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Active duty 1970-1973, 1977-1982, Reserves the rest of the time. I was aircrew on the P-2 and P-3 aircraft, retired as an AW1 (E-6). Spent most of that time in VP-60 at NAS Glenview, IL.
I have a story to tell.
As I said I was stationed at a Nike Hercules Missile site in 1969. In 1968 when I was in training, the North Koreans seized the ship Pueblo and imprisoned the crew for about a year before releasing them claiming the ship was in their waters. The US Air Force took a lot of criticism for not stopping the ship seizure. Their excuse was that all of the planes in the area were only armed with nuclear weapons!! Jump ahead one year while I was stationed in South Korea. One of our planes with about 30 people on board was shot down by the North Koreans.
Holy ****e! That was a US Navy EC-121. I flew EC-121s for the USAF from 1972 to late 1975 and we all knew about what happened the Navy aircraft and believe me we were concerned about it. We also knew what had happened to the US civilian operators of a communications station Site 85 that the NVA had over run in 1968 so that didn't inspire any confidence! The ONLY weapon on the EC-121 was the .45 pistol that the AC carried. Also AFIK no one ever successfully bailed out of an EC-121 and they were insanely over loaded and could barely even maintain altitude if you lost even one engine so it made for exciting times! I was stationed at Korat Thailand 1973 to 1974 and flew missions (mostly) over Cambodia. I've been all over the world with the USAF and later worked as military contractor to the US Army and to the Canadian DND.
