AFOSISA Convention September 5-8, 2018

There will be a large number of criminal investigators and counterintelligence specialists in Charleston from Sept. 5-8, when the Association of Former OSI Special Agents (AFOSISA) holds its annual convention.

The Association brings together former USAF service members and civilian employees of the USAF Office of Special Investigations in friendship, and common effort between former and present AFOSI Special Agents in the common interest of promoting the security of the U.S. Air Force.

The Air Force Office of Special Investigations has been the Air Force’s major investigative service since Aug. 1, 1948. The agency reports to the Inspector General, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. AFOSI provides professional criminal investigations and counterintelligence services to commanders of all Air Force activities. 

Seventy years ago the AFOSI was the creation of one man, Joseph F. Carroll, a special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover. He conducted a study of the newly established Air Force and presented a plan to Secretary Stuart Symington for an Air Force version of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Congress commissioned Carroll a Colonel in the Air Force and he came on active duty as a Brigadier General. 

He was initially disdained as “that cop” by other Air Force generals, but after his personal investigation proved to the House Armed Services Committee, that a lengthy anonymous letter attacking Secretary Symington and the first Chief of Staff, Hoyt S. Vandenburg’s “integrity, patriotism, and morality,” was the scurrilous and fabricated work of a public relations officer in the U. S. Navy hierarchy, he and OSI could do no wrong. 

I was a Special Agent with OSI from 1953 to 1959. This service played a major role in developing my post-1959 professional career and I am indebted to the service for the training and experience gained in this vital work helping to protect the Air Force.

The convention will offer golf excursions, tours of Charleston, a dinner cruise and closing banquet, program and dance, as well as a business meeting.

Salute to Matthew - Our Family Airman

I hosted a pizza party on Monday, April 16, 2018, in the common room at my apartment house in Mt.Pleasant for family and a couple of guests to honor my grandson, Airman First Class Matthew Godbold, USAF, son of my daughter Wynn and her husband Rett. Matthew is home in Myrtle Beach on leave from his service on Okinawa. This is his first home leave in about 18 months.

Matthew continues a family tradition of USAF service. I was in the Air Force (1951-1959); his grandmother (my late wife) served from 1951 to 1954 and his uncle James served four years in the 1970s. 

(Somewhere along the line my oldest son Frank, and two of my brothers went astray and were United States Marines.)

As usually happens, everyone was snapping pictures and I was no exception. Here are some snapshots from the happy event (some pictures have been removed from the original post at the request of the participants.)

 Matthew laughs at something his smiling Uncle Frank just said. 

Leaking sensitive government information

President Trump has pledged his administration will get to the bottom of alleged leaks of information coming out of the government and put stop to this practice. He is not the first president to stake out this position, particularly when it puts him in a bad light.  Not only presidents but cabinet officers, senior government officials, Generals, and Admirals, also have made the promise to “get to the bottom of this” and send someone to prison. Much of this is bombast to placate the public. 

Many leaks from the government are planned, well-thought out, desirable, and often serve an official purpose. An official can leak something and if the public outcry is against it, the official’s identity, reputation, sanity, and job are not at stake. Masters of the convenient leak are found in the executive branch of government and the Congress. Supporting all these officials are thousands of workers from attorneys to file clerks who may also leak information for various reasons. Leaks have occurred since the Founding Fathers gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to form a more perfect union. 

In 1953, I was a young airman in the USAF and assigned as the senior clerk in the Sabotage & Espionage Branch, Counterintelligence Division, HQ, USAF Office of Special Investigations, (OSI). There were six officers serving under the Branch Chief, a Lt. Col. We had two civilian secretaries. We all shared a rectangular office with four desks lined up on one side and five on the other side. Conversations among the officers were open affairs. 

These were the days when hardly a week went by that muckraking columnist Drew Pearson didn’t publish something that someone in the government fed him. Whether it was true, accurate or fair, did not matter to Pearson.

One day a particularly inaccurate and offensive Drew Pearson column dealing with Air Force business appeared in print and the matter came to the attention of OSI. Senior Air Force officials were furious and characterized the story as a mixture of bad information, half truths, and blatant inaccuracies. Three officials in the Air Force were suspected of being the source who leaked to Pearson. 

A plan was hatched by the officers in the S&E Branch. It called for putting together a classified report to be circulated to the three suspects with minor variations in each suspect’s copy. The fabricated report would be close to reality and the type of story Pearson would jump at. Based upon what Pearson published it would be highly possible to identify the source based on the variation revealed.

The plan was worked and re-worked and ready to be put in play. Appropriate officials in the hierarchy of OSI and the Pentagon were briefed. Then the word came down from on high. Scuttle the operation. No one wanted to learn the identity of the leaker.  

Click here for the complete blog.

Click here to comment.

Off we go into the wild blue yonder...

One of my grandsons left for Air Force basic training at Lackland Air Fore Base in Texas yesterday.  His family had a launch party for him on Sunday, with about 30 friends and family members on hand to wish him well. I did not make the tips but earlier sent him a letter expressing my pride in his enlistment and wishing him well. This is that letter:

March 20, 2016 

Dear Matthew,

When you go to bed next Sunday night, Easter 2016, you will close a chapter in the book of your young life. On Monday, March 28, you will turn a page and begin to write the next chapter entitled,  My Air Force Life. 

What you write will depend on many things, not the least of which is the interest you take in the new and exciting world you will discover around you. When I entered the Air Force, also on a Monday, April 21, 1951, it was a major eye-opener for me. Like you I had lived all of my life in one town surrounded by family and friends whose lives were much like mine. But when I boarded the train all this changed. Family stayed behind, friends scurried around some where, and I was with new faces who had different backgrounds and histories. But, before long we were a small part of a large team: the USAF.

I served the Air Force well and it did well by me. You will get out of it what you bring to it and what you put into it. On that basis I know you will do well and this new chapter will be filled with memories you will cherish forever. Be true to yourself, your fellow Airmen, your superiors and your country. Be proud of the uniform you will wear and remember the sacrifices of thousands who have gone before you and built the finest Air Force in the world.  They have left you with a heavy charge to carry on the traditions.

I am proud to be your Grandfather. You are a fine young man and your late Grandmother Mary, who also served in the Air Force, would be as proud of you as I am.

God Bless you, Matthew, may He keep you safe and strong. With you in the Air Force, I know our country will always be safe and free.

Love from Grandpa

Click for complete blog.

Send comments to: arch@archibald99.com

The Overcoat: Stolen, Worn, Gone

A film editing error

A couple of week sago I went to see Bridge of Spies, a film based on factual events recounting the swap of convicted Soviet Spy Rudolph Abel for U.S. U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers. The film stars Tom Hanks in the role of James Donovan, a New York Attorney, who is pressed into defending Abel when he is caught by the FBI, and is later enlisted by the CIA to negotiate the swap. The time is the late fifties and early sixties: the early days of the late and unlamented Cold War. 

Over the weekend, I bought a DVD copy of the film to add to my collection of such films. Last night I viewed it again,

As the story develops, in 1962, Donovan (Hanks) is on his way to the Soviet Embassy in East Berlin in bitter cold weather when he is stripped of his overcoat by some street thugs. 

In the Embassy he talks with a man who claims to be only a Second Secretary, but we learn later is the KGB chief in Germany, who makes fun of the lost coat. He gives Donovan the address of an East German lawyer named Wolfgang Vogel, representing an East German woman who claims to be the wife of Abel. 

In the meeting with Vogel, Donovan is wearing his stolen overcoat. Later when he is back in the CIA safe house nursing a cold, sipping tea, and wrapped in a blanket he asks the CIA chief to get him a coat since he lost his own doing “spy stuff.”  For the rest of the film he wears a new coat. 

Obviously, as is often the case, scenes were short out of sequence to be later put together in the editing process, and something like this should have been caught by the editors and the scene probably re-shot.  It doesn’t materially affect the fine film that Steven Spielberg has produced but it is an interesting oddity. 

Mark Rylance plays the role of Abel, and for his performance won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor this past Sunday night.

The Abel for Powers swap was only one incident in the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, but this exciting film helps us to understand the dangerous times the Cold War presented for the world. 

Click here for the complete blog.

Send comments to: arch@archibald99.com

The Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum

Nothing invokes deep feelings like a visit to a museum honoring the fighting men and women who made up The Mighty Eighth Air Force during World War II. My wife, Joyce, and I visited the museum in Pooler, GA., at Exit 102 off I-95, a few miles north of Savannah. The Mighty Eighth was activated January 28, 1942, at Hunter Field in Savannah, and it would become the greatest air armada in history. It is estimated that more than 350,000 Americans served in the 8th AF during the war in Europe. Five thousand planes were processed through Hunter Field, including the City of Savannah, (on display in the museum) which flew 44 missions against the Germans.
I have been in the museum twice before. They constantly add memorabilia and research capabilities for the benefit of the public. Over "nine thousand books significant to the history of the Mighty Eighth Air Force, as well as original manuscripts, photographs, oral history interviews and personal accounts, artifacts and works of art" can be found here. Planes, clothing and equipment are also on view. The Memorial Gardens and Chapel of the Fallen Eagles, modeled on an English chapel, are a setting to reflect on the sacrifice of so many young American men.
The museum "tells the compelling story of ordinary people whose lives were transformed by extraordinary commitment, sacrifice and patriotism."
We took a few pictures, but it takes a visit to the museum to really appreciate this piece of American history and the courageous young men in their flying machines.

A hiding place in the attic of a French home for downed American air crew.

Celebrating victory in Europe, May 1945.

The City of Savannah, the 5,000 plane to join the 8th Air Force in England.

 

 

 

 

 

Did I mention the museum is staffed by volunteers and you can drop a contribution into a box to help keep the place going? You can also schedule a business, social or cultural event in the lobby - including a wedding reception if that is your wish. You may also support the museum and keep these great memories alive by visiting the web site and making a donation. It will make you feel good.

A couple of friends

A couple of friends dropped by Wednesday en-route from Florida to North Carolina. What makes this couple

so special is they are my two oldest friends in terms of years known. Don and Edna Sherrow were in Washington with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations when I arrived there in the spring of 1953. Don was in the USAF and serving as the Administrative Support in the Counter-Intelligence Division. Edna was a secretary in the Sabotage & Espionage Branch, which I joined as Administrative Support. Later Don and I each went to the OSI Special Agents training school and served several years conducting personnel, criminal and counter-intelligence investigations. I left the Air Force for civilian life and Don transferred into the Army where he was commissioned. He later worked as a Postal Inspector. Interestingly, their daughter and one of my sons, met and worked together in later years.
It was the first meeting of my wife, Joyce, and the Sherrows and they took to each other immediately. We don't see each other all that often, just the occasional service reunions and when passing through each other's living area, but the friendly ties and bonds formed years ago when we were all young and starry-eyed continue to this day.

Paying my dues

In the mail this week came a reminder to pay my annual dues to the AFOSISA: the Association of Former Office of Special Investigations Special Agents. The OSI is the Air Force equivalent of the FBI, the model on which it was created on  August 1, 1948, under the brilliant, innovative and inspiring leadership of General Joseph F. Carroll, a former FBI agent, supervisor, and special assistant to J. Edgar Hoover.

Sixty years ago, I was an airman serving as the Legal Clerk in the 3650^th Air Base Group at Sampson AFB, New York. Sampson had been a Naval Training site during WWII, but when the Korean War started the Air Force took it for basic training of new recruits. The 3650^th was the house keeping group on the base. I wanted to transfer to the Office of Special Investigations and in the spring of 1953 the deputy group commander, Lt. Col. John A. Brock, recommended me for such service.

(In 2013, AFOSI is the second-most requested career-field choice in the Air Force.)

Within a few weeks I was on my way to Washington, D.C., and posted as the Senior Administrative Airman in the Sabotage & Espionage Branch, Counterintelligence Division, Headquarters, OSI. When I arrived in the spring of 1953, street cars were operating on Pennsylvania Avenue, and cherry blossoms were in full bloom around the tidal basin facing the Jefferson Memorial.

Our offices were located in buildings built at McLean Gardens in NW Washington as “temporary” during World War I. The OSI mission in the early fifties was to provide personnel, criminal and counterintelligence investigative services to the Air Force around the world. It was an AFOSI agent who first alerted Gen. Douglas MacArthur's headquarters of the attack from North Korea that began the Korean War in June of 1950.

(Today, OSI is a federal law enforcement and investigative agency operating throughout the full spectrum of conflict, seamlessly within any domain; conducting criminal investigations and providing counterintelligence services.)

In September 1953, I went to the OSI Special Agents’ training school and was graduated in November. For the next six years I served in a variety of assignments, stateside and overseas. My special interest was with counterintelligence and I took advantage of my status and opportunities to learn everything I could. When I left the Air Force in 1959, after eight years of service, I was employed by the United States Navy as a security administrator and director. I was the first civilian security officer hired by the Naval Supply Corps, which in Charleston, SC, had responsibility for world-wide support of the nuclear powered submarine force carrying Polaris-Poseidon missiles as the Navy’s first line of deterrence against the threats posed by the Soviet Union. Later I was elected to the S.C. House of Representatives and was a senior manager at the state’s Department of Corrections.

Looking back it was the totality of my eight years work and specialized training and duties in the Air Force which set the stage for my life’s work. To this end, I will always be grateful for the opportunities I had and the men and women who helped me along the way. That is why I will send off my dues this week and remain in the brotherhood of former OSI Special Agents.

The AFOSISA was incorporated on December 7, 1966, and its objectives are to maintain and further friendships emanating from service with or employment by AFOSI; to assist one another through combined efforts and mutual association; to perpetuate the ideals and principles of AFOSI; to facilitate contact with members on a worldwide basis; and to unite former and present AFOSI Special Agents in the common interest of promoting the security of the U.S. Air Force

.

Spirit of a church lives on

One of the more interesting mornings on my trip to Hamburg in September was spent at the St. Nikolai Memorial, “a place of commemoration for the victims of war and persecution 1933-1945.”

This church was founded in 1195 and is one of the oldest churches in Hamburg. It burned and was re-built in 1874.

During air raids conducted by British and America bombers in World War II the church steeple, 483 feet high above the ground, served as a landmark for bomber pilots. The church was destroyed, only the steeple and parts of the walls survive to this day. 

The Lutheran Bishop refused re-building after the war, deciding instead on a memorial for the victims of war. 

 

The morning was clear and a ride in the lift to the top of the steeple gave me a splendid view of the entire city. This is one view.

The Carillon, (visible in the lower half of the pictured steeple) erected in in 1993, played a soft, delightful melody adding to the enjoyment of the moment.

In the crypt of the church (entered via the glass structure in front of the  steeple) there is a permanent exhibition (library, scheduled panel discussions, lectures and educational films) outlining the massive destruction of Hamburg, primarily by English Royal Air Force bombers. In one ten day period in the summer of 1943, 35,000 people were killed, 120,000 were injured and almost a million subsequently fled the city. To keep this horrendous destruction in perspective, however, the exhibition also details the role of the German Luftwaffe in the bombing and destruction of Guernica, Spain, during the Spanish Civil War, and the bombing and destruction of Warsaw, Coventry, and Rotterdam and the massive bombing of London. The destruction of Guernica from the air is understood to be the first such act of war carried out by aircraft. 

(Click here for other posts in this blog.)

(To decline future posts, reply to this e-mail with REMOVE)

Do Not Call Registry

Your cell phone number is going to be turned loose this month and telemarketing companies will be able to call you (at your expense) and make a hard sell pitch.A note in the most recent issue of AFOSISA Global Alliance, gives this Federal government web site where you can list your phone numbers, including cell numbers, on a "do not call" list. I went there this morning and listed my land line and cell number. I found it straight forward and easy to use. There will be a couple of e-mails you have to respond to; these are to assure someone is not playing games with your phone numbers and desires.

(If you wish to be removed from this occasional e-mail list send REMOVE BLOG LIST to arch@archibald99.com.)

A dear friend - Dot Ruotolo

I was saddened this morning to read in the local paper of the passing of a dear friend, Dorothy J. Ruotolo, at age 84. Our relationship goes back several decades. In the early sixties my wife and I were attending Mass on a beautiful Sunday morning. Mary was not then a Catholic. She was struggling with the Catholic missal and keeping up with the service when a lady in the pew behind us reached over and pointed in the missal to where the service was and helped Mary stay connected. Later, she told us she had similar problems earlier in her life. Very quickly we learned Dot was also a teacher in the Catholic school and would be the one to introduce our boys to the first grade. We formed a friendship on that Sunday morning and it continued for years. At one point when her son joined the Air Force, I talked to Dot about my eight years in that service and helped to ease her mind that her son had made a great choice. He would go on to a fine career and be honorably retired. Dot also had a daughter who worked at the Naval Supply Systems Command Center where I was the security director. She was a fine young lady and excellent employee. Dot spent many years teaching in Catholic schools and was a friend to thousands of families in North Charleston, Hanahan and Goose Creek. She will be missed by all, including her many students who got a great start on their education in her first grade. She was preceded in death by her husband Michael, a fine gentleman.

Ten thoughts on turning 80*

1. I am happy to be here and able to write these thoughts.

2. When I was a child I wondered if I would be alive at 65. That age seemed so far away to a child in grammar school.

3. I have been blessed and or lucky in so many ways I cannot count them but I know them in my heart. 

4. Looking back our early family life was tough, but our mother kept us (five children) together and we persevered.

5. Joining the U.S. Air Force was the best thing I ever did. It gave me opportunity, training and set me on a career path for my adult life.

6. College and university opened new doors, but education is a continuing process through life.

7. Along the highways of life I met many men and women who helped; especially my late wife of 56 years.

8. My five children have turned out well, and have been on someone else’s payroll for years. (The dream of all parents.)

9. It is best to be liberal in thought, word and deed, especially to, with and for others who have less than I.

10. It is said we will live 15 years beyond our parents. My mother lived to be 92. I hope I am here writing another bog entry when I am 107.

*(Oct. 2, 2011)

Mary Frances Cooper Archibald - Obituary

Mary Frances Cooper Archibald MT. PLEASANT - Mrs. Mary Frances Cooper Archibald, wife of Francis X. Archibald, died peacefully Wednesday in her sleep at the Skilled Nursing facility in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., where she had lived for the last three years. Mary was born in Georgetown, S.C., October 13, 1931, the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cooper, also of Georgetown. She was educated in the Georgetown public schools and graduated from Winyah High School. During her teens she worked at the usual teen-ager type jobs, including a stint as a waitress at the Screven Hotel. She was taken to a commercial college in Columbia by relatives but arrived back home in Georgetown by bus almost before the relatives who traveled by car. Mary joined the United States Air Force and took basic training at Lackland AFB, Texas. She went on to specialized secretarial training at Okalahoma A&M and was then assigned to Headquarters, USAF Office of Special Investigations, Washington, D.C. It was there she met her future husband, Francis X. "Archie" Archibald and they were married in a Catholic wedding at the chapel at Bolling AFB on September 4, 1954. Mary and Archie had five children and lived in Washington, Charleston and again in Washington before moving to the Charleston area for what would become the family site. They settled in Hanahan in 1960 and lived there until three years ago. Mary was a most loving wife, devoted mother, caring grandmother, and friend of many people. She earned a college degree from New York State University through classes and study in the Charleston area. During the early years of her marriage she worked briefly from time to time at Charleston AFB, the Naval Base and later with the Department of Mental Health in Columbia. In 1980 Mary was a campaign leader in her husband's successful campaign for the Statehouse. She later bought an 80-year old Dutch Colonial house in Columbia, S.C., and restored it to its original likeness. Much of the work she did personally and supervised the rest. Mary was a devoted viewer of the Discovery and Travel television channels and yearned to see many places around the world. After Archie retired in 1993, Mary and he traveled by car throughout the United States, Canada and Alaska. In 1994 they went to China and taught at Taishan Medical College, Tainan. Mary had approximately 200 college students in Basic English classes. Following this, Archie took Mary on a six months trip to foreign countries to visit some of the places she had seen in films and on TV. They drove across Western Australia in nine days, a trip many Aussies will never undertake. In 2003, they traveled to South Africa on a self-guided tour for two months and in 2005 made a trip to Malaysia. Mary was a member for many years of the Berkeley Hills Garden Club and worked hard in her home garden and on club projects. She enjoyed sitting in her swing on the back porch her husband constructed for her at their Hanahan home, especially in the spring and early summer, and taking in the beauty of the yard and nature in bloom. Mary is survived by her loving husband, Archie Archibald of Mt. Pleasant, SC; five children, Francis "Frank" X. Archibald, Jr. and his wife, Lisa, of McLean, VA, James E. Archibald and his wife, Lisbeth, of Arlington, VA, Patrick L. Archibald and his wife, Donna, of Goose Creek, SC, Martha Archibald of Goose Creek, SC and Wynn A. Godbold and her husband, Rett, of Myrtle Beach, SC; nine grandchildren, a sister, Bertha Westbury of Georgetown, S.C. and a brother Edward Cooper, Marietta, GA. She was preceded in death by her sister, Lee Benton. Mary was a convert to Catholicism in the early 1960s and a devoted communicant at Divine Redeemer Catholic Church in Hanahan. The Liturgy of Christian Burial will be celebrated in Rodenberg Hall, Franke at Seaside, 1885 Rifle Range Road, Mt. Pleasant on Saturday, January 1, 2011, at 1:00 p.m. with military honors. Her family invites all neighbors, friends and those who were touched by Mary's life to attend. Visitation will be held Friday, December 31, 2010, at J. HENRY STUHR MOUNT PLEASANT CHAPEL from 5:00 until 7:00 p.m. Final commitment will be private to the family. The family wishes to thank the staff at Skilled Nursing, Franke at Seaside, for the loving and caring they showed Mary while she was living there. Also, Hospice of Charleston was a big assist to the family in Mary's final days. Flowers will be accepted or memorials may be made to the Alzheimer's Association Alzheimer's Association Alzheimer's Association , 2090 Executive Hall Road, suite 130, Charleston, SC 29407. A memorial message may be sent to the family by visiting www.jhenrystuhr.com. Visit our guestbook at www.postandcourier.com/ deaths

Mary Frances Cooper Archibald, R.I.P.

The Post & Courier
Charleston, SC
Thursday, December 30, 2010

ARCHIBALD, Mary Frances Cooper, of Mount Pleasant, wife of Francis X. Archibald, died Wednesday. Arrangements by Stuhr's Mount Pleasant Chapel.

(Full obituary to follow on Friday. Visitation at Stuhr's Mount Pleasant Chapel, Mathis Ferry Road, on Friday, December 31, 2010, from five to seven in the evening. Funeral Mass on Saturday, January 1, 2011, in Rodenberg Chapel, Franke at Seaside, 1885 Rifle Range Road, Mount Pleasant, SC, at one o'clock in the afternoon. Interment later will be private to the family.)

Note: This blog entry is primarily for friends and extended family outside the Mount Pleasant area, although the publication mechanism of necessity includes a wider audience.

I am off Twizzlers forever

I am thinking I should stay away from red licorice in the evening. Last night I had dinner in the Franke Bistro with a neighbor and her grand-daughter. It was a pleasant event as the grand lived in Geneva, New York, where I spent 1951-1953 while I was stationed at Sampson AFB. Later I watched the Dallas-New Orleans game and came away grateful that I am not into sports betting as I would have lost my shirt. Who thought Dallas, with several recent years of meltdowns in December, would beat New Orleans which was trying to go 14-0? During the game I chewed on three strawberry twists (red licorice sticks) and judging by the dream I had later I wonder if they were laced with LSD or did I pick up a package of peyote at the local grocers? You know what peyote is? That's what Tonto used to chew at night when he sat around the campfire drying the Long Ranger's underwear by hanging it on a stick over the campfire. When Tonto took an early retirement buyout and social security, he told Johnny Carson that after 30 years of cooking meals and washing the masked man's underwear he had enough. But I digress. Back to the dream. I was somewhere about 30 miles North of Charleston with my Lincoln Towncar. Some big bozo in a leather jacket was driving. I know not why. We were stopped and I was standing outside the car. A woman friend was there, but she eventually disappeared. A young woman dressed in yellow and nursing a baby came up to me and asked for a ride to Belvedere Court in a city where I used to live. I stared at her for a minute and saw she had a big clear plastic bag tied around her neck and draped over her breasts. It was full of milk and had a big nipple in the center of it. This is where the baby nursed. I wondered if she had any breasts but she and my lady friend told me this was the new age. Mothers pumped milk from their breasts and stored it in a bag so the baby could be nursed on its schedule without inconveniencing mom. I asked: "Where is this baby's father?" "He is in Iraq." "What is he doing there?" "He is in the army." "Ours or theirs?" I will pay you for the ride she said, and I said get in the car. I opened the back door and my oldest daughter was sitting there not saying a word. About this time my woman friend disappeared and a heavy set young lady showed up in the dream. She also wanted a ride. The car is big but this strange and large guy was under the wheel and I was taking the up front passenger seat. There is not a lot of room left I said. The heavy set girl started to cry so I told her to go around the other side and get in the back. So there we were going down the road. We were getting low on gas but I said we had enough. The next thing I woke up on a bed in the room I slept in as a young boy. The bozo was on the bed next to me sleeping. I don't know where my daughter, the nursing mother, the child, and the fat young lady were. The bozo woke up, embraced me and wanted to give me some investing advice; he was against a couple of Charleston investments I was considering. I shoved him away and told him to get off the bed. Then the early morning light was coming through the wooden venetian blinds in my room. That's when I decided no more Twizzlers (red licorice) in the evening.

An anniversary of sorts

Fifty-eight years ago today I went on active duty with the United States Air Force and never looked back. Along with many other young men, I left Boston's South Station on a train around seven in the evening headed for Geneva, New York, and Sampson Air Force Base (now a state park). Immediately prior to leaving I had dinner with two friends, Ed and Marie Quigley, my mother and my girlfriend, Peggy Early (all now deceased). It was the end of my youth and the beginning of my adult life. I was in the Air Force eight years, the last six as a Special Agent, USAF Office of Special Investigations. This service led to a wider future in the internal security field that occupied me for two decades and took me around the world. I gave up the girl who saw me off at the railroad station, met and married another one, Mary Frances Cooper of Georgetown, SC, and we had five children. Several years ago we achieved the goal of parents everywhere: all of our children are on someone else's payroll.

We had a dinner table discussion last Sunday, some friends and I, about compulsory service for young people. A couple of years of military service, Peace Corps, working as a volunteer, etc. I know I benefited from my years in the military service but I would not favor mandatory service for young people today. If they can be encouraged to do it (e.g. Mormons with their young men), or if they choose to do it, then fine. But the beauty of being American is you can do what you want (within limits of being law abiding) with your life and time. This is a precious right and privilege I would not take it away from any young person. (Naturally, if our country was at war then obligations would arise and everyone would be required to do their bit.)

Off we go into the wild blue....

The Air Force is 60 years old this year. Congress and the President made it an independent service in 1947, co-equal with the Army and the Navy. I visited the Air Force memorial http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_Memorial last weekend and came away much impressed. The memorial is a delight to visit and the Air Force band performed in the cool of the evening before a crowd of several hundred. The band members were neat, trim, slender and sharp in their summer uniforms and the music was delightful. Even more impressive was the high enlisted rank held by the musicians. Two soloists were introduced and each had a masters degree in music and song. With this kind of background it is easy to understand why the Air Force has promoted these enlisted persons into the top ranks.

An old friend from my Air Force service days (1951-1959) accompanied my son (also former Air Force) and my daughter-in-law for the evening. It is a new and exciting Air Force today I am sure, but I am proud to have been a member in those early days that were also new and exciting for us. The Air Force is also where I found my wife of 53 years, and we treasure the memories that bought a Yankee from Lowell, MA, and a shy, Southern girl from Georgetown, SC, together.