Re: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City
Been to Shemya and Adak. On both many of the people told me they were there because they pissed someone off or were misled as to where they were going. Not a bunch of happy campers. Adak had the world's largest and best stocked liquor store that I have ever seen. Dan Sent from my iPad On Feb 17, 2014, at 9:56 PM, Scott Ritchey ritche...@nc.rr.com wrote: Thule was always the USAF version of Eastern Front during my time in service. But I hear that Shemya is considerably worse. On the other hand Bellows AFS HI was said to be the dream assignment if you don't mind living on a remote island. The beach at Bellows was far nicer than anything I saw in Honolulu. -Original Message- From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of WILTON Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2014 7:08 PM To: Mercedes Discussion List Subject: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City Yep, 'nother Sondy Tale already. PANAMA CITY BEACH By Wilton Strickland My year as Director of Engineering at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, from 4 February, 1978, to 8 February, 1979, was extremely busy, enjoyable, interesting and possibly the most productive assignment I had during my 22 years on Air Force active duty. The scenery in the area is fantastically beautiful, and the people with whom I worked were very professional, agreeable and accommodating. I never had time to think about being lonely - I was undoubtedly the busiest person on base and surely traveled more than anybody else there. I was careful not to remind anybody about how my time away was accumulating, though the Base Commander did balk a bit in October, '78, when I went to 'im for his signature on a request form for a trip to Panama City Beach, FL, to give a briefing at a USAF Pavements Conference. When I laid the form in front of 'im and said, Please sign this. I need to go to Panama City Beach, FL, to brief the Kulusuk Airfield drainage project. He stormed (in mock anger), What the Hell is this? You just got ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
Re: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City
Thule was always the USAF version of Eastern Front during my time in service. But I hear that Shemya is considerably worse. On the other hand Bellows AFS HI was said to be the dream assignment if you don't mind living on a remote island. The beach at Bellows was far nicer than anything I saw in Honolulu. -Original Message- From: Mercedes [mailto:mercedes-boun...@okiebenz.com] On Behalf Of WILTON Sent: Thursday, January 16, 2014 7:08 PM To: Mercedes Discussion List Subject: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City Yep, 'nother Sondy Tale already. PANAMA CITY BEACH By Wilton Strickland My year as Director of Engineering at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, from 4 February, 1978, to 8 February, 1979, was extremely busy, enjoyable, interesting and possibly the most productive assignment I had during my 22 years on Air Force active duty. The scenery in the area is fantastically beautiful, and the people with whom I worked were very professional, agreeable and accommodating. I never had time to think about being lonely - I was undoubtedly the busiest person on base and surely traveled more than anybody else there. I was careful not to remind anybody about how my time away was accumulating, though the Base Commander did balk a bit in October, '78, when I went to 'im for his signature on a request form for a trip to Panama City Beach, FL, to give a briefing at a USAF Pavements Conference. When I laid the form in front of 'im and said, Please sign this. I need to go to Panama City Beach, FL, to brief the Kulusuk Airfield drainage project. He stormed (in mock anger), What the Hell is this? You just got back a couple of weeks ago! I responded, Well, it was a couple of months ago, and I'm just trying to do my duty, and you know - I'm going to DO my duty, and you know I'll do it well. Here's a message from Headquarters that says I need to go to Panama City Beach. I handed 'im the message; he glanced at it and said, It doesn't say you HAVE to go; it says you SHOULD go. I responded, Yes, I know, but you know how I feel about doing my duty. As I was turning to leave with the signed document, I reminded him, You know, I need to go to Copenhagen the first two weeks in December, and, oh, by the way, I'm taking Havbro (Danish contractor's chief engineer) with me to Panama City. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, he sputtered, Why does Havbro need to go? For long-term continuity, I responded. He persisted, But, if he goes, why do you need to go? I also persisted, Kulusuk is MY project; they want ME to brief it, and they're going to talk about lots of other things that can be beneficial to the base after I'm gone. For example, we have a big runway re-paving project coming up next summer. That's why Havbro should go. I left Sondy aboard a New York Air National Guard C-130 on Friday morning before the Panama City Beach conference began on Monday, and made it home to Southern California to see my wife and two sons for a day and a half or so before proceeding to Florida on Sunday afternoon. Havbro left Sondy on Saturday aboard a USAF C-141 to McGuire AFB, NJ, and arrived at Panama City Beach early Sunday morning. Our rooms were ON the beach - the beach literally outside our doors - quite a pleasant, nearly tropical - and a bit shocking - change from the arctic conditions at Sondy, where the temperature was already hovering near 0° F. At breakfast the next morning, Havbro told us about going to a restaurant and bar a few miles down the beach the previous night and stayed until after taxis had stopped running. For a while, he and his newly-found Air Force friends thought they were stranded and were going to have to walk the 4 or 5 miles back to the hotel. Finally, a man driving a very ragged old car came along and offered them a ride. During the few minutes riding to the hotel, the man told them that he had just bought the car the previous day for $10. Everybody agreed that the tires alone surely must be worth at least $10. Havbro remarked that he'd never ridden in a $10 car before. We quickly reminded him that he had ridden in a worthless car on $10 tires. My briefing on the Kulusuk drainage project went very well, but members of the audience seemed to be much more interested in the fantastic scenery in the backgrounds of my slides. I tended to agree and easily veered several times into a Greenland travelogue and told them that they should volunteer for a government all-expenses-paid trip there sometime. (Traditionally, since the early 1950's, anyway, one of the biggest threats in the Air Force has been getting sent to Thule, - in the far north of Greenland.) I assured them that for me an assignment to Sondrestrom was a lot better than an assignment to Korea. Before my assignment to Greenland, friends were telling me I should volunteer for Korea. Well, first, I would never leave the family
[MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City
Yep, 'nother Sondy Tale already. PANAMA CITY BEACH By Wilton Strickland My year as Director of Engineering at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, from 4 February, 1978, to 8 February, 1979, was extremely busy, enjoyable, interesting and possibly the most productive assignment I had during my 22 years on Air Force active duty. The scenery in the area is fantastically beautiful, and the people with whom I worked were very professional, agreeable and accommodating. I never had time to think about being lonely - I was undoubtedly the busiest person on base and surely traveled more than anybody else there. I was careful not to remind anybody about how my time away was accumulating, though the Base Commander did balk a bit in October, '78, when I went to 'im for his signature on a request form for a trip to Panama City Beach, FL, to give a briefing at a USAF Pavements Conference. When I laid the form in front of 'im and said, Please sign this. I need to go to Panama City Beach, FL, to brief the Kulusuk Airfield drainage project. He stormed (in mock anger), What the Hell is this? You just got back a couple of weeks ago! I responded, Well, it was a couple of months ago, and I'm just trying to do my duty, and you know - I'm going to DO my duty, and you know I'll do it well. Here's a message from Headquarters that says I need to go to Panama City Beach. I handed 'im the message; he glanced at it and said, It doesn't say you HAVE to go; it says you SHOULD go. I responded, Yes, I know, but you know how I feel about doing my duty. As I was turning to leave with the signed document, I reminded him, You know, I need to go to Copenhagen the first two weeks in December, and, oh, by the way, I'm taking Havbro (Danish contractor's chief engineer) with me to Panama City. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute, he sputtered, Why does Havbro need to go? For long-term continuity, I responded. He persisted, But, if he goes, why do you need to go? I also persisted, Kulusuk is MY project; they want ME to brief it, and they're going to talk about lots of other things that can be beneficial to the base after I'm gone. For example, we have a big runway re-paving project coming up next summer. That's why Havbro should go. I left Sondy aboard a New York Air National Guard C-130 on Friday morning before the Panama City Beach conference began on Monday, and made it home to Southern California to see my wife and two sons for a day and a half or so before proceeding to Florida on Sunday afternoon. Havbro left Sondy on Saturday aboard a USAF C-141 to McGuire AFB, NJ, and arrived at Panama City Beach early Sunday morning. Our rooms were ON the beach - the beach literally outside our doors - quite a pleasant, nearly tropical - and a bit shocking - change from the arctic conditions at Sondy, where the temperature was already hovering near 0° F. At breakfast the next morning, Havbro told us about going to a restaurant and bar a few miles down the beach the previous night and stayed until after taxis had stopped running. For a while, he and his newly-found Air Force friends thought they were stranded and were going to have to walk the 4 or 5 miles back to the hotel. Finally, a man driving a very ragged old car came along and offered them a ride. During the few minutes riding to the hotel, the man told them that he had just bought the car the previous day for $10. Everybody agreed that the tires alone surely must be worth at least $10. Havbro remarked that he'd never ridden in a $10 car before. We quickly reminded him that he had ridden in a worthless car on $10 tires. My briefing on the Kulusuk drainage project went very well, but members of the audience seemed to be much more interested in the fantastic scenery in the backgrounds of my slides. I tended to agree and easily veered several times into a Greenland travelogue and told them that they should volunteer for a government all-expenses-paid trip there sometime. (Traditionally, since the early 1950's, anyway, one of the biggest threats in the Air Force has been getting sent to Thule, - in the far north of Greenland.) I assured them that for me an assignment to Sondrestrom was a lot better than an assignment to Korea. Before my assignment to Greenland, friends were telling me I should volunteer for Korea. Well, first, I would never leave the family voluntarily, and Sondrestrom has worked out much better for me. I've been able to talk to my wife a couple of times a week, and because of Greenland's proximity to the States, I've been able to get home to see the family, at least briefly, about every two and a half months. My job has also given me the opportunity to take several short trips to other very interesting sites in Greenland. 'Even visiting Panama City Beach right now and will be going to Copenhagen the first two weeks in December. How's that for an assignment in the briar patch? The conference ended
Re: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City
On Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:08:12 -0500 WILTON wilt...@nc.rr.com wrote: Yep, 'nother Sondy Tale already. Thank you, Wilton. ATTABOY! Craig ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
Re: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 19:08:12 -0500 From: WILTON wilt...@nc.rr.com To: Mercedes Discussion List mercedes@okiebenz.com Subject: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City Message-ID: 16D341A4B6044B738586F61F42AA3D11@wiltonPC Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1; reply-type=response Yep, 'nother Sondy Tale already. PANAMA CITY BEACH By Wilton Strickland My year as Director of Engineering at Sondrestrom Air Base, Greenland, from 4 February, 1978, to 8 February, 1979, was extremely busy, enjoyable, interesting and possibly the most productive assignment I had during my 22 years on Air Force active duty. Just when I think you guys are getting too political or there is precious little MB content, Wilton will post one of these and I stick around. Thank you Sir. dave Lynnwood, Wa. '82 300CD - Daily commuter, work in progress '95 E300D - Gilda '98 Volvo S70 Turbo - going on Craigslist next month '89 Chev conversion van and many, many more. ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
Re: [MBZ] OT - 'Nother Sondy Tale - Panama City
Dave wrote: Just when I think you guys are getting too political or there is precious little MB content, Wilton will post one of these and I stick around. I dunno... I have never reached the point where the delete key is too hard to reach for threads and chatter I don't want to read. It is the threads I want to read and then the chatter that makes me know I know some people in lotsa places. Eh... maybe you guys all have enough social time and chatter at work. Me? - not so much. Too young to collect social. I may not make it, but... that is the purpose of eating and sleeping. mao ___ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
