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.

A Rain Check, Please!

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Anyone that has followed this ride for long has realized that the High School years were not my favorite and that I scarcely wish to think about them. They were there and they were formative and I'm stuck at that. Anyway, in order to carry on with what I started, I've decided to take a "Rain Check" on those years and start out with college graduation so that the story can go forward. I owe this idea to a good friend who encourages me to continue - Thanks Mike!

I graduated Lander (a college at that time) in 1969. I had already enlisted in the Air Force earlier that year and had undergone the poking and prodding, the testing and the waiting associated with induction - all except the swearing in. I was sworn in on July 3rd in Charlotte and boarded an aircraft for my first flight ever. It ended in San Antonio and we were met at sometime after 11:00 pm by an enlisted man whose job it was to herd us to the first holding point. I've stated earlier what that night was like; so let's fast forward to the memories of the next few weeks.

The first week was designed to level us to a common denominator of frightened, exhausted, sleepy, brain-dead individuals. It wasn't "Hell Week" by any standard, but it did rate as "Heck Week" for sure. At every meal we had three minutes to eat and then we had to move on. I learned to eat quickly, but like a "gentleman" so that I didn't get written up for some violation. I remember double-timing a lot and I remember being "counseled" quite a bit for things like being late for formation (at least 5 seconds, but late), having salt stains on my blue web belt, needing a shave (true) and needing a haircut (not true) and on and on. We were allowed 50 demerits the first week and I got a bunch of them.

Just being scolded and given a demerit was one thing; but the real pain involved was learning how to "write gigs". We had to use the Air Force OTS "Gig Slip" and it had to look like the one in the manual. The one in the manual was typewritten. We only had black Skilcraft pens (made by blind people) but we had to make the form look typewritten. I was in a state of despair after the first night. I couldn't make the writing look like it was typed, so I got more demerits for being late with my writing.

We had PT every morning and of course there were certain weather conditions which governed our outside activities. There was a "green flag" which said activities were OK for everyone, a "Yellow Flag" which allowed some outside physical exertion, a "Red Flag" which indicated that those not acclimated (at least three weeks living in Texas) could not exercise and the "Purple Flag" indicating all outdoor activities were banned for everyone.

Here's how it worked. The "underclass" (those with less than six weeks in the school) exercised all at one time. At the time indicated on the schedule if there was a red flag then it was lowered and the yellow was flown until we completed our activities - then it was replaced by the red again. Six weeks later, after we were acclimated, PT was done later in the day and inevitably a purple was replaced with a red while we exercised. The show did go on!

A Special Day

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This is a very special day in my life. So, I will depart from the distant, distant past and relate a story from the mere distant past when Richard Milhouse Nixon was president, Viet Nam was raging and I was 20 years old. On this day, forty years ago, Pat and I got in my little dark blue Plymouth Valiant at 4 o'clock in the morning and drove to Charlotte North Carolina to the Military Induction Center. Pat had to leave me at the door and go somewhere and do something - I have no idea what - while I was being injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected. She was about 4 months pregnant at the time.

Sometime in the afternoon we were allowed to go outside to our families. Pat and I spent our last hour together before I left, sitting on the curb outside the building. About dark, we were herded onto a bus and thence to an airport and onto an airplane (my first ride) and shipped off to San Antonio Texas. We arrived at about 11 o'clock at night and were bussed to a sheltered area on base (Lackland AFB) where we waited until about one in the morning for everyone to arrive. Then it was off to the barracks where we were told to sleep. Fifteen minutes later we were told to get up and get outside - someone had forgotten that all incoming servicemen had to be fed within a couple of hours of arrival. We walked to a chow hall where I had my first military meal, found out what SOS looked and tasted like and then got back to bed by 3 or so. At 5:30 we got back up and went back to the chow hall for more food and then we were bussed to Medina Air Force Station. (Medina was the site of the first sizable nuclear accident in the Air Force. In 1959 a "nuke" was being disassembled there and yeilded with approximately the force of 60 tons of TNT. According to locals, it was "pretty loud". According to the Air Force it was "non-nuclear." One very large concrete bunker disappeared.

At Medina we were ushered into a huge blue auditorium where we started finding out just what the hell was going to happen to us. I was still numb and relatively dumb at that point and decided to wait and see. Around 1000 hours (note that I was now on 24 hour time and "o'clocks" were a thing of the past) we were herded into groups and marched down to our barracks, assigned to our rooms and informed that since it was now the Fourth of July we had the rest of the day off. At some point I had a couple of minutes to myself without the luxury of being yelled at and I took that time to ask, "What have you gotten yourself into this time????"

The ride had been a mere "didibop" until that day!