The water below was a beautiful shade of blue-green. The pink coral was shining through. Light winds. Variable. And me, a 24-year-old Air Force lieutenant navigator, hopping island to island across the Caribbean.

Even compared to Joburg. Bangkok, Thailand. Adana or Istanbul. And all the other exotic places I’d been, this was the most fun airlift mission I ever flew.

The mission was called “Up Range.” In support of NASA radar tracking sites in the Bahamas and the Caribbean. It went from Patrick AFB, Florida to Grand Bahama to San Salvador to Eleuthera to Grand Turk to Antigua. Maybe not in that order.

Low stress.

The pilot could tune in the next stop on his ADF radio.

Nobody was gonna get lost.

The Overnight

Antigua was the payoff. We stayed overnight, and the island did not disappoint. Great Caribbean food. Rum punch. Steel bands. Dancing. And lots of ladies who were there teaching or nursing.

A fun, easy going mission.

Not a bad place for your aircraft to break, either. But that never happened.

Twenty-some years later, the Beach Boys would write a song trying to describe exactly that kind of night. Rum punch. Steel drum band. Cocktails and moonlit nights. They called the place Kokomo.

I just called it Antigua.

Enuf.