CHAPTER 18
MacDill AFB
1967-1969
We bought a house in Tampa at 4522 South Lois Avenue not too far from the main gate to MacDill AFB. (See figure 22.) I was assigned to the Communications Support Element (CSE) of Strike Command. Strike, like DCA was a joint command. Today it is called U.S. Central Command. Strike had all four services but CSE was made up of just Army and Air Force; there were no Navy or Marine personnel. Strike Command was established to coordinate military efforts in the event of hostilities in Africa or the Middle East. CSE was made up of a headquarters staff and two identical sub units in order to support two different contingencies at the same time. I was assigned as the training officer on the headquarters staff. Each of the two units was equipped with a variety of radio, telephone switchboards, teletype, crypto, and power generating equipment. All of this equipment was installed in trucks, trailers or vans and could be quickly loaded into aircraft for deployment overseas. (See figure 21.) Each unit also provided their own mess facilities, motor pool, and tents for offices and quarters.
We were continually conducting training exercises in order to be ready if we were sent on a real emergency. As a result I got to see places from Alaska to Mauritius Island (in the Indian Ocean) including Puerto Rico, Panama, Ethiopia, Italy, Congo, Germany, Brazil, Surinam, and a host of places in the continental U. S. Our most frequent place to visit was Avon Park bombing range, located in the Florida swamps about 100 miles east of MacDill. When we deployed there, we would drive but most other deployments were by C-130 aircraft.
Each of the CSE units had a set of communications equipment call the Joint Airborne Communications Center/Command Post (JACC/CP), commonly referred to as JACKPOT. JACKPOT was a limited version of all the other equipment in each unit. It had air-to-ground radio, long and short range ground-to-ground radio, telephone switchboard, teletype and crypto capabilities. It was mounted on four trailers. First, was the command post with the switchboard, teletype and crypto equipment in one end. Second was the radio van with all the transmitters and receivers. Third was a trailer with a turbine powered generator; the generator burned jet fuel and after landing we would defuel the aircraft into rubber bladders and he could go home. The last trailer carried the antenna equipment and air conditioners; the air conditioners were used to keep the radio and crypto equipment going. Unfortunately the tents the crew lived in were not air conditioned. It was manned by a crew of eleven including one officer. It was designed to just fit into a C-130 aircraft and all the radios except the ten kilowatt HF could be operated from there.
I have gone into some detail on JACKPOT because I became closely associated with it. The people at Strike decided there was a need for a third JACKPOT. Rather than unbalance the two CSE units it was decided to operate the third one directly out of the CSE headquarters. I was assigned as Officer in Charge (OIC) as an additional duty and it was called JACKPOT Charlie. The C-130s we flew in had special antennas installed so we could operate from the plane. We were instructed to brief the pilot before takeoff and tell him that if we turned the radio transmitters on we would let him know ahead of time because they had been known to interfere with the aircraft navigational systems. We usually just monitored our receivers and didn’t transmit unless there was a special need while in the air. One trip, just after takeoff, the pilot sent for me to come up to the cockpit. He was mad at me and told me to get our transmitters turned off because he couldn’t talk to his copilot on the intercom; he said we put the whole aircraft in danger on takeoff. I told him our radios were not on and I noticed the copilot’s headset jack wasn’t completely plugged in. I reached down and pushed the jack all the way in. His intercom cleared up and the pilot never said another word to me for the whole trip.
On another trip I gave the pilot and whole flight crew reason to be mad at me but as far as I know they never knew who to blame. We had gone on a JACKPOT deployment to Alaska. Just before loading the plane for the return trip I bought a five pound package of frozen crab at the Elmendorf AFB commissary. I thought we would all enjoy it when we got back to Florida. After we got airborne I took the frozen package, crawled as far back in the tip of the tail as I could and left the crab there because it was cold in that area. About half way home I checked it and it was frozen harder than when we left. When we got home we had the usual hassle of untying the equipment and getting it off the aircraft. We finally finished about midnight and went home. The next morning I remembered my crab. The aircraft had long since departed for their home base in South Carolina so I decided to donate the crab to who ever found it. It was out of sight back in the tail, but I’m sure it warmed up fast while the C-130 was sitting on the ground. They might not have been able to see it but I’ll bet they could follow their nose to it after a few days.
One of the more interesting JACKPOT deployments was not a training exercise; we were sent to the Mauritius Islands in the Indian Ocean to provide communications support for the Apollo-9 space shot. Apollo-9 didn’t leave earth orbit but it was the first manned flight of the lunar module. All went well with the shot except one of the astronauts was sick in orbit. The mission of the JACKPOT crew was to provide communications support in the event the Apollo crew was forced to land in the Indian Ocean. Fortunately everything went as planned and we didn’t get directly involved. It’s probably a good thing; we seemed to have an inordinate amount of trouble with our HF radio equipment. We would get one thing repaired and something else would go out. We were on the air more than we were off, but we were off more than we wanted to be.
On the way to Mauritius we stopped for refueling and aircrew rest in Surinam, South America. There had been a mechanical failure on the C-130 and we were stuck there several days while waiting for parts to be flown in. Since we had crypto material aboard we had to leave one of our crew there all the time as guard. We stayed in a hotel that had slot machines in the lobby; the machines used U.S. coins. Silver coins had recently been taken out of circulation at home but that was all you saw in Surinam. One of the men hit a jackpot on the quarter machine and it paid out all in silver. He really felt good. After the plane was repaired we flew to Recife, Brazil for fuel. Out of all the places I have ever been, Recife is the only place where no one spoke English. We ate at a little café at the airport and to this day I have no idea what I ordered. From there we went on to Kinshasa, Congo and Nairobi for more aircrew rest and refueling. We flew over a lot of water going and coming and never saw any ships in the ocean until we passed between Africa and Madagascar. Then we saw a solid line of ships, some going north and some going south; the line reached from horizon to horizon. Our last stop was Mauritius.
While in Mauritius we didn’t have to sleep in our tents. The government put us up in a hotel not too far from our equipment. We also ate in the hotel; the food was better than the rooms. I ate some form of lobster almost every night, trying to make up for the Alaskan crab I had lost on the previous trip. The rooms were a series of little cabins around the dining facilities. They were really quite nice with just one flaw; they had a thatch roof. Actually there is nothing wrong with a thatch roof; it seemed to be 100% water proof. The problem was rats; they lived in the thatch. The roof was supported by open rafters and you could watch the rats running overhead if you would sit still. We could have set up our tents if we wanted, but the rats were better than tents by a long shot.
On the way home we stopped again in Nairobi and Kinshasa for refueling and air crew rest. We stayed in a big hotel there and I had a nice salad. That was a mistake. I’ve had diarrhea before but never like this; my pucker string turned into mush. Before we left MacDill the flight surgeon had packed us a medical kit that had some pill in it for just such an emergency. I sent one of the men out to the plane to get the kit and in a matter of minutes I had gained control of the situation again. I wish I had made note of just what that pill was because it was effective. After stops in Recife and Trinidad (where I bought some topaz) we came home. In all, we were gone about a month.
I can’t even remember where we had been on another deployment that comes to mind, but the trip home is vivid. This was not a JACKPOT mission; it involved several aircraft and the one I was on had a 6x6 truck and a couple of jeeps with trailers. Everything was going fine until we approached MacDill AFB on the way home. There were thunderstorms in the area; we circled while waiting for them to clear. As the storms built up in the afternoon heat, the air got rougher and rougher. It soon became evident that the truck had been tied down incorrectly. Instead of chaining the axels to the aircraft, the truck frame had been chained to the floor of the plane. When we would hit a pocket of rough air that pitched the plane up, the springs for the truck suspension would compress and the chains holding the truck down would become slack. Then the plane would then pitch down and the truck would try to hit the ceiling. The chains would snap taunt and it sounded like the floor was about to be pulled out of the C-130. I’m sure it was just a matter of time until something broke and the thought of a truck bouncing around loose was not very pleasant. We were all sitting with our backs to the outside of the plane and our feet under the truck. It wasn’t long until the storms cleared and we landed without incident. After that, we knew to tie the trucks down by the axles.
Due to the nature of our mission, our commander decided it would be good training for everyone in CSE to go on a 25 mile forced march. In the event we were ever caught behind enemy lines it might come in handy. As training officer, I was the one that got to do all the planning for the march. We did a ten and fifteen mile warm up first, and ended up carrying a 50 pound pack for 25 miles. We started at six o’clock in the morning, went through the south part of Tampa, around the south tip of the peninsula where MacDill is located, and ended up in front of the Strike Headquarters Building at about four PM. If I remember right, there were about 600 of us in CSE and it was an impressive sight to see that many men in a line. There was a field full of horses on the south side of the base used for recreational riding and we trooped right through their pasture. I had arranged this with the stable manager but I should have asked him to put the horses up while we marched through. They must have been a bunch of old cavalry horses because they really got excited when they saw us; they put their tails in the air and ran in circles until the last man cleared the pasture. They didn’t run into anyone but I thought they were going to at times. A few people dropped out but most of us made it. I didn’t have trouble until the last 200 yards. The bottom of each of my feet broke out in one big blister from toe to heel. I finished the march, but if it had been one mile longer, I might not have. Our commander gave everyone the next day off, including those that didn’t finish (their shame was considered punishment enough).
Many of us were sent to Eglin AFB for a short survival school. After a few hours in the classroom, we were taken out in the bay by boat, put in a life vest and parachute harness which was tied to the boat with a rope. They would drag us behind the boat and we had to get out of the harness and swim to a one man raft that had also been thrown overboard. If you didn’t arch your back just right the boat pulled you under water---deep. After we got in our raft we had to paddle to an eleven man raft and climb in it; eleven of us spent the night there. I can honestly say it was the most miserable night of my life. We were cold and wet and it should have been called a five man raft. Our legs would cramp, one man would move and the whole load would have to rearrange our legs. When morning finally came, we paddled ashore and had to march to an area where we set up a camp and waited for rescue. We made sleeping bags out of parachutes and stuffed them with dry leaves. It was a real pleasure to sleep in them after the night in the raft. We made a fish net out of the parachute cords but couldn’t catch any thing. I killed a small snake and that was our only food for two days. When we butchered the snake, he had eaten a coral snake and I still have his skin someplace. We were there several days and ate very little. We were camped on a little creek about ten feet wide. When it was time to leave we were given four-man rubber rafts and told to float down the creek several miles where we would be picked up; I think there were four different rafts. The raft in front of the one I was in snagged on an underwater log; as we came up to them we looked right above their heads and there was a snake with a head the size of my fist on an overhanging limb. Our raft bumped theirs and they went on in the current. The only man in the whole group that couldn’t swim was in our raft; when he saw the snake, he jumped out. When he jumped, our raft bounced right over the snag. The water was shoulder deep and the current was swift but we finally got him back in the raft. If we had found that snake when we first got there we could all have eaten our fill several times.
We went to the Manhattan Avenue Church of Christ while in Tampa. I missed a lot because I was out of town so much. When I was gone Nell would take Randy and Ronda. They were growing up fast. Ronda never did like to eat her beans until one day I told her horses liked beans. She was horse crazy and after that she would clean her plate. Another time Ronda said something to a neighbor about being part Indian. The neighbor said, “Oh, how much?” Without batting an eye Ronda put her hand across her chest and said, “From here up.” I’ve been told my Grandma Cook was part Indian ever since I was little but am not sure if that is true or not.
Sometimes we would take the kids to Gandy Bridge, which went across Tampa Bay to St. Petersburg, and fish. We never caught any big fish but we always caught a few small ones. We could see the devil rays swimming but they never bothered our hooks. One day all four of us rented a small boat and were fishing in Tampa Bay. We caught a small sand shark which looks like a hammerhead. Ronda pulled her line in and wouldn’t fish any more. She said she was afraid she would catch the mama. We took about a weeks leave one time and rented a cabin on the Gulf at Indian Rocks Beach. While there I found a rock about the size of a silver dollar with the image of the sun scratched in it; I guess that is why they call it Indian Rocks Beach. We played in the surf and sand with the kids. I made a little jig and Nell and I wound my Tesla coil while on this beach.
From our back yard in Tampa we could watch the missiles as they were launched from Cape Canaveral on the east coast of Florida. We were listening to a launch on the radio one time and several seconds after liftoff they said the missile disappeared in the clouds. It wasn’t cloudy at Tampa and about that time we could see it coming up over the horizon. We watched it quite a while before it disappeared.
It was while we were stationed in Florida that we started buying the Texas farm from Mom and Dad. They had agreed to sell the northwest half to me and the southeast half to Darwin. I had a $100 per month allotment taken out of my pay and sent to the folks. I was to pay the rest of it when I got out of the Air Force. I was to get possession (with the exception of their house) at the end of 1977. I know the allotment helped Mom and Dad out a lot and they did me a favor by selling at the price they did.
I was promoted to major before leaving MacDill. In March of 1969 I got orders to report to Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio in June. This was a voluntary assignment and I could have turned it down, but I was tired of being gone from home so much so decided to take it. I took a long leave and we visited everyone in Texas before going to Ohio.
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