In the days after graduation I went into high gear preparing for our wedding day. I made arrangements with Debbie's grandmother Grace to rent her upstairs apartment. This would turn out to be the first of many mistakes that I have made in my life. One could also argue that getting married at 18 was a mistake but God has blessed me in that department. I moved from the house on McKennie to our apartment at 2001 Russell Street next to the Shelby Park golf course clubhouse. There was a steep hill on the golf course near our apartment and that hill provided many happy memories when we used it for sledding when it snowed in years past. Didi and I were arguing when I left home because she didn't like Debbie and she thought that Debbie had taken advantage of me. Especially since the time I caught her cheating on me. Didi would refer to her as "that little split tailed girl" which never made much sense to me since all girls share that same physical trait. I invited Gus to stay with me until the day of the wedding.
At that time a blood test was required in order to get a marriage license and we got one at the Lentz medical center near Centennial Park. The next step in the process was applying at the Davidson County courthouse for a marriage license. On Friday, June 14th 1968, we all piled into Debbie's grandmother Grace's car and she drove us to Springfield Tennessee. Debbie was just 17 so she had to have her mother's permission to get married. There were the four of us. Debbie's mom Margaret, Grace, myself and Debbie. I have since discovered that Mrs. Phillips was against the marriage because of our age but she also considered me to be a (Horny Toad), which I was, and was afraid that if she didn't give her consent Debbie would just end up getting pregnant. Her mom shouldn't have worried because I was so ignorant about sex I don't think that I would have ever had the courage to go there and Debbie was in the same boat. My ideal of marriage at the time was to be a virgin and I wanted to marry a virgin. Debbie's mom was even younger than Debbie when she got married and if I remember right I reminded her of that. Which is probably not the best way to start off on a good foot with your soon to be mother-in-law.
When we arrived at the courthouse it was old and smelly and there were some undesirable looking people there. As our luck would have it the clerk would not allow us to be married because of a technicality. We didn't know it beforehand but there was a five day waiting period from the date of the marriage license and we had a few more days to wait. Debbie was happy because she didn't want to get married in such a crappy place. Personally, I didn't care because I just wanted to get married but in retrospect I am glad that we didn't get married there. We decided to plan a church wedding the following Friday at Shelby Avenue Baptist Church. The same church Debbie had attended all of her life. Her pastor, Dr. Richard Lucas, married us on Friday, June 21st 1968. Debbie's bridesmaid was her best friend Carolyn Robinson and my best man was a friend that I graduated with named Larry James. Gus would have been my best man if he hadn't been working. Those in attendance were Grace Brown, Debbie's mom, her sister Judy, my sister Donna and Didi. Because we had been fighting I didn't invite Didi to the wedding and I have regretted that to this day but I was being an immature butt head. She came anyway and I am glad for that. Didi loved her boys and I owe her so much for the sacrifices that she made for us. She treated Mark and I as if we were her own children.
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The Robertson County CH in Springfield TN. where we tried to get married but failed
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| Debbie feeding a goat at Six Flags Over Georgia |
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| Me at Six Flags |
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| Log ride at Six Flags |
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| Debbie at Rock City |
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| Debbie at Rock City |
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| Debbie in Fat Mans Squeeze |
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| Lovers Leap |
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| Debbie at Point Park Lookout Mountain |
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| Me at Point Park Lookout Mountain |
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| In Debbie's grandmothers back yard during the early days of our marriage |
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| At 2001 Russell with our nieces Tammie and Carol |
I can remember looking over at Debbie and thinking how lucky that I was as we were driving out of the parking lot of the church. The guessing game was over now and hopefully we would be together forever. If you can believe it I planned to work on our wedding day which was another big mistake because you only get one shot at marrying the love of your life. I was paranoid about saving money and felt like I couldn't afford to miss any time off from work. The Air Force had notified me that I was to be inducted on August 5th and this was June 21st and I was broke. I used what little money I had to rent our apartment and I wouldn't be making a lot of money as a new Airman. After a couple of hours of wedded bliss I drove into work. Donna had written (Just Married) and other newlywed slogans all over my car. My co-workers laughed as I drove my car into work like that. Fortunately, I was off that weekend and on Saturday Debbie's family gave us a small wedding reception with a wedding cake and a few presents. Over time Debbie's grandmother mistakenly came to believe that we were dancing upstairs in our apartment and she would take a broom handle and rap it on the ceiling yelling at us to be quiet.
After a few weeks I threw caution to the wind and decided to take Debbie on a weekend honeymoon to Atlanta's Six Flags theme park. I figured that this would be our last chance to be together for a while so we spent all day at the park on Saturday and on Sunday we drove up to Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga. There we spent the day at Rock City and Point Park. Bright and early on August 5th 1968 I reported to the Armed Forces Induction Center that was on Union Street in Nashville. All day long I stood in line, in my underwear waiting for the numerous medical tests that were required. It was hurry up and wait all day and I followed the doctors orders, "Turn your head and cough", "Bend over and spread your cheeks", Afterwards we were told to dress and wait with everybody else in a big room. An Army sergeant ordered us to raise our hands and repeat after him. We all swore allegiance to our respective branch of service, our country, and we swore to protect and defend the Constitution. Over an almost 21 year career in the active Air Force, the Tennessee Air National Guard, and the U.S. Army Reserve I have taken that same oath at least 4 times. Each branch of the military was represented that day that I took my first oath in Nashville but there were only two of us going into the Air Force. I was chosen as group leader and given the responsibility of safeguarding the records of the other man and my own records.
We hopped into a taxi that took us straight to the Nashville airport where Debbie, Didi, Uncle Doug, and Aunt Catherine were there to see me off. I was very nervous about flying and this was going to be my first time on an airplane. When I asked how often I would have to fly the recruiter told me that I wouldn't have to fly that much. He lied. People ask me why I would join the Air Force if I was afraid to fly. My usual response is that I was hoping that it would keep me out of the rice paddies in Vietnam and I figured that it was the best branch of service for a married man. It probably made as much sense as someone who can't swim joining the Navy. I can take pride in the fact that I always faced up to my fears and flew when it was required of me. If given the option of an an alternative form of travel I always chose the alternative. Over my twenty years in the Air Force I made four overseas trips, on both military and civilian aircraft, and have flown all over Turkey, Greece, western Europe, and over most of the United States. When I arrived at the airport Debbie surprised me with a wedding band that I am still wearing to this day. After a long goodbye kiss I boarded an American Airlines 727 for Dallas Texas. Upon arrival at Dallas Love Field I transferred to a Braniff 727 that took us on to San Antonio.
By the time we reached the San Antonio airport it was late at night and there was a very large group of recruits that had arrived from all over the country at the terminal. After a long wait we boarded several buses that took us to Lackland Air Force Base. We were ordered off the buses and into a chow hall where we were told to take a seat. A Training Instructor in a Smokey Bear hat, or a T.I., as we called them, instructed the group leaders to pass our paperwork to the front. A feeling of panic swept over me as I realized that I didn't have my folder. I hadn't been at Lackland ten minutes and I was already screwing up and bringing unwanted attention to myself. The T.I. was pissed but he didn't go into a tirade like you see in the movies. Someone was sent back to the airport to look for my folder and while we waited we were fed our first meal in the chow hall. After chow we were divided into training Flights and I was assigned to Flight 952. A Flight in the Air Force is a military unit similar to the Army designation of a platoon or a company. Because of my stupidity our training Flight was the last to leave the chow hall sometime after midnight. Our folders were found on the chair where I had left them at the airport.
When we arrived at our barracks a slender TI, who was a white male, probably in his mid to late 30's, was waiting for us in the day room. Our barracks was not the old fashioned open bay barracks like you see in movies. There were plenty of the open bay barracks on base but our building had two wings that was divided by a big open room called the day room. It was a two story building with four man rooms. Our TI was extraordinarily nice that night and so far things hadn't been that bad. He introduced himself and asked us if we had been fed and if any of us were having any problems. So far the image I had of basic training was wrong. The vision of recruits being screamed at and cursed from the moment they boarded the bus just hadn't happened. Our TI assigned each of us to a room and we were bedded down for the night.
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| Modern Air Force recruits |
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| An open bay barracks at Lackland during the 1960's |
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| These were the new barracks that were being built while I was at Lackland |
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| Everyone was made to fill these cards out and they were sent to loved ones |
It seemed like I had just closed my eyes when I was awakened by a blinding light. That nice TI had suddenly transformed into a demon. He was screaming, get up, get up, get up and spewing forth profanities as we formed up in the day room. From that moment on we began to learn the military way of doing things and this dude was constantly breathing down our necks. Before sunrise, we would line up outside our barracks and march to breakfast. We were all outfitted with a reflector vest, a flash light, and a pith helmet. New recruits were issued a yellow tee shirt with the words US Air Force in large black letters. This, along with our civilian pants, was our uniform for the first two weeks of basic training. After two weeks we were finally issued our uniforms but until then we were derisively called "Rainbows". While in the chow line you were taught to stand at attention while looking straight ahead at the back of the head of the man in front of you. There was no talking as the line slowly moved toward the serving line and I learned the hard way not to take my eyes off of the man in front of me. Something appeared in my peripheral vision one day and without moving my head I made the mistake of looking to my left. A TI was instantly in my face screaming "Do you love me Boy"? I shouted "Sir, no sir". We were taught that the first and last word out of our mouth was to be sir. "Are you queer"? I replied "Sir, no sir", "Then keep your eyes front dip shit".
After reaching the serving line we picked up a tray, silverware, and a glass. Continuing at attention, we looked straight ahead as we sidestepped toward the end of the line. A plate of food was handed to us by the server. The first Airman to reach the table would hold up three fingers while standing at attention. This meant that there was room for three more. As each man reached the table the 1st Airman would continue the count until all all spots were occupied. Then in unison everyone would sit down and only then were we allowed to talk and be at ease. The same routine was followed for breakfast, lunch and supper. After breakfast we were marched back to our barracks where we changed into our PT gear. This was a pair of shorts, tee shirt, and combat boots. The object was to finish our physical training of sit-ups, leg lifts, push-ups, jumping jacks, numerous other exercises, and a mile and a half run before the yellow or red flag was hoisted on base. August is brutally hot in San Antonio and the base had a flag system. A yellow flag meant that it was too hot for physical training of recruits that had been on base ten days or less. A red flag meant that it was too hot for anyone to train. The red flag would go up more times than the yellow flag while I was there. Ambulances could be seen running to and fro throughout the day picking up heat casualties. Occasionally we would have an Airman fall out on us during PT or drill. We were ordered to swallow salt tablets all during the day in order to keep us from passing out. This practice has since been discontinued because of the effect of salt on the body and blood pressure I am assuming.
At the end of the day after we were issued our OD green uniforms they would develop white lines and patches from all the salt sweated out from our bodies during the day. On our first full day we were marched to the barber shop for a buzz cut. This was the late sixties and long hair was the style. Several of the men that I had formed friendships with were unrecognizable after coming out of the barber shop. We would have our hair cut every week until the last two weeks when it was allowed to grow a little before leaving basic training. After our haircut we were marched to the hospital for our immunizations. There was a gauntlet of medics outside of the dispensary shooting us with the air guns. Some of the men were cut or left with bloody welts on their arms because they flinched or jumped as they were receiving their shots from that thing. Many had blood trickling down their arms.
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| A new Air Force recruit losing his hair |
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| An air needle |
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| Winston Churchill wearing a pith helmet |
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| Modern day Air Force recruits doing PT |
After PT we were marched to the barracks for a shower and training. From the first day of basic training everyone was forced to shave whether they had ever shaved or not. I was already shaving but many of the first timers looked like they had been in a fight with pieces of bloody toilet paper stuck all over their face trying to stop the bleeding from where they had cut themselves. By this time of the morning many times the yellow or red flags were already flying and this would be an opportunity to learn how to properly organize our lockers. We were also taught how to make our bunks and our clothes had to be folded and organized a certain way in our lockers and everything had to be uniform. We were taught how to salute and sometimes we would march to the training center to learn Air Force military courtesy, history, and traditions.
After the yellow and red flags were lowered we would go to the drill pad to fine tune our marching skills. When marching we were lined up in four ranks and because of my height I was picked as a squad leader. My coordination was terrible and I couldn't march right at first. I was constantly tripping up everyone behind me and my TI jerked me out of line and put me in the rear but I was still tripping up the guy in front of me. The TI would march alongside me in the same way that Sgt Carter did Gomer Pyle, cussing and screaming at me with every step. He would scream "Segroves, your so damn uncoordinated, how do you even f_ _k,"? It took me a while but I finally got the hang of it.
I loved the marching songs we learned like (GI beans and GI gravy, gee I wished I'd joined the Navy. Am I right or wrong? Am I right or wrong? Sound off. one two Sound off three, four. Bring it on down now, o-n-e, t-w-o, t-h-r-e-e, f-o-u-r. One, two, three, four). Or (If I die in Vietnam, send my body home to mom), and then we would repeat the refrain. There were other marching songs but these were a couple of my favorites. After drill we would march to the chow hall for supper. After two weeks we were issued uniforms and we were no longer Rainbows.
During basic training I pulled KP or (Kitchen Patrol) three times. We went to the obstacle course twice and the firing range once. I hated KP. The modern military no longer pulls KP because the chow halls are now run by civilians. On KP day we had to be up by 3:00 AM and we would return to the barracks around 9:00 PM. Everybody hated pots and pans because the work was hot and very hard. The pots and pans were large and heavy. I had this duty the first and last time I pulled KP. On the 2nd time I pulled KP I washed plates all day. I was looking forward to the obstacle course until I ran it the first time. It was much harder than I imagined. We ran the course in our OD green uniforms and combat boots. The TI's warned us that if anybody fell in the water we would finish the course in wet clothes. The worse part of the course was the minefield where we had to crawl through metal chutes with mines blowing up all around us. The ground was like concrete and the chutes were packed with low crawling Airmen. Each time there was an explosion the noise was deafening and I was trying to hurry the men in front of me because they kept freezing up. I could feel the concussions of the mines in my bones.
Another part of the course that I didn't like was the gas chamber. We were supposed to run through the gas chamber holding our breath until we made it out the other side. I did okay but I took a breath too soon and got a good whiff of the gas. About halfway through the course I came to a pond that had ropes stretched across it. You were hanging upside down on the rope while pulling your body across the pond with your hands. I made it about halfway across until my legs slipped off of the rope and the lower part of my body was down in the water. As much as I tried I couldn't lift my legs up to the rope. A TI shouted "Let go dip shit" and I fell into the water. This was about halfway through the course and I had to finish the course soaking wet in water logged boots. The first attempt at the obstacle course was about two weeks into basic training and the second attempt was about the fifth week. My second attempt to finish the obstacle course was just as difficult but at least I was able to finish in dry clothes that time.
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| Obstacle course at Lackland |
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| Obstacle course at Lackland |
About the second or third week into basic training we went to the firing range. Until then the only time I had ever fired a gun was when I used my dad's 22 caliber pistol. We were shooting at a coke bottle on the Cumberland river and I never came close to hitting it. This was the same pistol used to kill my mother. I had also fired daddy's shotguns a time or two but that was the limit of my experience. We were briefed on safety, how to aim using breath control, the proper trigger pull, and on the nomenclature of the M-16 rifle. While being briefed the TI wanted to know where we were all from. One man said he was from North Carolina and I said Tennessee. He pointed at us and said we have Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett's here. As far as I was concerned he could not have been more wrong. The range TI was screaming and hollering at us the whole time and I was a bundle of nerves. Our instructions were to load five rounds into our magazines for zeroing in. We were ordered to assume the prone position and then instructed to place the selector switch on semi-automatic. We would fire one round and once the range was safe we would go down and check our targets. If we were shooting too high, too low, or to the right or left after each of the five rounds we would make sight adjustments. At least that was the plan.
The command was given, ready, aim, fire. I fired off five rounds as fast as you could blink an eye. Instead of semi-auto I had accidentally turned the selector switch to full auto. An unseen hand grabbed my belt and I was jerked up out of the line. The TI was spewing profanity the likes of which I had never heard as he stood nose to nose with me. After he was finished chewing me out I was ordered back on to the line after being thoroughly embarrassed. The firing resumed and needless to say I didn't qualify. After everyone had finished qualifying those of us who failed were walked over to a different range. I took a little solace in the fact that Daniel Boone, the guy from North Carolina, also failed to qualify. An older TI took charge of us and he was night and day different from the first one. He spoke in a calm manner as he gave us pointers on how to shoot. As a result I was able to qualify and over the course of a twenty one year career in the Air Force I fired expert every time I went to the range after that day. As a Security Policeman I fired expert in both the rifle and pistol.
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| Getting your attention |
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| Lackland rifle range |
Our TI told us that there would be a barracks inspection right after lunch one day. All morning long I worked on my locker and bunk making sure everything was in order and ready for inspection. After lunch we marched from the chow hall and were told to stand by our lockers at attention when we reached our barracks. I was standing at attention with my back to the locker when my TI reached me. He opened my locker and went berserk. My TI was nose to nose with me screaming in my face and I had no idea what I did wrong. After he left the room I opened my locker and someone had trashed it while I was at lunch. My underwear and socks were scattered everywhere and my shirts were buttoned in the wrong holes and haphazardly hanging from the hangars. It was obvious that they were playing mind games with me.
About three weeks into basic training our TI was relieved from duty. We were doing our run during PT when our TI noticed a short stocky Airmen running with his boxer shorts hanging out of his PT shorts. Incredibly the Airman was wearing boxer underwear under his PT shorts instead of his jock strap, Our TI went crazy and was cursing the boy as he ran beside him around the track. The Airman ran faster and faster until he finally passed out and had to be rushed to the base hospital by ambulance. We found out later that he had a heart condition which caused him to pass out. Our TI was relieved from duty and was replaced by a Black TI who was tough but fair and I liked him much better than our old TI.
By this time we were beginning to gel as a unit. We were marching better and while I was there we had a several reviews where we were ordered to dress in our 1505's, along with our blue service hats and black low quarter shoes. The Air Force has since done away with the 1505 khaki uniform but I loved it. It was very comfortable and sharp. We would march to the drill field where other Flights were forming up. We had a color guard and a band playing the Air Force hymn we marched in a wide circle around the field. As we passed the officers and guests in the reviewing stand the command, "Eyes Right" was given. At moments like this I would swell with pride and the hair would stand up on the back of my neck.
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| A modern Air Force Basic Training review |
One day we were milling around outside our barracks when I noticed an Airman standing next to me with the name Rickenbacker on his name tag. I asked him if he was related to Eddie Rickenbacker and he said that he was his grandfather. Eddie Rickenbacker was an incredibly brave and heroic American. He was America's greatest ace in WW1 with 25 confirmed kills and was a Medal of Honor winner. In addition he survived a near fatal commercial airliner crash in February 1941 and in October 1942 he survived 24 days adrift at sea in a life raft. This was because the bomber he was on crashed in the Pacific ocean. He was carrying a reprimand to General Douglas MacArthur from the White House for one of his many instances of insubordination. Eddie was also the president of Eastern Air Lines for many years. These were just a few of the many accomplishments of Eddie Rickenbacker. Recently I read a book about Eddie and he was a certifiable badass. I also learned that Eddie had no biological children but he and his wife adopted two boys. So the grandson that I met was the child of one of his adopted boys. I was also reading a book a few years ago about George W. Bush and found out that he and I were at Lackland at the same time and for a while we shared the rank of Airman Basic. He was there in July and August and I was there in August and September. Bush would eventually fly F-102 fighters for the Texas Air National Guard. He is the only president to rise from the rank of Airman Basic to the rank of Commander-In-Chief in American history.
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| Eddie Rickenbacker |
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| George W. Bush on the left |
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| Taken at a photo booth at Lackland |
Every Airman in basic training was required to pass a 25th day evaluation. If you failed you were set back to the first day of basic training and had to do it all over again. I passed everything but PT and I received a marginal rating on drill. In essence I got a D on drill and an F on PT. I failed leg lifts and push ups in PT. We had to not only finish the required amount but they had to be done exactly to their specifications. I especially hated leg lifts and I have never been good at doing push ups. In formation I marched well enough but it was a horse of a different color when I was singled out for evaluation. A life long dream for me was to see the Alamo. I had grown up on Walt Disney's Davy Crockett and I had read about it in the history books. Since I failed my 25th day evaluation I was confined to the barracks on the weekend that our Flight was granted a weekend pass and my chance at seeing the Alamo was gone. I would not get that opportunity again until the summer of 2009 when our family went there on vacation.
The day I failed all I could think about was being set back. The thought of having to repeat basic training all over again was stressing me out because to this point I had not been able to do my exercises and no matter how hard I tried I just wasn't very hopeful about ever being able to do them. I only had a few days to get ready for my reevaluation and the stress was getting to me. One day while standing in formation we were waiting to march back to the barracks after supper, I broke down and wept like a baby. It was very embarrassing crying like that in front of the men. They were very understanding by patting me on the back and trying to encourage me. I worked hard all weekend to be able to finish my leg lifts and push ups. When reevaluation day arrived I managed to do my exercises well enough to pass. It wasn't pretty but I got it done and I also got a higher score on drill. I felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted from my shoulders just knowing that I was going to graduate.
One day we were ordered to line up outside of our TI's office. He was going to teach us how to report to an officer. As each man reached his door they would rap three times on the door frame with their fist. When a mans name was called he would enter, snap to attention, and salute. They would say "Sir, Airman Jones reports as ordered Sir." The Airman would then hold the salute until it was returned. After being dismissed he would about face and smartly leave the room. Finally, it was my turn and everything was fine until I got to the part where I was supposed to say Airman Segroves reports as ordered Sir. I began laughing so hard I couldn't get the words out. The TI threw a book at me and told me to get out and do it again but again but I couldn't stop laughing. Each time I tried and failed he would throw anything that he could get his hands on at me. Losing patience he told me to wipe the smile off my face or else. Still, I was not able to stop laughing and he ordered me to stand with my nose in the corner and on one leg. Eventually he made me stand on my tiptoes which was virtually impossible to stay in that position for any length of time.
This was very embarrassing and painful because one man after another was coming in behind me and reporting to the sergeant while I was fighting to hold my weight on one foot. After everyone finished reporting to him I was allowed to try it again and this time I was able to pull it off. I can't explain what happened to me because there was nothing funny about this situation and I don't know why I couldn't control my laughter. The only thing that makes sense to me was that laughter was my way of dealing with the stress. I always think of my situation when watching the movie Full Metal Jacket. There is a similar scene in the movie where a private, nicknamed Gomer Pyle by the DI, can't quit smiling and the man is choked out by the DI but I got off quite a bit better than he did. The man was ordered to lean forward and choke himself on the DI's hand.
About the fifth week we had a review and were dressed in our 1505's. After our review it was late in the afternoon and we marched to the chow hall for supper. As we were nearing the chow hall there were a bunch of Rainbow Flights standing in formation waiting to march back to their barracks. Our TI began showing us off in front of the Rainbows. He was marching us back and forth doing some pretty intricate drill maneuvers. By this time I could march with the best of them and I was really getting into the moment. Our TI gave the command to the rear march and it was executed perfectly. Again I heard what I thought was our TI calling out the command to the rear march. Unfortunately for me it was one of the Rainbow TI's yelling out the command and I ran into the man behind me causing the formation to disintegrate into chaos. The Rainbow TI was messing with us and I was the only one that executed the command. My TI was on me like a duck on a June bug. He pointed to the TI that had pulled the prank and told me to report to him. I ran up and reported to the sergeant and he was in my face unleashing on me. It was a long day and I had a little stub showing on my chin and asked if I was a hippie.. The TI then pointed to one of his men in the ranks that was dressed in Rainbow garb and told me he was setting me back. He then told me to replace the man in the ranks and swap hats with him. I was just a few days away from graduation and here I was standing in the same line with a bunch of Rainbows wearing a pith helmet with my dress uniform. Not to mention the fact that I was totally humiliated in front of my Flight and hundreds of Rainbows. After what seemed like an eternity he dismissed me and sent me into the chow hall to join my Flight.
A few days before graduation we received our orders. Today, recruits know before they go into basic training what their career field will be after they graduate. We didn't know until we received our orders. Most Airmen were sent to a tech school but I was assigned to the Security Police DDA.. Because of the war in Vietnam there was a critical need for cops. Most Security Policemen were sent to a six week tech school at Lackland but some were sent DDA or (Direct Duty Assignment). My orders were for Kingsley Field in Klamath Falls Oregon. I would receive OJT or (On The Job Training) when I arrived. I was thrilled to be finished with Lackland and not having to remain there another six weeks going to a tech school. About the time I received my orders I was sitting in the rec hall reading my mail. Debbie told me in a letter that she was pregnant. We planned to have a lot of kids but the plan was to wait until I was out of the Air Force. Regardless, I was ecstatic and sharing the news with everyone in sight.
My recruiter told me that I was required to fly to basic but I could choose my mode of transportation after that. The flight down to San Antonio did nothing to alleviate my fears about flying so I put in a request for a bus ticket to Nashville and it was an arduous two day trip. If I had it to do over again I would have flown. It was my plan to surprise Debbie when I got home but she and Carolyn were walking home from the store and they saw me getting out of the taxi in front of her house. Carolyn hurriedly walked away and Debbie told me later that Carolyn was mad because Debbie had not run to me. I didn't care because I was just glad to be home. I only had a 20 day leave to make a decision about whether or not Debbie was going out to Oregon with me. One of the first things I noticed about Debbie was her baby bump. Didi planned to get her license since she and her long time boyfriend Gigs had broken up recently. She knew that I wanted to take Debbie to Oregon but I was broke and the only way I could take her with me was to sell her my car. That would give me enough money to pay for bus tickets out to Oregon and have enough money left over to rent an apartment.
This would mean that we would not have a car in Oregon until I could afford to buy another one. My other option was to drive my car out to Oregon, leaving Debbie at home, until I could save enough money to send for her. This would mean that I would have to live in the barracks for a while but in retrospect the second option was the best one. I just couldn't stand the thought of being away from Debbie that long. Didi and Roy were doing their best to convince me that my car was not going to be able to make the trip out to Oregon. This was crazy because my Chevy II was a very good car and after I sold it to Didi she drove it for years. She would eventually sell it to my Uncle Doug who would also drive it for years. Selling that car was one of the worst mistakes that I ever made. In retrospect I should have driven out to Oregon by myself and lived in the barracks. In 6 months or so I could have had the money to put down on an apartment and to have Debbie flown out to Oregon. Alas, youth is wasted on the young. My immaturity insured that we would have tough path to trod for about a year after we arrived in Oregon. I can also blame it on being madly in love, I guess.
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| Roy, Sandra, Debbie and me at Aunt Tincy's in Donelson |
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| Debbie and me at Aunt Tincy's |
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| Angela Hall, Debbie and Me at Aunt Tincy's |
I know that there are married couples out there our age that have endured hardships as bad or worse as we did starting out, but personally I don't know that many. Everything that we owned besides the clothes on our back was packed into my duffel bag and the few suitcases that we were allowed to put on the bus. As I said earlier Debbie had a baby bump and she was already wearing maternity clothes. Her mom cried all morning the day we left which made me feel like the bad guy and after an emotional goodbye we set off on a nightmare of a bus trip. We were trapped in a bus for three long days and our only relief was when we would change buses or have a layover for an hour or two in some strange city. At that time most Greyhound bus stations were dilapidated, dingy old buildings in the worst part of town. Because our time was limited we had to eat in the bus station restaurants and we had to make our way through some very sketchy characters hanging around these bus stations. Sometimes the bus would be so crowded when we boarded that we would have to sit in separate seats. Once I sat toward the front of the bus and Debbie sat way in the back. This was before the interstate was completed and many, if not most of the roads that we traveled were two lane highways. The bus followed primarily the historic Route 66 through the southwest which was the most notable.
We traveled through Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona, entering California at Needles. From there we rode over to Los Angeles and after a long layover we rode all the rest of the day and night through California and into Oregon. Klamath Falls is only 25 miles north of the California line. We arrived there early in the morning on a bleak and cloudy Fall day. Oregon is one of the most beautiful states in America but Klamath Falls was, in my opinion, one of the ugliest towns. It was a logging town and it's hills had been stripped bare of trees. They were brown during the warmer months and white for much of the winter. Just outside of Klamath Falls was some of the prettiest scenery that you would ever want to see. The hills were brown when we pulled into the Klamath Falls bus station in October 1968. I called a taxi and asked the driver to take us to a motel that was closest to Kingsley Field. When we arrived at the motel we were absolutely exhausted and fell down on the bed together with our clothes on. Homesickness hit Debbie pretty hard from the minute we arrived and she immediately started crying. I held her tight for a long time trying to comfort her when I noticed that my ankles were twice their normal size. Debbie's ankles were the same way indicating that we had been on that bus for far too long.
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| A typical Greyhound bus station in the 1960's |
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| A Greyhound restaurant |
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| A Greyhound waiting room in the 1960's |
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| A section of Route 66 |
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| The mountains around Klamath Falls |
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| A logging operation on the Klamath River |
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| Just outside of Klamath Falls |
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| Just outside of Klamath Falls |
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I can't remember how long that were in that motel but we walked everywhere that we went during our first few months in Klamath Falls. There was a movie theater nearby and we would go to a movie once and a while to break the monotony. Theaters featured one movie at a time back then because they only had one screen. You could see the same movie over and over or wait until a new one came out. Klamath Fall's had one television station that went off the air about 11:00 PM. I had to walk the five or six miles to the base to process in and begin my tour of duty at Kingsley. I didn't like to hitchhike but occasionally a local rancher or Airman would take pity and offer me a ride. Eventually I arranged for rides to and from work but every now and then I still had to walk when my rides schedule didn't jive with mine. I learned about Shasta View Apartments from other Airmen who were renting there. Shasta View had formerly been Marine barracks during WW2 that were eventually converted into apartments. They were aptly named because California's Mount Shasta could be seen from just about anywhere in Klamath Falls. Shasta View reminded me of a wooden version of the projects back home in Nashville. There was an apartment shortage in Klamath Falls and many Airmen and their families were living there right along with the dregs of society. There were many good civilian families living there but as in any low income housing you also have to deal with the more undesirable element.
Kingsley had a nice housing complex on base called Falcon Heights but there was no chance for an Airman of my rank to live there. There just wasn't enough room. SSgt's and below generally lived at Shasta View because there was only room for officers and enlisted men of higher rank at Falcon Heights. Rank has it's privileges. I paid 65.00 dollars a month to live at 1417 Nimitz Avenue. Debbie received an allotment of 100.00 dollars a month and as an Airman with only one stripe I was paid 100.00 dollars a month bi-weekly. In the few days before payday we were down to eating spaghetti or peanut butter and crackers. I have found that the greatest motivator is an empty refrigerator and living in a dumpy apartment was also a great motivator to move up in the world. Our apartment had no curtains with only the brown shades that you might see in school portables. We had stick furniture and hardwood floors.
I started going to an ice house in Klamath Falls for day work when we ran low on money and on my off days I would arrive early in the morning and stand in a group of men hoping that the foreman would pick me. Sometimes I would wait in vain because I wouldn't be picked. I competed against other Airmen for work and men were wino's and derelicts. There were several Airmen like myself with empty refrigerators. I remember one wino was so yellow from liver damage that he almost glowed. Whenever I see the movie (Cinderella Man) I am reminded of this time in my life. In a couple of scenes boxer Jim Braddock, played by Russell Crowe, is waiting to be picked for work on the docks in New York. Whenever I was chosen for the ice house I would have to squeeze into a large freezer that was packed with frozen food boxes. The temperature was about five degrees below zero and you worked on your hands and knees because there was not enough room to stand up. The men would form a chain, passing the boxes up to a small window where men working outside would place the boxes on a conveyor where they would slide them down be loaded on a refrigerated truck. Occasionally I lucked up and was chosen for the outside work loading the trucks. At the end of the day you were paid in cash. I did this for the entire year and a half that I was in Oregon. I also found day work with a local moving company and I worked one day on a potato farm. We also sold a ton of soft drink bottles whenever we could to get by.
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| Leaving Shasta View Apartments for a military ceremony |
At some point I managed to buy a 1955 Pontiac that was built like a tank and was basically a piece of junk. It was broke down most of the time but when it was running, however; it gave us some mobility. There was a mall within walking distance of our apartments and a Safeway grocery store. Debbie cried almost everyday from the day we got there because she couldn't get over her homesickness and she was begging to go home. We didn't know anybody yet and she was very lonely. I was working nine day cycles which didn't help. The first three days were swing shifts from 3:00 PM until 11:00 PM and after a 24 hour break I would work three midnight shifts from 11:00 PM until 7:00 AM. After another 24 hour break I would work three day shifts from 7:00 AM until 3:00 PM. Then I would be off for 72 hours and at the end of this break I would start the cycle all over again. Almost everyday I would find her crying when I came home. It was rough on her because she was pregnant and so far away from home.
I bought a cheap GE black and white TV that had about a 12 inch screen but before it was over I had to replace this TV three times because it kept going out. To this day I refuse to buy anything made by General Electric. It was hard to get a good picture because it had an antenna. Cable was available in Oregon but I was unable to pay the 5.00 dollar a month payment. At least my job was a diversion for me and I could interact with people but all she had was me when I wasn't working and a defective TV. It was rough working midnight shifts because Debbie was so bored during the day she was constantly waking me up. Debbie was going through a phase where she was craving banana splits and her mom was sending her a dollar bill every week just to buy her banana splits. There was an ice cream stand about a mile from our apartment and I would walk there to buy her a banana split but by the time I got home the ice cream was pretty much melted but that didn't matter, she ate them anyway.
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| Debbie proud of her ginger bread man. Notice the baby bump. |
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| Debbie next to our crappy GE portable. |
Kingsley Field Air Force Base was named after 2nd Lt. David R. Kingsley of Portland Oregon who was a bombardier on a B-24 bomber that was shot down over the Ploiesti Oil Fields of Romania on June 23, 1944. He won the Medal of Honor posthumously after he gave his parachute to a SSgt who did not have one. Kingsley went down with the plane after the rest of the crew had bailed out. He is buried at Arlington. Kingsley Field was the home of the 408th Fighter Group but just before I arrived at Kingsley it had been commanded by Colonel Vermont Garrison, one of the most famous pilots in the Air Force. Colonel Garrison was an American who flew with the RAF from 1941 until 1943 and in 1943 he joined the 8th Air Force, flying the P-47 and P-51 acquiring 11 kills. He was shot down in March 1944 and was held as a POW until he was liberated by the Russians in April 1945. In the Korean war he downed 10 Migs, damaged 5 and had probable kills on 3 others. In two wars he had 21 confirmed kills. From 1966 until 1967 he fought in Vietnam and ended up with 277 combat missions and 594 combat hours. He was finally forced to end his combat career because of nearsightedness. Colonel Garrison left Kingsley the same month I entered the Air Force.
When I arrived I was part of the 408th Combat Support Squadron. We had about twenty F-101 Voodoo fighter interceptors and were part of the Air Defense Command. Our mission was to intercept any unidentified aircraft venturing into American air space over the Pacific Northwest. This was the height of the Cold War. Soviet Bear bombers were constantly penetrating our air space in order to test our response time. The radar network protecting the North American continent was called the DEW Line (Distant Early Warning Line) that was a joint American, Canadian radar line that ran 3,000 miles above the Arctic Circle that warned of any impending aerial attack. The Dew Line, along with other radar sites, would relay the information to NORAD (North American Air Defense Command) in Cheyenne Mountain Colorado, that our air space had been penetrated. They would then order our interceptors into the air to identify the intruder. When our aircraft intercepted the Russian Bear bomber it would then leave our air space. This cat and mouse game was played for years between America and the Soviet Union.
Our base had a priority A nuclear storage area and a priority A alert area. Nuclear weapons and components were always rated priority A. Our alert area was priority A even when the birds were uploaded with conventional weapons because our aircraft were combat ready. They could be in the air within two minutes and two aircraft were always armed with heat seeker missiles. There were four stalls in our alert barn. The two conventional birds were in the innermost stalls with the outermost stalls empty most of the time. Occasionally we would have four birds which meant that there were two birds uploaded with conventional weapons and two with tactical nuclear weapons called Genie's. They were designed to take out a large group of bombers all at one time. There was a Security policeman in a gate shack that operated the electrical gates that controlled entry into the area and a Security Policeman was posted on a walking post in front of the alert barn. If there were nuclear birds in the stalls there would be a second man posted in the rear of the barn. This was called (Two Man Concept) which meant that anytime there was a nuclear weapon on site there had to be at least two people guarding them. A (No Lone Zone) was established around the weapon itself and inside the No Lone Zone there had to be two people, of equal knowledge, if there was any work or activity that had to be performed around the weapon.
Working the alert area sometimes reminded me of my days as a paperboy working around Company 18 fire hall. I would be walking my post directly in front of the hangar when the klaxon horn would go off and floodlights would illuminate the area. I knew to get out of the way fast. The ground crews would be the first Airmen to reach the aircraft in order to prepare them quickly for takeoff, then the pilots and RO's (Radar Officers) would scramble into the cockpits and their jet engines began to whine. The ground crew would give the thumbs up to the pilots and salute as the birds quickly rolled past out the high speed taxiway to the runway. They would turn on to the runway, about a hundred yards away, squealing tires as they made their turn. Then there were four explosions as their afterburners fired in quick succession causing the ground to shake and the window panes in my small gate shack to rattle. If a scramble happened at night the afterburners made a beautiful site which made perfect cones of multicolored fire as they roared into the night sky. They were airborne in less than two minutes. Watching fighters scramble would make the hair stand up on the back of my neck and it gave me a tremendous sense of pride in the Air Force and my country at moments like these. Security was about 99% boredom and 1% excitement and a scramble was exciting to watch.
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| 2nd Lt. David R. Kingsley |
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| Ploiesti raid |
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| Kingsley's grave at Arlington |
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| Add caption |
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| Colonel Vermont Garrison |
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| Kingsley F-101's over Crater Lake |
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| A conventional heat seeker missile being uploaded |
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| Genie tactical nuclear weapon |
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| An F-101 fighter firing a Genie missile |
The priority B parking area was on the main part of the base near the flight line. There was a couple of very large hangars and all aircraft that were not on alert were parked here on the ramp and in the hangars. It was priority B because the aircraft were not on alert status but could be on alert in a short period of time. The area was roped off and there was a gate shack occupied by a Security Policeman that controlled entry into the area and at night there was a walking patrol. Our nuclear storage area was in a remote part of the base. It reminded me of a modern day storage area that people rent to store their furniture and belongings except this storage area was much more sophisticated and hardened. It housed a number of Genie tactical nuclear missiles. There was a large gatehouse where one Security Policeman operated the electric gates that controlled entry into the area and another operated the ADT security system that protected the stalls that held the nukes. One cop patrolled the inside of the storage area with a vehicle during the day and two cops patrolled the area on foot at night. The whole area was enclosed by a high fence with barbed wire on top. Our dispatcher was at CSC or (Central Security Control). We had a three man base patrol called SAT or (Security Alert Team) and there was a three man reserve SAT that was always on standby in the barracks. It was made up of men from a Flight that was off duty and everyone had to pull this duty from time to time. Finally there was the armory where we kept our firearms and ammunition that was manned by an armorer. We were also responsible for manning a radar station called Keno, which was on a mountain about thirty miles away. About once a month I was assigned to guard Keno which was a long bus ride up to the mountain. The duty wasn't bad but I hated the long trip on the bus.
As a lower ranking Airman I pulled the worst posts. Our humping posts were in the alert area, storage area, and priority B parking ramp. Humping was a slang term we used for walking posts. The winter of 1968-69 was the worst winter in twenty years and I froze my butt off. I couldn't wear enough clothes to stay warm and no matter what I wore I couldn't keep my hands and feet warm. One night I wore what was called a bunny suit which reminded me of the little boy in a Christmas Story. He was so stiff that when he fell over that he couldn't get up. That is the way I felt because I could barely walk in it. I quit wearing the bunny suit because I was still getting cold and it wasn't worth the hassle of putting it on. It started snowing about the middle of November and there was snow on the ground until April. I walked post in every kind of weather. Snow, sleet, rain, freezing wind which we called "The Hawk" in the winter and then there was the hot sun in the summer. In the winter we wore a gray flight jacket called an M-A1. It had an orange liner and was pretty warm but in colder weather I had a blue fur lined parka that went to my waist and a gray parka that extended to just above my knees. My duty uniform was OD green fatigues, with an OD green hat, a blue ascot around my neck and bloused, spit shined combat boots.
If I was manning a gate shack or inside post I was usually armed with 38 caliber Smith and Wesson or Colt revolver. If I was on the SAT or a walking post I was armed with an M-2 carbine. The M-2 was carried in WW2 and Korea and could be used on semi or full auto. Just before I arrived at Kingsley our unit was armed with M-16's but they were sent to Vietnam due to a shortage there. There was a law enforcement dispatcher and a car patrol that covered the base and housing area, Law Enforcement manned the main gate and south gate. The Security Police unit was divided into Security and Law Enforcement. I worked Security but sometimes if Law Enforcement was shorthanded I would have to work the gates. When I worked the gates I wore the blue dress uniform in the winter or 1505's in the summer. I wore a white cover on my service hat, with a white ascot, and white parachute cord ladder laces in my spit shined and bloused combat boots. We were always the sharpest troops on base.
I made one of the worst mistakes I ever made while working Law Enforcement. One night while I was working the main gate, on the midnight shift, a taxi drove up to the gate and in the back seat was an older black male who claimed to be a 2nd Lieutenant that was staying in the transient barracks on base. He showed me what looked like a military ID card but I didn't look at it very well and I waved him through. His age alone should have made me suspicious but because I took too much for granted and failed to follow proper protocol I screwed up badly. I had just walked into my apartment when the NCOIC of Law Enforcement called on the phone. He cussed me up one side and down the other. The man that I had waved through the gate was a mental patient and I was lucky that all I got was a good cussing and I assume that they took my youth and inexperience into account. The base had a decal system for vehicles. Blue for officers, green for NCO's, and black for Airmen. We saluted all officers but at night it was very difficult to distinguish between officers and Airmen. In the Air Force we were taught that it was better to salute even if we were in doubt as to whether the person was an officer or enlisted man. When in doubt, salute. More times than I can count I saluted Airmen and if there was a car load of them I could hear them laughing as they passed by. Junior officers seemed to take offense when I failed to salute them more so than senior officers. Pilots were the coolest and the most laid back of all of our officers.
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| This is my friend and fellow Security Policeman Tom Blevins just before I arrived at Kingsley Field |
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| The Security Police Shield |
On November 26, 1968 I was on a twenty four hour break after working swing shifts when an announcer broke in on our local radio station with the news that one of our F-101's had crashed on takeoff. Debbie and I jumped in the car and drove down to the base but I didn't want to get in the way so I parked on a perimeter road where we could see the smoke rising from the wreckage on the far end of the runway. I took a couple of pictures and left. As the day progressed it became evident that both the pilot and RO had been killed. The fighter was about 75 to 100 feet off the ground when it had a flame out. The plane was nosed up when both men ejected slamming their bodies into the runway. Either the men were unaware of the angle or felt that they had no other options. A friend of mine who was working day shifts in the nuclear storage area told me that he watched the bodies of these men bounce along the runway like basketballs. The F-101's momentum carried the fuselage another 1,000 feet down the runway where it exploded into a fireball. The pilot was Major Tolsma and the RO or (back seater) was Captain Morgan.
That night I reported to work at 1100 PM and was surprised to learn that my post was a special post with the task of protecting the crash site. It was a frigid night and the crash site was in a remote section at the end of the runway. There were a couple of lighting units that were running but the lights were turned off. After my sergeant posted me he drove off and the night became pitch black. I could barely see my hand in front of my face but after my eyes adjusted to the darkness I began to see an unbelievable scene of destruction. There are few things worse than the devastation of a crash site. The smell of jet fuel or (JP 4) was overwhelming and wreckage was strewn for hundreds of feet. I could see one of the crewman's white helmets and and an ejection seat. It was very spooky there in the dark but after a while all I could think about was staying warm.
As I walked by a lighting unit I could feel the warmth of the exhaust against my leg and it gave me an idea. Soon I was warm as toast as I leaned against the exhaust on the unit. The hood of my parka was zipped up and I became too comfortable so I set my rifle down and before I knew it I was fast asleep. All of a sudden I was blinded by bright lights and in a stupor I took a step or two toward the runway until I realized that the lights were to my left. When I turned around I was facing TSgt Bilbrey, my Flight Sergeant. I snapped to attention and in a loud voice said Airmen Segroves reports special post one all secure. Bilbry was friendly as he made small talk with me and he asked if I was doing okay. Then asked me a few security questions which I correctly answered. As he was about to leave he turned and said oh by the way, do you always walk your post without your weapon. I was momentarily gripped with panic when I realized I didn't have my carbine. I looked over and my weapon was propped up against the lighting unit. Sgt Bilbry just smiled, walked back to his staff car and drove away. I was very lucky that I wasn't written up and given an Article 15 but it was a mistake that I would never repeat.
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| You can barely make out the smoke of the crash on the horizon |
Debbie's homesickness was wearing on me. We met a couple from Kingsport Tennessee named Tom and Janet Blevins and we became good friends. At that time they were the only married friends that we knew. Because our car was so unreliable we never went far from home. Debbie finally wore me down enough that I gave in and agreed to let her go home for Christmas. Her mom sent the money and with a heavy heart I bought her a plane ticket on Howard Hughes Air West airlines. My biggest fear was that she would get home and not come back. I asked TSgt Bilbry to drive us to the airport which was on the civilian side of Kingsley Field which had a small terminal. We walked alone to the departure gate where I kissed her goodbye and she boarded an Air West F-27 which was a four engine turbo prop. I stood there and watched until the plane was airborne and eventually disappeared from sight into the night sky. Sgt Bilbry drove me home and when I was alone I sobbed uncontrollably. I was totally crushed because at that point in our marriage I just didn't know where I stood with her. I had always believed that I cared more for her than she did for me.
In the end her going home was the best thing for our marriage. The Christmas of 1968 was even worse than that first Christmas after my parents died. It was a very lonely time for me and since television signed off the air so early I listened to Wolfman Jack out of LA on the radio and the first talk show I ever heard called (Night Caps) out of Salt Lake City. The show was primarily people talking about anything and everything in the early hours of the morning and there was virtually no political discussion. Our first snow was on November 15th and we had fourteen inches of snow. I didn't know if my Pontiac would make it to work so I called out. Sergeant Bilbry wasn't happy but I was new and didn't realize just yet that this was the military and wasn't like my civilian jobs where you could just call out when you felt like it. I would eventually learn this lesson the hard way.
One morning while Debbie was away I got off of a midnight shift. It was gray and overcast but to me it wasn't even that cold. Exhausted, I got home and went straight to bed. With the apartment so quite I didn't wake up until about 8:00 PM. and the shades were drawn. I worked on my uniform, shined my boots, and fixed something to eat. About 10:30 PM I tried to open the front door to go to work but no matter how hard I pushed I couldn't open the door. I was able to open the back door and realized that we were in the middle of a blizzard. I walked around to the front where my car was and there was a six to seven foot drift against my front door and the side of the house. I was able to get to work because most of the snow had blown off the roads. A friend in my unit lived in Medford Oregon 79 miles away. He knew how depressed I was and offered to take me home with him on our 72 hour break. The snow was deep when we left Klamath Falls but when we arrived in Medford the grass was green and the temperature was much warmer. The weather in Oregon depended on altitude to a great degree. Klamath Falls elevation was 4,099 feet. as opposed to Medford's altitude of 1,012 feet.
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| A 14 inch snowfall in Klamath Falls |
After Christmas I called Debbie almost everyday collect and I am sure that her parents really appreciated that but I was lovesick and broke. She seemed to be making excuses for why she couldn't come back to Oregon. According to her, the doctor had advised her not to travel and she should stay at home until after the baby was born. I wasn't buying it because the baby wasn't due until April and I didn't want to wait that long. I called Didi and vented to her about it one day and like I said Didi wasn't all that fond of Debbie and without my knowledge she called her on the phone. Debbie said that Didi gave her a piece of her mind and I don't know what she said but it was enough to change her mind. Shortly after this Debbie called to say that she was coming home. I was very happy but mystified at her sudden change of mind and I didn't find out until years later what had happened.
From the moment that Debbie returned I noticed a vast change in her. She seemed more mature and committed. She no longer cried for her mother and our marriage seemed to grow stronger. I never again doubted her love after that and she seemed genuinely glad to see me. In March we rode up to Crater Lake National Park with our friends Tom and Janet. Debbie's belly was getting pretty big. Crater Lake is 43 miles from Klamath Falls and the elevation is 6, 178 feet. It was early Spring but the snow depth was incredible. The blowers had cleared the roads but the snow was so deep on either side of them that you couldn't see over the walls of snow. When we reached the visitors center there was a lodge building that looked about three stories high but all you could see was the roof sticking out of the snow. Crater Lake is incredibly beautiful. We saw it in March and again in August 1969 but I was lucky to see it contrasted by the snow and I have never seen water that blue. It was so blue that it almost hurt your eyes to look at it. The lake is in the rim of an extinct volcano and is 1,946 feet deep. I have heard that the deepest part of the lake has never been found.
On the night of April 18th 1969 I worked a swing shift and got off at 11:00 PM. I was tired and not long after coming home I went to sleep. Debbie kept waking me up throughout the night because she was feeling tinges of pain but I rolled over and went back to sleep each time. All night long she kept waking me up and each time I would ask her how bad her pains were. They never seemed to be that bad but she was having them pretty regularly. Since this was our first baby I thought the pains would be more severe if she was in labor. After daylight I finally had enough and I wasn't getting much sleep anyway so I decided to take her to the hospital. My Pontiac was running for a change and it was snowing as we drove to the hospital. Just before noon she gave birth to an eight pound, four ounce baby boy. By that time the clouds had cleared and it was a beautiful cloudless day. We named him Robert Aaron Segroves but I wanted to name him Robert E. Lee Segroves. I couldn't sell her on that idea but she compromised and settled for Robert Aaron Segroves. She liked the name Robert because her first boyfriends name was Robert and Aaron was my fathers middle name. I didn't know it at the time but Aaron was my great grandfathers first name and that is probably where my father got that name. Debbie was a pretty tough cookie when it came to having babies. I crack up when I see women screaming and going crazy giving birth in the movies. She never screamed out in pain or made much noise at all.. Instead Debbie would nearly squeeze my hand off until the pain subsided. After each one of our children she looked like she could get out of bed and go shopping or do housework.
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| The Quirks |
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| At the Blevins house |
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| The day after Debbie gave birth to Robbie |
Robbie was born at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital and the Air Force paid for everything but 25.00 dollars. I was so broke that I had to pay it off in monthly payments of 5.00 dollars a month. While Debbie was in the hospital she met a local lady named Colleen Quirk that was in her mid twenties and had delivered a baby girl named Kerry the day before Robbie was born. She was married to Tom Quirk who had been an Airman stationed at Kingsley when they met and they had an older boy named David. We became close friends and still receive Christmas cards and letters from them after all these years. The Quirks were Catholic and eventually have about 8 children I believe.
Around the time Robbie was born I got a call from Donna late one night and she told me that my brother-in-law Larry Sircy had been killed. As bad as Larry was I was shocked at the news. It is sad when someone dies when their life is so screwed up. but I had mixed emotions about it. I felt a sense of relief because death had done for Donna what she refused to do for herself. It had removed him from her life. While we were in Oregon Larry, Donna, my nephew Larry Jr. and my niece Aundrea had moved to St. Louis. One night in St. Louis Larry had been drinking for much of the day and on his way home he ran head-on into a car on an s curve. One of the two men in the other car was also killed and it was determined that all three men had been drinking. The wreck occurred at low speed but they weren't wearing seat belts and Larry died instantly because his chest was crushed by the steering column. The driver of the other car walked to a nearby yard where he collapsed and died. The passenger was seriously injured but lived. Donna was a widow at the age of 23, with two small children and a child on the way. The sad thing about Larry was the sheer waste. He had so much talent and personality that if he had used it for good there is no telling how far he could have gone in life.
Just a few months earlier I learned that my cousin Judy Brown had nearly died after being hit head on by a drunk driver near Decatur Alabama. They were on their way to Columbus Air Force Base in Mississippi where her husband was stationed in the Air Force. It was raining when a car crossed the yellow line on a two lane highway. Judy and her husband were wearing lap belts but shoulder harnesses were not standard then. She was sitting on the passenger side when the impact drove the hood of their car through the windshield, striking her in the head. Judy received severe head trauma and her arm was shattered. Her husbands jaw was broken and his front teeth were knocked out and as it happens far too many times the drunk driver was unhurt. Judy and her husband were rushed to a local hospital where she was given no hope for survival. Uncle Doug and Aunt Catherine were in Nashville but were told not to hurry because she would probably be dead before they arrived according to the doctor. Miraculously she survived the night to the amazement of everyone. Judy was in a coma for about a month and her parents were told not to get their hopes up. When she was stable they were able to transport her back to Nashville. The doctor there said that she would probably have permanent brain damage but over time Judy made a remarkable recovery and today you wouldn't know that she was ever injured.
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Robbie Segroves
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| Debbie, Robbie, Me and Janet Blevins |
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| Robbie, Debbie, Janet & Tom Blevins |
I was promoted to Airmen 1st Class and we were finally able to move to a better apartment. This was in the late Spring and early summer of 1969. Ceronie Robinson told me about the new apartment. He was a Security Policeman on my Flight from Atlanta and we became good friends. Ceronie, his wife Paulette, and their little girl lived a few doors down from us. He gave me rides to and from work when my car wasn't running, which was most of the time. When I first met Ceronie he was driving a Nash Rambler and we were driving near the Base one day when we were pulled over by two Oregon State Troopers. He wasn't doing anything wrong and he wasn't speeding. The troopers made him get out of the car and it was like they were looking for something to ticket him for. They told him to blow his horn but it wasn't working and they gave him a ticket for that. I can't say for sure that these cops pulled him over because he was Black but I have never had anything like that happen to me. On another occasion we were out for a ride on one of our breaks when he spotted a car sitting in a yard with a for sale sign on it. I sat in the car while he walked up to get a closer look. A White man ran out to the car and angrily jerked the For Sale sign off, saying that the car was not for sale. Being from the South I had seen segregation and systemic racism. This incident awakened me to the fact that racism wasn't just confined to the South. Malcolm X said that people need to stop picking on the South. When you cross the Canadian border you are in the South. Except for the Democrat party, I do not believe that systemic racism exists in American society today but in 1969 we were not where we needed to be as a society.
Besides Ceronie and his wife we met two other couples. They were Bill and Sharon Wilson and Sonny and Amy Henson. Both Bill and Sonny were aircraft mechanics. Bill was a nut and kept us laughing all the time. There was a string of apartments where we lived along with the Robinson's who were a couple of doors down and the Henson's who lived on the other side of them. Bill and Sharon lived in a trailer that they rented from our landlord across the yard from us. One day Ceronie and I walked over to their trailer to introduce ourselves. The door to their trailer was open and as we knocked we could hear Bill and Sharon laughing and giggling in the shower together. Embarrassed, we walked back to our apartments but later the embarrassment was theirs when we told them what had happened. Bill and Sharon were from a little town called Everts in Harlan County Kentucky and it was right in the middle of Appalachia. They had a thick Southern accent and Sharon reminded me of Loretta Lynn because she referred to her mother as mommy. The yard in front of our apartments was used for some pretty wild football games. Especially the day after a heavy downpour when we played in about six inches of standing water.
About this time we met two young men who were Mormon elders. They were Elder Brown and Elder Stevens who lived in the apartment next to ours. In the Mormon church young men would leave their homes and commit themselves to a two year ministry where they would ride around on bicycles trying to convert people into the Mormon church. They tried very hard to convert us but I just wasn't buying it. I wasn't a Christian then but the Holy Spirit was protecting me from this false theology I think. Nevertheless we became good friends. They would come over for dinner and we would play games. All of our friends that lived in the apartments would get together for board games like Monopoly and Aggravation or card games like Rook. I found that friendships formed in the military were some of the closest that I ever had. We were far away from home and all in the same boat. On July 20th 1969 we all gathered around our black and white TV set which was bigger and better than our old GE set and watched in amazement as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moons surface with the immortal words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind". I was 11 when Kennedy set the goal of putting a man on the moon before the decade of the 1960's was over and 19 when it actually happened. This proved to me that America is capable of doing anything it sets it's mind to but too many young people have not learned that lesson today.
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| My Mormon friends as the Clyde Barrow Gang |
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| Elder Brown clowning |
In August, Debbie's sister Sylvia, her husband Jimmy and their daughters Tammy, Connie, and Carol visited us from Nashville. To this point none our family had seen Robbie except in pictures. We visited Crater Lake for the second time but the snow was gone and it was much more accessible. After they left I was finally able to buy a black Volkswagen beetle and we were able to see some of the Oregon countryside for a change. On a 72 hour break I got a wild hair to drive over to the Oregon coast but we only made it to Grants Pass and Ashland Oregon before we decided to head back to Klamath Falls. The coast was further away than we thought. There was a beautiful park in Ashland and a Shakespearean theater where they held a yearly festival. That September I had a couple weeks of leave and we flew home. There was a layover in San Francisco and then we flew on to Dallas for another layover. From there we flew to Memphis. Robbie was six months old now and he was getting very cranky from the long flight. The stewardesses were great and took turns walking him up and down the aisle. From Memphis we were only in the air about twenty minutes before we landed in Nashville. We went home primarily because the family, with the exception of Sylvia, had never seen Robbie. As expected everybody was crazy about him and it was great to be home.
I don't remember much about that leave but the thing that stands out in my mind was the first prime time college football game at night between Alabama and Ole Miss on October 4th 1969. The Alabama quarterback was Scott Hunter and the Ole Miss quarterback was Archie Manning. It was one of the most exciting college football games I have ever seen in my life. Both quarterbacks were incredible but I have never seen anything like Archie Manning. He was all over the backfield that night running from pursuers who could never seem to catch him. Manning completed 33-of-52 passes for 436 yards and two touchdowns. He ran 15 times for 104 yards and three touchdowns. Hunter finished 22-of-29 passes for 300 yards and one touchdown. The final score was Alabama 33, Ole Miss 32. Archie Manning deserved a career every bit as successful as his sons Peyton and Eli but all during his prime years he was saddled with a horrible team, the New Orleans Saints. He was a classy guy, loyal to his team, and he raised three great boys.
All too soon our leave was over and we flew back to Oregon. Poor little Robbie was sicker than a dog from the change in climate. He was coughing his head off and running a fever. There was an overnight layover in San Francisco and Debbie called her Aunt Helen who lived there. She and her husband Frank came to the airport and picked us up. On the way to their house we got a quick night time tour of San Francisco and we can say that we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge but we couldn't tell much about it at night. When we arrived at their house the back part was heavily damaged by an earthquake that had occurred the day before. The next morning it was really foggy as we made our way to the airport.
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| This Confederate battle flag went with me everywhere I traveled in the military |
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| Archie Manning |
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| Apollo 11 |
The winter of 1969-70 was almost as bad as the previous winter. I remember getting off work one morning and I couldn't find my VW. It was almost completely buried in a snow drift. I finally spotted a black circle about a foot in diameter, which was the top of my car. After about an hour I was able to dig it out of the snow and drive it home. Volkswagen's are great in the snow because of the weight of the engine being in the rear of the car. My Mormon neighbors asked me if I wanted to go coyote hunting one weekend. There was a bounty supposedly being paid on coyotes. The Mormons for some weird reason were not allowed to use guns but it was okay to use bows and arrows to hunt. I rented a 30-30 Winchester from the base recreation office and our landlord agreed to let us hunt on his ranch in the mountains. Elder Brown, Elder Stephens, an older member of their church, and myself, set out to hunt coyotes on a cold, cloudy day. There was snow on the ground as we climbed up over a ridge, but we weren't expecting any more snow that day. We planned to follow our tracks in order to find our way back to the ranch. We had no luck finding coyotes but I did manage to shoot at a Jack Rabbit.
It began to snow very hard and we realized that we might be in trouble. The snow was covering our tracks very quickly and it was about knee deep and getting deeper. I began to panic a little when I realized that we were lost and it was getting dark. It seemed like we were walking in circles. We expected to see something familiar after climbing to the top of every nearby ridge but it would always end up being a dead end. I seriously began to think that we might have to spend the night wandering around in knee deep snow in a blinding blizzard. It was completely dark when we finally reached the top of a ridge and there below us was the lights of Klamath Falls. I felt total relief as we walked down the ridge and found our way back to the ranch house. Our landlord and his wife made us very comfortable and we were fed a great meal next to a roaring fireplace. It was a great end to a very harrowing day.
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| In front of our apartment |
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| Near our apartment |
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| Notice my black VW Beetle in the background |
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| Before the blizzard started |
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| This was the terrain that we were lost in |
I was walking my post in the alert area in early December 1969. The sun had just set and as I turned back toward a mountain range silhouetted in the distance I saw a beam of light. The light suddenly arched upward at an angle and the light morphed into a bluish green laser beam. The point of the beam appeared to split the sky and a cone of light formed on either side of the laser beam. The further it traveled the wider the cone of light became. It was as bright as day inside the cone and I was in awe. For a minute I thought this might be the Second Coming. Off in the distance a C-47 Goony Bird and an F-106 suddenly appeared on the horizon and the laser beam disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared. Where the laser beam had been a fluorescent trail of bright green smoke lingered in the sky for a long time. I was standing there for a moment with my mouth wide open and when I was able to come my senses I almost radioed CSC and let them know what had happened. I hesitated because I thought to myself, what if I was the only one who had seen this thing. They might think that I was crazy. and everyone else on duty that night must have been thinking the same thing because there was no chatter on the radio. After I was relieved I overheard another cop talking about it and I told him that I had seen the light too. Like me he had decided not to call it in.
I read an article in the paper later in the week headlined, (Railroad Men Spot UFO). It read: Three Southern Pacific Company railroad men saw an unidentified flying object early last Friday night near Kirk about 40 miles north of Klamath Falls. "I'll tell you, it gives you the creeps" Noel Cailloutte, the conductor on a train with 106 cars moving southwest toward Klamath Falls. John Burgoyne, the engineer, apparently saw it first. he called my attention to it, Cailloute stated. "It was a bright light heading north. It had a long, narrow beam. It was moving diagonally across the tracks", the conductor reported. Cailloute was unable to estimate the length of the light. He did say, though, that it was "at least 5,000 feet high". The light "crossed the tracks in front of us. I've never seen anything as bright as that. It looked like a laser beam." Cailloute stated. According to Cailloute, he watched the light for at least two minutes. While looking at the light, Cailloute said, he also saw the lights of an airplane traveling toward Klamath Falls. Then' "all at once, all of the lights went off", the conductor remarked. Eugene Narramore, the flagman on the crew, was the third person to see the lights. The United States Air Force in Klamath Falls, when contacted this morning, was unable to verify the reported occurrence. This account of the UFO was remarkably similar to what I saw. The air traffic control tower was between me and the UFO. They had to have seen it. A few days later another article stated that the UFO was a missile launched from Vandenburg AFB in California. Whatever it was, it was the strangest thing that I have ever seen.
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| A December 2017 sighting of a rocket from Vandenburg in california |
We spent our first Christmas together as a family that December of 1969. I can't remember much but it was a much happier Christmas than the year before. Robbie was getting older and was doing a lot more. We had two bedrooms but I can't remember a time that his bed wasn't in our room. Many mornings I would wake up with him looking down on us as we slept. He looked so cute standing there with a big smile on his face. Robbie was a good baby and he very seldom cried. He was a big baby and would get very heavy when we were carrying him anywhere. Debbie and I would fight over who was going hold him when we would go shopping but I would usually lose out.
In December 1969 I won an award for Security Policeman of the month and was presented with a trophy. About this time our unit transitioned from the F-101 Voodoo to the F-106 Delta Dart. The F-106, unlike the F-101, had a single afterburner. One morning I got off of a midnight shift and had just arrived at our apartment when we had a base recall. Thinking that it was a routine when I arrived, I could quickly tell, by the serious looks on everyone's faces, that this was different. A friend told me that we were involved in a real situation but nobody knew why. Our Flight chief came in and said that we could not call home and we were confined to base until further notice. This alert was worldwide. We were going to be combined into two Flights working twelve hour shifts. Our augmentees were also called out to bolster base security. Augmentees were Airmen from organizations outside of Security Police. For example it could be cooks, administration clerks etc. We were in DEFCON 3, which means (Defense Condition 3). DEFCON 3: Means an increase in force readiness above that required for normal readiness. Air Force ready to mobilize in 15 minutes - this is the first truly crap is about to get real phase of the DEFCONS. Code Name: (ROUND HOUSE). There are 5 DEFCONS and DEFCON 5: Is the lowest state of readiness. This is the normal state of readiness in peacetime. Code name: (FADE OUT).
Our unit was on high alert and all of our aircraft were to be uploaded with nukes no later than midnight. When I left the house I kissed Debbie goodbye, thinking that I would only be there a few hours. Now I was being told that I couldn't contact her and as far as I knew we were on the brink of nuclear war. We were on alert for about ten days and luckily I got the 0700 to 1900 shift. We never dropped below DEFCON 3. During the Cuban Missile Crisis we went to DEFCON 2, which means war is imminent. Armed Forces ready to deploy and engage in less than 6 hours - this is the highest level ever reached in history. Code Name: (FAST PACE). DEFCON 1: Nuclear war is imminent. Code Name: (COCKED PISTOL). To this day I do not know why we were on alert and I can talk to veterans who were in the service during that time and they all remember it but nobody knows why it happened.
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| Robbie and Kerry Quirk |
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| The F-106 Delta Dart |
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| The F-106 firing a Genie missile |
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| Security Policeman of the Month Award |
By January 1970 I had been at Kingsley Field for about fifteen months. Most of the men in our unit were going to or coming back from Vietnam. I heard the many war stories about Vietnam and I felt like I was missing out on something. I talked to Debbie a few times about volunteering but she wanted me to wait for orders. It seemed pretty inevitable that they would come soon enough. The men in my unit were going to places like Da Nang, Bien Hoa, Phan Rang, Cam Ranh Bay and Ton Son Nhut. Vietnam veterans stationed at Kingsley would tell me about the occasional rocket and mortar attacks they had endured. A Black Sergeant named Kersee, from Clarksville Tennessee, told me how the bullets kicked up the dirt around him as he ran ammunition between bunkers during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Out of the blue my friend Tom Blevins received orders for Canada. I didn't know until a few years ago that one of the Airmen in our unit had written his Congressman complaining that too many men in our unit were going to Vietnam. Tom told me that this is why he got orders for Canada. and around January 1970 I received orders for TUSLOG Detachment 93 at Erhac Turkey. Mike Cannon, a friend from Los Angeles, was also going to Erhac and we would leave on May 31st 1970. About a month later another friend, Eric Erickson, from South Dakota, also got orders for Erhac. He would arrive in Turkey a few weeks after Mike and I. We were excited that the three of us would be stationed in Turkey together. Another friend, whose name I can't recall, got orders for Athens Greece. Not knowing about the congressional investigation I just assumed that Nixon's troop withdrawals were the reason that some of us were getting orders for places other than Vietnam.
Over the next few months I made preparations to leave Oregon and resettle my family in Nashville and I had to have something better than my VW Beetle to make the move. Over time I was able to buy a 1964 Chevy Impala and I loved that car because it was very roomy and such a smooth ride. It was the first dependable car that I had owned since my Chevy II. One night I pulled duty at the radar site at Keno. There was a railroad crossing in front of the base and I could hear the S.A.T. patrol radio that it had spotted a man lying in the road. The man's car had stalled on the tracks as a train was approaching and he was trying to run away when the train hit the car. The car spun around killing him instantly. When the local newspaper came out the next morning I was shocked to learn that the dead man was the salesman that had sold me my 1964 Impala.
In April we learned that the Apollo 13 astronauts were in big trouble. The world held it's breath as NASA worked feverishly to bring the astronauts home. When I was off I was glued to the TV. I was proud of my country for working so hard to get these guys home safely and I was bursting with pride as I watched their capsule land in the Pacific on April 17th, 1970. By then I was officially processed out at Kingsley. As soon as the astronauts were down I heard a roar of jet engines as our F-106's from Kingsley flew in tight formation over Klamath Falls in tribute to the Apollo 13 astronauts.
I rented a U-Haul luggage carrier and we packed our car to the gills. It was tough saying goodbye to all our friends. Ceronie Robinson got orders for Vietnam had already left for home. Tom Blevins had left for Canada and Bill Wilson and Sonny Henson were at work the day we left but Sharon and Amy were there to see us off. It was a sad goodbye but we were eager to get home again and we had a very long trip ahead of us. At least this time we wouldn't be trapped on a bus for three days. I put extra water and oil in the trunk because we were going across a stretch of barren desert from Lakeland Oregon to Winemucca Nevada which is 142 miles. When we reached Lakeland, which is on the Oregon, Nevada border, there was a sign that said (Last chance for gas). We filled up and for that time the gas was expensive. The highway that we traveled was two lane until we reached Winemucca. Along the way we passed through several herds of cattle being driven by cowboys. The area was so barren that I was sweating bullets until we finally made it to civilization. About midway we stopped at a single gas station at Denio Nevada that also had a sign that read (Last chance for gas). In that whole 142 mile trip I recall passing one car.
I wanted to ride through Reno Nevada, which was out of the way and we tried to drive there but it soon became evident that it was going to take up too much time. We found an out of the way motel and the next day as we headed toward Salt Lake City where we saw the Bonneville Salt Flats and Great Salt Lake. We also saw the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. It was a different time. Seat belts weren't required in cars and Robbie stood up in the seat between us for pretty much the whole way home. I averaged 90 miles per hour on recapped tires which wasn't too smart. Debbie didn't want to ride after dark so we spent the night in Salt Lake City. Bright and early the next day we set out and passed through Wyoming and spent that night in Denver. From Denver we passed through Kansas and stopped for the night in Columbia Missouri. The next day we drove over to St.Louis and from there to Nashville I was ready to pull my hair out after leaving St. Louis. This was before I-24 was finished and it was a curvy two-lane highway all the way. Finally, we were back in Tennessee and to the good old heat and humidity of the South, which I love in the Spring, and the smell of freshly cut grass. There is a view of Nashville at about where I-24 joins I-65, on the north side, where the Nashville skyline comes into full view. For Debbie and I there was no better sight in the world.
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| Apollo 13 landing |
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| Apollo 13 astronauts |
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| Leaving Klamath Falls |
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Robbie was born at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital and the Air Force paid for everything but 25.00 dollars. I was so broke that I had to pay it off in monthly payments of 5.00 dollars a month. While Debbie was in the hospital she met a local lady named Colleen Quirk that was in her mid twenties and had delivered a baby girl named Kerry the day before Robbie was born. She was married to Tom Quirk who had been an Airman stationed at Kingsley when they met and they had an older boy named David. We became close friends and still receive Christmas cards and letters from them after all these years. The Quirks were Catholic and eventually have about 8 children I believe.
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