JP Colson

Image via WikipediaI mentioned John Colson in my last post. John is a real, larger than life cowboy slash mountain man type of guy. We met at Chanute AFB and then traveled on to Vandenberg and Malmstrom where we were assigned to 564th Strategic Missile Squadron. JP's crew did alerts at Papa-0 near the town of Conrad and I was assigned to Romeo-0 near the really small town of Dutton. Frequently we did alerts at the same time and we spent a lot of time on the phone. John also befriended me by taking me hunting and fishing with him.

JP's father was lost in the raid on Ploesti in August of 1943 before John was born. We never did know for sure which squadron JP's Dad was in, but the 564th Bomb Squadron (renamed later to the 564th Strategic Missile Squadron ) was a part of the raid and suffered heavy casualties. Our guidon had a ribbon for that doomed bombing mission. When John was born, he was named John Pershing Colson. Later, the Air Corps awarded Colson senior a posthumous medal (I think it was the Silver Star.) The awarding officer pinned the medal to JP's diaper.

John hails from Indiana and attended school in Johnson City Tennesee. He got his commission in the Air Force "the hard way" by attending OTS at Lackland AFB in beautiful San Antonio Texas. From there he went to the Undergraduate Pilot Course in Laredo or one of the other Texas bases where piloting was being taught to a lot of lieutenants. As happened to a lot of us, instead of getting wings, he was given the choice of becoming a Security Policeman or a "Missile Jockey." It was my good luck that he chose missiles. We met at Chanute and were good friends the whole four years we spent at Malmstrom together. I can't remember if we ever had an alert together but I think he was promoted to Launch Commander at about the same time that I was.

There are hundreds of JP stories and I remember dozens of them, but the most painful for JP was being crewed with someone we will call "Don Braedenbach" Don was a real piece of work and should never have been an officer in my Air Force. He was forever browbeating, giving "orders", demanding this or that. Remember the military myth of the officer who wheedled a general into endorsing his Officer Efficiency Report? Supposedly the general wrote on the form, "Capt. Braedenbach is one of those officers who will go through life pushing on doors that are plainly marked pull!" In the mid 1970's Braedenbach was "riffed" and a great wrong was thereby undone.

Anyway, JP finally escaped the frightening comical Nazi guy and was crewed with one of our heroes named Joe Amlong. Later he was crewed with Bruce Rodie, a top-notch officer and a heck of a cook. Bruce is the one who introduced the Standing Rib Roast to the Launch Control Center. When they went on alert JP would carry the tech manuals and Bruce would carry a duffel filled with food and an electric frying pan.

One story that still chills my blood occurred in 1973 when a mix-up at Cheyenne Mountain made it look like the Russians were launching a preemptive attack on us. My phone rang at 3:00 in the morning and it was John telling me to "keep my head down. That was our pre-arranged code for "its about to happen" - meaning that WWIII was about to land in our laps. Fortunately sanity prevailed at some level in the decision chain and the world was spared a thermonuclear holocaust. What did I do after JP called? I kissed my wife and went back to sleep

JP, I owe a lot of my ideas and ideals to my conversations with you. I have always considered you to be a great man and a true friend. If I die first, you can have my guns.

Image via WikipediaOfficers Training School seemed horrible, but looking at it 40 years later I feel like it wasn't that difficult. It was the worst of times - it was the worst of times at that point. There in San Antonio, at Lackland AFB I first learned about "No Pain, No Pain!!" They whittled at my pea sized brain and I resisted. They whittled some more and I fought hard. They fought harder and I caved in and began learning to be a machine.

It took more than Captain Fox and Lieutenant Alfred Truman Parmalee the Fourth to break my spirit. They -and five or six days of "I really, really hate it here", were enough to change my whole way of life. I began to base my existence on fear. I reacted to imperfection with a hellish will. Life was mainly about showing the Air Force that I was made of tougher stuff and that I would show them who would quit. I always felt that this was the beginning of my PTSD. There was no blood and no trauma, but there was a terror of others finding out how scared you were. Bravado started slipping in where mild mannered country boy used to rule. It was at OTS that I was introduced to the military bar. Mixed drinks on Saturday night cost forty-five cents and draft beer was a dime. Booze came in very handy for getting through another week so that we could return to the bar.

Failing at my next step in life at UNT (u something navigator training) added to the misery. I started to come unraveled. Apparently the Air Force was giving me one more chance to become an asset by allowing me to attend missile training. I promised myself that I would pass it with flying colors.

The first part of training was at Chanute AFB; right outside of Rantoul Illinois. Chanute was interesting. It looked like it may have been left over from WWII or Korea. Older buildings, lots of landscaping, etc.,etc. My class of 4 young lieutenants drew the early morning shift - arriving at 6:00 a.m. each weekday and finishing up at noon. I have to say that the curriculum was not the toughest in the world. The real objective of the course seemed to be aimed at informing us that "the pointy end of the missile comes out of the hole first." Four weeks passed quickly and soon I was back in Sacramento packing up to move to Vandenberg AFB for seven more weeks of orientation.

At VAFB, we learned about codes security, basic launch control center operations and some about responding to an Emergency War Order. Mostly we just heard war stories about what it "REALLY" was going to be like. We also learned about the SAC policy that in order to pass a test you had to have everything 100% correct. I was paired up with Captain Walter Hinck who had just finished a year at Osan AFB in Korea as a Security Policeman. He seemed to be OK and very smart. The group was rounded out by John P. Colson and Rich Bender. John and I still converse once in a while.