The six-week stay in Africa was coming to an end and we all yearned to see the states again. In spite of the hardships, I treasured my time in Mali. We made a real difference in the lives of thousands of people. They needed our help and we came through for them. We learned a few valuable lessons while there. We learned that life is precious, embrace it; every human being has value no matter what his background or what’s in his pocket; when the job is important enough, find a way to get it done, despite hardships. These lessons stayed with me throughout my professional and personal life.
The situation in Mali today is still unsettled. Since January of 2012, the country has been fighting a war with separatist forces consisting of Tuareg rebels and radical Islamists. These rebel forces are concentrated in the northern part of the country. The northern area contains the regions of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao, which are the least populated and most arid regions of the country.
The rebels declared the secession of a new state, Azawad. In 2012, in response to the increasing Islamist threat to the country, French paratroopers, together with Malian forces, recaptured most of the north. The fighting continues today with no resolution in sight.
PART II
Chapter 1
I hadn’t been back at Pope very long when an interesting career opportunity came up. As much as I enjoyed flying the C-130, I always had my antennae up for other flying jobs. I didn’t want a specific airplane. I was looking for an exciting airplane attached to a rewarding job. In the Air Force, such jobs were uncommon.
Tactical Air Command (TAC) had received a request from Air Training Command (ATC) for experienced C-130 pilots to become Instructor Pilots. Up until then, most Instructor Pilots had come from the ranks of new pilot graduates. Headquarters at ATC thought that it would be a good idea to mix in experienced pilots with the current crop of Instructors. The instructor job sounded interesting but I needed the right airplane to make it a go for me.
I wanted into the program only if I could fly the T-38. The T-38 is a pilot’s dream. It’s a two-engine jet, white, supersonic, sleek, front and back seating, and it was sexy as hell. I had flown both the T-37 and T-38 when I went through pilot training so I was familiar with both. Only the T-38 would do. I placed my application and was soon accepted into the Air Training Command as a T-38 Instructor Pilot. My base of choice was Williams AFB, Arizona, near Phoenix. I got the airplane but not the base. I’d be going to Craig AFB, Alabama, near Selma. Even though I didn’t get Williams, I was still happy overall. After living in North Carolina, I could speak Southern.
My wife and I both looked forward to this new opportunity but it was difficult for us to leave Pope. I loved the people, the airplane, and the travel. We spent several days saying our goodbyes. We made lifelong friends at Pope but now we looked forward to meeting new ones in Alabama.
I never saw Irv or Col. Benny again but I did follow their careers. Benny continued his upward climb. He left our squadron to become a Wing Commander at Little Rock in charge of three squadrons. On a low-level training mission one night, an aircraft in a three-ship formation clipped a tree with its wingtip. The aircraft landed successfully with only minor structural damage. Benny was not flying that night. Since it was one of his pilots who was flying, Benny was fired. He was transferred to Rhein-Main where he stayed until his retirement. After his retirement, he ran the “Stars and Stripes“ bookstore at the Frankfurt airport. Benny died in 2007 having fought Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease and colon cancer.
Irv stayed in the C-130. Apparently he never calmed down. Irv had moved to a nice house in a lake community near Pope. He was having one of his wild squadron parties on a sunny Sunday afternoon. One of Irv’s co pilots was a member of the Aero Club at nearby Simmons Army Airfield. Aero Club members could rent airplanes from the club at cost. Their only extra cost was the fuel used. This young man decided he would rent an airplane and put on an airshow for the partygoers. After performing a couple of low passes, he pulled up to set up for another one. He yanked and banked a little too much and it resulted in a hammerhead stall. He wound up with the airplane pointing straight up and out of airspeed. Then the plane nosed straight over into the lake, killing the pilot in front of his horrified wife and young son.
The story of Irv remains unfinished. I was unable to find out where he wound up, but I’m sure it was interesting.
Chapter 2
Selma, Alabama wasn’t anything like I had imagined it would be. We only knew it from what we had seen on the nightly news. The place was supposedly a hotbed of racial tension as evidenced by the famous marches from Selma to Montgomery.
Thousands of blacks from all over the U.S. had come to march in solidarity with local citizens who were trying to achieve the right to vote. The first march occurred on Sunday, March 7, 1965, with only 600 participants. The police attacked the marchers with Billy clubs and tear gas. Two days later they attempted a second march but police forced the 2500 protestors back after they had crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge. U.S. Army soldiers, Alabama National Guardsmen, FBI agents, and Federal Marshalls protected the third march that finally made it to Montgomery. These marches were instrumental to the passage of President Johnson’s Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The Selma we discovered in August of 1973 was quiet and boring. No marches, no fighting in the streets, no sit-ins at lunch counters. It was just a slow-paced southern town where everyone, regardless of color, was friendly and respectful to each other.
Doreen and I had a choice. We could live on base and forego our housing allowance, or buy something in town and get a housing supplement added into my pay. Base housing was very unattractive and we wanted to be exposed to the local culture. Living on the base meant we would only interact with fellow Air Force officers and their families. Like Jerry Seinfeld would say, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” We were just looking to widen our circle.
We started looking at houses in downtown Selma. Selma was only five miles from the base and housing was very reasonable. We bought an old Victorian house on King Street. It had 14-foot ceilings, a new kitchen, three bedrooms and a nice back yard for our daughter, Krista, to play in. All this for only $25,000.
The place needed some paint and minor repairs but it was ours, the first house we had ever bought. We quickly got to know our next-door neighbors, Joe and Betty Williams. Joe and Betty were an older couple in their 60’s. They were lifelong Selma residents and they filled us in on all the local happenings. Across the street lived Millie and Steve, about our age, with a daughter just a year older than Krista.
This was a working class neighborhood. The houses were built in the late 1940’s to early 1950’s. They were all single-family homes. All parking was either on the street or on a pad in the back yard. The Alabama River wound its way just south of town and then snakelike, to the south and west through Dallas County.
Chapter 3
I was assigned to the 52nd Flying Training Squadron (FTS). The 52nd FTS was part of the 29th Flying Training Wing at Craig. The Wing consisted of the T-37 section, the T-38s and all maintenance and support functions. I was raring to get to work but I couldn’t do anything until I was trained. T-38 Pilot Instructor Training (PIT) School was located at Randolph AFB, Texas. Slots in this program were limited and I had to wait for an opening. The wait could be as long as four months but after a month on the list, a slot opened up due to a cancellation. One of the other candidates was thrown from a horse and broke his leg. One man’s misfortune was another’s opportunity. A week later, I left for Texas.