First, you may notice, many of the addressees of this epistle are friends and relatives who might be called senior citizens. ( old. like me). That’s cause its focus is the period, 1962-1967, my airlift navigator days in C-130 and C-141 aircraft. I’ve previously called this time the most challenging, rewarding, exciting, dangerous and educational period of my life.
Yes, a slight chill went up and down my spine on our early ( 1963-64) landings in any of the following locations:
Frankfurt, Germany; Tachikawa and Yokota, Japan; Pearl Harbor, Wake Island, Midway, Okinawa, Guam, and the Philippines
Less than 20 years earlier, these were hot beds of terrible devastation and war. Now, were routinely landing with needed supplies at US military bases.
We also landed routinely at Johannesburg, South Africa. In fact, we enjoyed a performance of the Broadway hit musical, Hello Dolly in that then thriving, exciting, vibrant city, if you weren’t black. It was disturbing to see apparently innocent black people stopped by police and asked to show “ papers”. Shades of Germany, 1937.
Teheran, under the dictatorial Shah, was another fun place to crew rest ( stay overnight). The people appeared to love Americans and we loved them. A few years later in an international upheaval, they ousted the dictatorial Shah and installed a dictatorial, theocratic Ayatollah as their leader (. Traded a headache for an upset stomach.)
Beirut, Lebanon was a cosmopolitan city and a vibrant society, with great restaurants and lots to see and do in 1964. Not so a few years later. We flew missions into Libya, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The many wars and political unrest in that area have made many changes, most not helpful to the US.
I am ever grateful that I was able to visit these exotic and beautiful areas while they were still exotic and beautiful.
Thus concludes a brief review of historical ironies I could be part of.
Wow, I not only ended a sentence with a preposition , I also ended my whole story with a preposition. Shame on me.
