Friday evening again already -- how 'bout another Sondy Tale.
DISTRAUGHT WORKMAN
By Wilton Strickland
From 4 Feb 1978 to 8 Feb 1979, I was Director of Engineering, in charge of
construction and maintenance of all physical facilities at Sondrestrom Air
Base, Greenland. For a week or so during late spring, I was also acting
Base Commander while our regular Base Commander was on temporary duty
elsewhere.
Late on Friday evening during this time, a knock came on the door to my
room. I opened the door to find a distraught, young (late 20's) American
civilian Diesel engine mechanic who was serving on temporary duty with me
for several months to help rebuild and install ten large Diesel electric
generator engines in our base main power generation plant.
He related to me that he had been worried for several days about his wife
and three children back home in Colorado Springs, CO. I don't remember the
details of the problem, but he was desperately trying to get help in talking
to his wife. Base rules allowed us to make two (I think it was two - can't
be sure now if it were one or two.) "morale" calls per week to the States.
Anyway, he had used his allotted call(s) already a few days before and had
not been able to resolve the problem back home. Immediately prior to coming
to my door, he had been talking to our base Adjutant (Base Commander's
Administrative Assistant), a young, fuzzy-faced captain. During their
conversation, the captain became suspicious that the workman was on drugs
and started talking about having him arrested. This upset and scared the
workman so badly that, according to the captain later, the workman became
incoherent and ran, coming to my door a few minutes later.
The workman told me that he'd never done drugs, never been arrested and
never been in jail. "All I was doing was to try to find some way to talk to
my wife. I'm worried about her and the children. The Danish lady at the
Base Communication Center won't put a call through because I've used my
allotted call(s) for the week. I've had a little bit to drink, but I'm not
on any sort of drugs. I thought the captain was somebody I could talk to in
confidence, but he started talking about having me arrested. I haven't done
anything to be arrested for; I'm just trying to get in touch with my wife."
Meanwhile, he began to sob in desperation. I asked him to calm down,
"Things will be OK; you'll be OK; I'm going to make arrangements for a call
to your wife. You may use my phone, and I'll leave you alone here in the
room for you to talk freely. I'll even make arrangements for you to go home
tomorrow on the C-141 to McGuire AFB, NJ, if you need to. Let me take a
minute to speak to the captain, and I'll get the police search canceled,
too."
The captain told me that he couldn't understand what the workman was talking
about and that he began to act "all crazy." The captain also told me that
he thought the workman was on drugs, so he had called police to have him
arrested, "And they're out looking for 'im right now - I want 'im arrested."
I replied, "He's distraught about some problem with his family back home.
He thought he could talk to you in confidence, but in his mind, you "turned"
on 'im and called police. He feels like you betrayed him. He's OK, though;
he's here with me; I'll call police and cancel that - I'd appreciate it if
you'd call 'em, too, and ask 'em to cancel it, but nobody's gonna arrest
'im; then I'll make arrangements for 'im to talk to his wife."
I was able to quickly and easily reach our Security Police Chief, a very
capable and very professional master sergeant and got 'im to call off the
search. I then called our Communications Center, made arrangements for a
call to the workman's home in Colorado, and went down the hall to our
laundry room to wait while he talked to his wife.
About 15 to 20 minutes later, he came into the laundry room thanking me
profusely and saying that the situation at home was much better than he had
imagined - "Everything's OK, I'm alright, now; thank you, thank you." I
asked if he needed to go home; he replied, "No, no, I'm OK; I need to stay
here and get this job done; I'll be alright, now." And he was - he stayed
with me on through the summer - one of my most dedicated and most loyal
workmen - I even found him working in the shop "after hours" a couple of
times. I never heard another word about anybody else on base having any
problem at all with him. I wish I could have kept in touch with him all of
these years since to be able to wish him and his family well occasionally,
but, regrettably, just as with too many others who helped me greatly along
the way, I've even forgotten his name.
Wilton
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