Airman Stories – Part 3
At first I thought I was being sent to Egypt. Yep. Egypt. The orders stated I was to report to “The Canal Zone” and I immediately thought of the Suez Canal. Then, when I came to my senses I realized that it was probably referring to the Panama Canal Zone. And that was exactly right. I was heading off to the isthmus of Panama to a unit named Detachment Five, Fifth Weather Wing at Howard Air Force Base, Panama Canal Zone.
My transportation to my next assignment was on a chartered Boeing 727 out of Charleston International Airport in South Carolina. It was all military personnel on board and they all were heading “down south”. Some would be getting off at the first stop which was Panama. The rest were heading further south to whatever assignments I did not know.
Charter flights are where old airline pilots go to die. Our pilot and copilot looked to be in their 60's. Maybe late 60's. Both white-haired gentlemen. But they were competent in the cockpit and we flew the 1,641 as-the-crow-flies miles to Panama with no problems. The weather was fine over the Caribbean and we took the “windward” route, as the captain told us. This was not the direct route as that would have taken us over Cuba and that was not allowed.
If you're not familiar with geography, Panama sits on the little strip of land that connects North America with South America. Across this thin strip of land lies the Panama Canal. The canal was opened in 1914 and the land for generally 5 miles on either side of the canal was called the Canal Zone. From 1903 to 1979 this territory was controlled by the United States. From 1979 to 1999 it was under the joint control of the United States and Panama. During the United States controlled time, the land in the Zone was used generally for military purposes and maintenance of the canal, but there were a total of about 3,000 civilians who called the Zone home also. There were many military installations in the Zone. The one I was to call home for a year and a half was called Howard Air Force Base.
To orient yourself, picture the isthmus as a east-west strip of land bisected generally north to south by the Panama Canal. At the southern terminus of the canal, on the eastern side sat the capital city of Panama which had the same name, Panama. Cross the canal from Panama City to the west, then turn north about a mile or so and you reach the gates of Howard. South of the isthmus was Panama Bay and the Pacific Ocean. Follow the canal to the north and you enter the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
It was the spring of 1968 that my charter jet landed on the 9,000 foot runway at Howard AFB and rolled up to the terminal building. I was met there by my sponsor, an airman who'd been selected to “show me the ropes”. He took me to my barracks and got me set up in my area, showed me the facilities around base and made sure I knew were I was to report for duty. His nickname was “Flaps” as he was learning how to fly.
The barracks buildings on Howard were all large, 3-story Spanish-style concrete buildings with red tile roofs. There were no windows in them, only screens, as the temperature there rarely dropped below 75 degrees Fahrenheit. The highs most days were around 86 and that only varied by a degree or two all year round. So, unless the building was air-conditioned there was little need for glass windows. In the barracks the ground floors were never used. This was due to the high humidity in the tropics. Things would mold and mildew in days without some sort of drying agent. Ground floors were the worst, so they were left open and empty for ventilation. Each of us that lived on the 2nd or 3rd floors had what was called a “hot” locker. This was a steel wardrobe locker where we stored our clothes and shoes. Each of these hot lockers had a 100 watt light bulb that was on constantly. By burning the light bulb it generated heat and the heat reduced the humidity in the locker and allowed your uniforms and other clothing to remain mildew-free. I found out that leather shoes left on the floor would turn green in 2 days.
The weather observer work was quite similar to what I had learned to do in Oklahoma. We covered six shifts a day on Howard, three in the weather station in the base operations building and three in the aircraft control tower. Weather observations were performed from the control tower instead of a stand-alone ROS as it was at Ft. Sill. One weather observer would be in the tower along with 2 aircraft controllers. Our control tower sat at the top of a huge hanger. You'd enter the hanger and climb a bunch of stairs to the roof, then enter a door and climb another 2 stories into the tower. The bottom story of the tower contained the radios and recording devices used by the controllers. The top story had windows all around and had the best view of the base, the runway, of course, and all the adjoining airspace.
Howard was my first overseas, resident Air Force military installation. It had housing units for married personnel, a commissary (grocery store), BX (base exchange – store to buy various items from cigarettes and magazines to uniforms and other useful items), churches, theater, schools and other facilities that you might find in a small town. Plus, of course, the necessary hangers, offices and repair facilities to keep military aircraft flying. It also had an airman's club, an NCO club and an Officer's club for off-duty recreation.
Outside the barracks there were coconut palm trees and we were awakened each morning by the squawking of the local parrots in the trees. The locals called them parrakeetos. It was a common occurrence to see work crews of native Panamanians taking a break by climbing up a coconut palm, knocking a few off and getting a cool drink from them. Very common.
There was a contingent of Panamanian Indians who were quartered on the base who did a lot of the maintenance work. Cleaning barracks, running the chow halls and clubs, mowing, trimming, road maintenance. All the Indios on our base were from the same tribe – San Blas - and had a chief who divvied up the work, kept the men honest, watched out for their welfare and was generally their boss. They swept our barracks, emptied our trash, made our bunks and did the latrine cleaning. We occupants of the barracks chipped in a couple dollars a week to the chief and he paid the workers from it. You could also hire them for special duties – washing and ironing uniforms, washing your car, etc.
The national language of Panama is Spanish. To be able to communicate, at least a little, you had to pick up some useful Espanol. All traffic signs were bi-lingual – Spanish and English, so you picked up some there. You learned alto meant stop, derecha meant right and isquierda meant left. Omnibus meant bus. Parada meant stop the bus. And, of course, you learned enough Spanish to be able to get a drink in a bar. Cerveza was beer, ron was rum. Those were actually the primary drinks in the tropics. Panama made several kinds of beer; Cerveza Balboa, Cerveza Panama, Cerveza Atlas are three I remember. The best selling rum was Ron Cortez, which was marvelous rum and sold for $1.85 a quart. The beer at the package store was maybe $1.50 a six-pack?
We stayed away from the local whiskey's as they were awful!
You learned that hecho en Estados Unidos de America meant made in the United States, that peligro meant danger, that trabajo meant work and, of course, hombres and mujeres meant men and women. You needed that for the restrooms in the city. Leche meant milk, helados was ice cream, biftek was steak and empanada was a tasty pastry with a meat filling. You learned some swear words, too. Anyone surprised about that?
The BIG saying around base was “Que paso?” Basically it meant “What's happening?” The normal answer was “nada” - “nothing.”
The land around the base (and many areas on the base itself) was jungle. Guaranteed, 100-percent, Tarzan-and-Jane-type jungle. If you stepped from a road or path into the stuff you were lost in 10 feet. As God is my judge that is the truth. The smell of the jungle was present everywhere also. It's very hard to describe but if you've smelled it once you'll never forget it. It smells like a million years of things growing, dying and rotting, then growing, dying and rotting again. Pungent, ripe, foul, dank, heavy, cloying, sweet, stinking and wet – always wet. And lots of other adjectives would fit too. I remember returning to Panama after a leave home during New Year's of '68-'69. As soon as they opened the airplane's doors upon landing I knew exactly where I was. The smell of the jungle was a dead giveaway.
The U.S. Army used Panama a lot for jungle training for the troops heading off to Vietnam. Why? Panama was worse than Vietnam.
Panama was hot and humid. It rained there every day. In the dry season it rained only once a day. In the wet season it rained generally twice a day. When it rained it came down straight and very, very hard. It put down a lot of water in those showers. A lot. The base had concrete-lined ditches all over the place to carry off the rainwater. You were always sweaty and hot when you weren't in air conditioning. Always. We weren't issued blankets for our bunks. There was no need for blankets. We were issued two sheets and a pillowcase each week and you needed to replace them at least at that frequency because of the sweat. You rarely even needed the top sheet to sleep. We drank all the time to replace the sweat that was always occurring – water, pop, beer, whatever. We drank liquids a lot.
The wild animals in the jungles of Panama were very different than those in North America. Jaguars and ocelots, boa constrictors and a thousand other snakes, coati mundis, iguanas, sloths, many kinds of monkeys, brilliantly colored birds and huge insects were just a few of the animals you might run into just a few steps off the roads. There was a fer-de-lance snake killed on the steps of base operations only a week before I arrived. This is a horribly venomous pit viper. There was a three-toed sloth hanging in a tree very close to the gate into Howard. Sloths move very little, so he was a fixture there for a month or two.
I'll tell you some animal stories a bit later.
The Panama Canal itself was a very busy place. Ships were passing through there constantly. You could always take a look out into Panama Bay and see freighters and other ships lined up clear to the horizon waiting their turn to pick up a pilot and pass through the canal. The transit took about a day and every boat that went through had to have a licensed Panamanian pilot aboard commanding the ship. This was to safeguard the canal and its locks from accidents which could cost millions to repair. You could sit in an observation area at the Miraflores Locks (close to the southern terminus of the canal where I was located) and watch the ships pass through. Most were cargo ships but there were the still frequent cruise ships and military vessels. Jacques Cousteau's ship “Calypso” transited the canal during the time I was there. The water to fill the canal and operate the locks came from a man-made lake called Lake Gatun situated in the middle of the isthmus. All the locks were gravity-fed from this lake.
On my first trip off base I went with one of the new friends I'd made. We picked up the bus at the stop in front of the barracks and rode it into the city. It traveled out the base gate to the main road, then south a little before turning east and going over the big Thatcher Ferry Bridge that crossed the canal. The bus then traveled along the Fourth of July Boulevard which was the border between the Zone and the Republic. If you looked to your left you would see the rolling green lawns and fields of the Canal Zone with the white-washed buildings. Very colonial looking. To your right was the Panama City slum we all called “Hollywood” with it's rusting corrugated tin roofs and open sewers running down the streets – one of the poorest sections of the city. The dichotomy between the two areas was striking. The bus finally stopped and we got off and entered the city. The airman I was with was looking for a new radio and we visited several stores that sold that kind of goods. A lot of the retail stores in Panama are run by East Indians. Most of the shop owners are at least tri-lingual. They speak their native dialect – call it Indian to be generic. Then they spoke Spanish, as that was the national language. Then most spoke English also, as much of their trade was with the military and the folks from the Canal Zone. Some were even half-way fluent in a few other languages (I recognized French, Portuguese and German) as ships from many lands docked there and their passengers and sailors frequently shopped among them. My new friend found his radio and, after a few beers – cervezas – at a local bar we rode the bus back to base.
One night in October, about a month later, I was in the Republic with several friends for an evening and while we were waiting at the bus stop for the last bus back to Howard we saw something quite interesting and unnerving. Along Fourth of July Boulevard we saw a group of Panamanian Army canvas-topped trucks and a couple of Panamanian Army jeeps with mounted and manned .50 caliber machine guns. They went roaring by heading who knew where. We looked at each other and wondered what was going on. When our bus returned us to the base we noticed a red light flashing at the gate. We were informed by the AP's that the base was sealed and we would not be allowed to leave again until further notice. When we asked around we found out what had happened.
There was an election campaign going on in Panama that fall. We'd seen political posters all over the city when we were visiting there. They take their politics very seriously in Central America and there were a dozen or more parties with candidates running for president that year. Arnulfo Arias was the winner of the election as the coalition choice of five of the political parties. He had been in power only 11 days when we saw the La Guardia Nacional troops rushing by our bus stop that night. Apparently, as one of the first acts as the new president he had decided to purge the Panamanian military of some high ranking officers who wouldn't go along with his orders. The officers, headed by a man named Omar Torrijos Herrera were incensed at the dismissal, staged a coup and took over the country. Arnulfo Arias fled from the republic to Howard Air Force Base where he was whisked away in the middle of the night to Miami to escape capture. Torrijos, who was a lieutenant colonel at the time, promoted himself to general and dictator of Panama. And that was what was going on that strange night as I was returning to the base.
Things settled down fairly quickly after Torrijo's coup and we were only confined to the base for a week or so. There was some sporadic gunfire in the city during that time and some of the NCO's and officers who lived in the Republic were anxious, but nothing much really happened. As far as we low-ranking airmen were concerned we saw very little changes in the city except for the cleaner streets, less criminal elements and a higher presence of La Guardia on the streets and in the bars and other establishments. Torrijos had “cleaned” up the city. The La Guadia Nacional in Panama was the Army, police and national guard all rolled into one. They all wore the same uniforms whether directing traffic or fighting in a war. We were warned that they were short tempered and if they gave you an order while you were in the Republic you responded quickly. I personally saw a small La Guardia take on a big, drunken Army dude in a bar and lay him on the floor in five quick seconds when he refused the La Guardia's order to leave the bar.
They were some tough little hombres.
Some recollections of my time in Panama:
One of the Sergeants who lived a floor above me in my barracks was a collector for his zoo back home. He would ship animals back to the States, apparently. I didn't know much about him until one evening a buddy of mine said that Sgt. So-and-So from upstairs was going to base operations to pick up a boa constrictor to send back to the States and did I want to go see? Well, of course I did. We walked over to Base Operations and saw a couple Air Policemen holding a big snake. I guess they'd found it out on one of the taxiways on the other side of the airfield. Sgt. So-and-So took a look at it and had the AP's stretch it out on the counter so we could take a good look at it. The snake was a Green Boa Constrictor about 8 feet long but only as big around as maybe a softball. The sergeant said he should have been much thicker. He then showed us why the snake was so skinny. Along the snake's back were dozens and dozens of jungle ticks protruding from its skin. These insects looked like brown dimes sticking in its back. While the sergeant and the AP's held the snake still, a few of us other guys used our cigarettes to burn ticks off the snake's back. You'd heat one up and he'd back right out of the skin where we could pick em off and stomp on them. A unique experience to be sure.
On one of my days off I grabbed a friend and we rode my motorcycle, a 125-cc Yamaha with almost no brakes, over to the city of Colon on the Caribbean side of the isthmus. It was only about 50 miles there and 50 miles back. It was a fun ride and we had a good time playing tourist in the northern Panamanian city. After returning I realized what I had actually done. I had ridden a motorcycle with almost no brakes from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean and back in one day! Not many people could say that, I'll bet.
One day a coati mundi wandered into the barracks. This is a dog-sized animal that looks like a cross between a raccoon and an anteater. It was friendly and we fed it. The animal liked that and made itself at home. It stayed about a week before someone reported it and we found out it was a pet of someone's up in base housing. A couple AP's came by to pick up our buddy and take him home. He was sleeping under one of the tech sergeant's beds and didn't want come out. The ol' sergeant said, “Wait a minute.” He placed a saucer on the floor next to the bed and poured some beer into it. The coati mundi came out and was lapping up the beer when the AP's, wearing gloves, picked him up and took him away. A beer-loving coati mundi. Quite a pet, eh?
Our weather detachment received a satellite-tracking trailer in the summer of 1969. Weather satellites were fairly new and it was a novelty to use our new “toy”. I remember tracking a very devastating storm from that trailer that summer. It was a monster that hit the gulf coast of the US and her name was Camille.
Traveling around Panama City was fun. You could ride in little buses that held a dozen or so people. There were hundreds of them. They were called Chivas which apparently meant “slow sheep”. They were always decorated with colored tapes, bright paintings of all kinds of things and there were usually pictures of saints taped to the ceiling and walls of the inside of the buses You jumped on one and rode it as far as you wanted and, when you got off you gave the driver a nickel. You rarely saw one of the drivers use his brakes. It was gas pedal and horn, gas pedal and horn, red lights be damned.
Very early one morning while I was working a shift at the weather station I noticed something on one of the windows. It was one of the giant stick bugs standing on the outside of the glass. He was about as big around as your little finger. I got a yardstick and laid it on the glass on the inside of the window next to him. That bug was 16 inches long from the end of his back legs to the tips of his front legs. We had a display for the pilots in the briefing area of some of the other big bugs we had in the jungles. Mainly big beetles, some almost as big as your fist. They had problems sometimes with the jets hitting those bugs and breaking windscreens.
In late '67 there was a change in the ranking of the enlisted men of the U. S. Air Force. What it meant for me was this: my rank of E-4 Airman First Class was changed to E-4 Sergeant. I was officially an NCO from that time forward. So in Panama I was entitled to go into the NCO club. As it was just across the street from my barracks, they served meals and drinks and had entertainment on lots of weekends, I spent quite a bit of time there. In fact, I ate breakfast there so often that the cooks, when they saw me come in the door, started cooking my favorite – a thick western omelet with big chunks of ham and green peppers and onions. But I had them make a change. Along with the three aforementioned ingredients they would also add mushrooms and jalapeño peppers. Along with 3 or 4 cups of coffee it was a superb breakfast!
I had a good friend in my barracks catch malaria while I was down there. I had loaned him some of my paperback H.P. Lovecraft horror novels during that time. I learned that you didn't want to be shaking with malarial fever and reading H.P. Lovecraft at the same time! Your nightmares were pretty awful, from what he told me. The disease of malaria hadn't quite been eradicated down there. They sprayed for the mosquito very frequently both from the air and from the ground, but the mosquito that caused the disease was a hard one to kill and there was the occasional case here and there.
Flying home on leave in January of 1969 on an older Air Force 4-engine prop aircraft. It was the middle of the night and we were flying over the center of the Gulf of Mexico. There were about 20 passengers flying to the States that night and I believe about all of them were asleep except for me. I was gazing out the window looking to the east when I noticed a sliver of bright light flying alongside of us. It looked, for all practical purposes, like a disk or a saucer. Uh-huh. Middle of the Gulf of Mexico, middle of the night, everyone asleep except me and, hopefully, the pilot – UFO flying alongside. My heart was beating fiercely as my brain was trying to assimilate what my eyes were seeing. And it was getting bigger and brighter as the seconds went by. I was thinking I'd just fell into an episode of “The Twilight Zone” and was just about ready to get up and see if the pilot was seeing what I was seeing when, all at once, I understood what was out there. It was the moon rising from the waters of the Gulf. The sky was black and the water was black. The only light was that of the moon as it slowly rose in the sky. I now know how some of the UFO sightings in the world are probably natural stuff.
Getting on a Boeing 707 in Miami, Florida for my return flight to Panama after my New Year's leave. It was a South American airline, can't remember which one, and the announcements were primarily in Spanish. A lot of the passengers were, shall I say, dangerous looking? They looked like desperados from some spaghetti-western movie, drooping mustachios, fierce black eyes, odd clothing. You also had to remember that around this time there were numerous hijackings of aircraft to Jose Marti airport in Cuba by people trying to make a political point. A lot of those hijackings originated in Miami. And this aircraft was going to be flying OVER Cuba on it's way to Tocumen airport in Panama City and points further south. I sat there in my dress blues uniform and hoped that the next landfall I'd see would be Panama, not the Communist island of Cuba. It was a very long flight and I let out a grateful sigh of relief when our wheels touched down in Panama.
Sitting down in my seat on the jet that was going to take me home from Panama when my tour was over. Cheering and loudly singing the Animal's rock song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” along with the rest of the rowdy military passengers when the wheels of the aircraft left the ground, knowing that we were going home, going back to America, going back to “The World”. It's hard to describe the joy in my heart on that northbound flight on that sunny day in the fall of 1969. The joy of a man laying down his tools after a good, hard day's work, knowing his sweat and efforts had been appreciated.
Even if that appreciation was only given by his fellow comrades and his family.
I was one of the lucky ones who did not get spat upon when returning to the United States. Some of my fellow soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen had to pass through that indignity. I thank God I did not. I'll leave the judgment for those who performed those acts to God's mercy because I have none to give them.
How do I sum up the experiences of my four years in the U.S. Air Force? There was no doubt in my mind that it was the seminal period of my life. I had transited in those 1,430 days from my boyhood to at least a reasonable version of manhood. I'd left behind my home, my family and my individual aspirations and dreams to join with my brothers in the military in serving my country. My part in the grand scheme of things was small but, I hope not too insignificant. I was a cog in the great machine of the era that will forever be known as The Vietnam Years.
I followed my orders. I served to the best of my ability. I willingly gave up four years of my life to ensure that my son, who was still an idea, not a reality, would continue to reap the rewards of freedom I had enjoyed. Yes its a cliché and yes patriotism is passe in some quarters these days. But not in my house, not in my family and not in my heart. I proudly fly my flag every day from my front porch.
I pulled my old blue dress uniform coat out of the closet the other day and looked at it. The ribbons on the breast and the stripes on the sleeve have faded a bit over the years and the brass could use a bit of a shining up. My name tag still looks out from the top of the pocket flap. But to my aging eyes the ribbons are still as brightly colored as the day they were first pinned on, the sergeant stripes on the sleeves as colorful and sharp as the day I was promoted and the brass as sweetly shining as the sun itself.
I wouldn't have missed a day of it.
