see the world"!!
We left Kansas City for 13 weeks of "boot camp" in San Diego, Ca. After boot camp, because of my high test scores,they said I qualified for "A" school and wanted to send me to Norman, Ok. for Aviation school.
I turned down school to go with my new found friends from Florida and my buddy from KC, (all dummies) that had low test scores and were going to Kodiak, Alaska!!
Biggest mistake I ever made in my life.........Nothing to do and nowhere to do it and I had one of the better jobs on the Base because I took tests to get the largest vehicle license available!! No way was I going to work in a chow hall or be out in the cold. I drove an MB-1 8 man Rescue Crash Truck. Guess who I knew that rode on the outside freezing their a**es off? LOL!!
12 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days later, I could care less where they were all going to be stationed for their next duty assignment.
Found out later, because of their "seamen" test scores, most of them were going to Whidbey Island, Washington instead of where they put in for. Only thing different from being in Alaska was they had rain to look forward to in Wash. instead of snow. Last I saw of them, they were "greasing bullets out in the cold a**ed rain."
While in Alaska, I decided to test for "airman" instead of "seaman" because I now figured I would rather be around planes than boats. I made Airman and I used all 3 of my next duty station choices for only one place...Japan, Japan, and Japan!! Forget the boats, now, I wanted to FLY and I was going to be stationed at Alameda Naval Air Station, Ca.to join a Navy Patrol Squadron heading for??????..JAPAN!!!!!
P2V-7 NEPTUNE MY SQUADRON--VP-9
 
Above is the type plane (P2V-7) I flew on as a Radio Operator in the Navy. I was an Aviation Electronics Technician 3rd Class at the time. Designation: ATN3. Not shown are the 20MM cannons that were installed in the nose and aft prior to deployment to overseas duty. I was in Patrol Squadron Nine ( VP-9 ) based out of NAS Alameda, California. We flew ASW (anti-submarine warfare) patrols out of Iwakuni and Atsugi,Japan covering the waters off China, Korea, USSR, the Bering Straits, across to Alaska and back. It had a 10 man crew and I was the Radio Operator in Crew 12. Each crew member was armed with various weapons, from hand-guns, to shot-guns, to machine-guns. We were supposedly an Anti Submarine Warfare (ASW) outfit. One night, I guess, we were flying where we weren't supposed to be when I saw 3 planes come up on us out of nowhere out of my window. I noticed a string of lights on LAND. There should be NO lights around flying over international waters. I notified the Flight Commander and he told me to break out the secret code pack and send code #1 (a series of letters) over and over until it was acknowledged by any unknown station. Found out when we got back that #1="we're being tracked by enemy aircraft"...#2="we're under attack"...#3="we're ditching".
17 minutes
later a bunch of jets from Elmendorf, AFB in Alaska showed up.That was really nice if it wasn't for the fact we could have been at the bottom of the ocean before then if the Mig's wanted to do us in. I believe they didn't because they had just shot one of our planes down the month prior and they WERE in international waters in the Bering Straits. You can't do anything with 20MM's in the nose and tail anyway unless they're flying directly at you and the 50 calibers on top wouldn't help against 3 planes. Afterwards, our navigator got busted from LT. back to Ensign and I moved up from crew 12 to crew 2 (exec, officers) crew We used to take off at 4am and come back at 9pm.
I put in for NAS Olathe, Kansas, and spent my last 11 mos. 20 miles from where I started 4 years earlier from my home.......Kansas City, Missouri.
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