I Think

Got this email today. I remember the sender but we moved in different circles aboard ship. The ship itself was given to Turkey and scrapped for parts.

USS McKean Scuttlebutt January 2017
JB
J B-----






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Today, 11:19 AM
scuttlebutt 2017 Jan.pdf
247 KB

Greetings Fellow Shipmates!

The 2017 USS McKean Reunion Is Only Months Away; September 22-24, 2017 In Minneapolis, Minnesota. Make Your Hotel Reservations Now and Send Us Your Registration Form. Details are in the attached Scuttlebutt. The reunion information will also be added to our website shortly.

Hope to see you all there!

John B------
FTG-2, 64-66

Is this typical with the Navy? I'm not aware of the Air Force having reunions.
I did keep contact with one guy that I served with in Morocco in the late fifties.

There was something special about service on that ship. It always had good morale, good success operating ( with the exception of hitting a submerged log one time). One of the officers on there for a time was technical adviser to the movie PT 109. I was told we had the best operating record on the west coast (unconfirmed). We were the sole escort to the Enterprise, coming back from Japan. Although my stint aboard that ship was undistinguished, being honest about it, I am proud to have been associated with it.

Same here. Never participated in any combat, but we were often put on alert to load those planes with conventional and nuclear weapons, and was complimented by the base commander at Travis AFB for our efficiency. He rewarded us with a few cases of beer. Also was commended at Walker AFB commander, General Kingsbery as Airman for six months for finding errors in our tech manuals.
Was proud of our son who also served in the Air Force, and made Major. He was a Weapon's Officer who directed pilots to their targets. He served two terms in Saudi Arabia.

When I was about to be released from service, I obtained my merchant marine document, inspired by the sight of the Card, docked near my ship. It seemed like a relatively tranquil occupation. Before I had opportunity to try for a job, I learned the Card had been blown up in the Gulf of Tonkin. I didn't really want that job after all.

I just googled this:
USNS Card, was sunk in 1964 by a mine placed by skin divers

http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/Biographies/Display/tabid/225/Article/106531/major-general-william-c-kingsbury.aspx

Distinguished gentleman , CI.

Yea. Did you see that? They were the only one capable of having nuclear weapons back in those days. I didn't know that.
When I was stationed there, we had B47s, B36s and B52s. (If my memory serves.)
During the 18 months or so that I was stationed there, I belonged to the Roswell little theater group, and we sponsored the state's Miss Beauty Pageant. That was fun. Never acted but did everything else including making the scenery.
One of the happiest day of my life was when I rode the bus off the base for the last time. It was freedom at last.
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/bases/Walker_AFB.htm
It was the first base ready for the atomic bomb.

Yes, sir.
We were outfitted for nukes, toward the end of my hitch, but we never knew if the missile we carried was a dummy or real. They gave me a forty five pistol to strap on when it was put through an exercise, which I thought odd, since I had never had training for those guns and never had fired one.

No discussion of Roswel can be complete without a description of the "flying saucer" that crashed there.

That's a funny story for me, because that was a mystery for me for many years after I left the Air Force.

We trained on 45s and 38s. We carried 38s when we worked on the flight line. We also trained on carbines in boot camp.

The only gun training I had was to fire ten 22 caliber rifle bullets. It was all over in five minutes. I guess because our ship was our weapon.

When stationed in New Mexico, a buddy and I used to go hunt for rabbits with 22's far away from any town. Saw more dead rabbits runned over by cars.

Another odd thing, they did not really care if I swam or not. I am unable to swim well, even today. For some reason, my body is too heavy to keep afloat for long. To test our swimming prowess, we were had to swim around the pool perimeter. I got almost two thirds around before sinking. They told me to go again. This time I got almost half way. The man wrote that I was a third class swimmer and the swimming part of boot camp was over.

On the other hand, my father and the pilot and the cameraman (John Craig)_flew over the center of Baker at Bikini, a first.

Have you ever read my posts?

We trained like they were all live bombs. The safety features on those bombs were brilliant. That's the reason there never was an accidental nuclear explosion.

Maybe he did as I did. I did not see your post before you posted your last.

For Christmas, my daughter and her husband gave me expanded movie channels. They had already given me cable last Christmas. I've watched a few movies I otherwise would have missed. So far I have not seen anything in all these channels about a show called Orange is the New Black. I am curious to check it out.