Veterans Month
November 2003
NS Veterans Remember
Patrick Lucero
IT Designer
Atlanta
I served in the U.S. Air Force on active duty from 10/62 - 10/66 and inactive duty 10/66 - 10/68.
After boot camp in Texas, the hottest place on earth, it was off to technical school for another six months to learn communications stuff. I was granted a Top Secret cryptographic clearance and shipped off to Turkey for one-and-a-half years.
I lived in a Quonset hut, one those half-round ovens, for most of my tour there. It still wasn't quite as hot as Texas.
My job mostly entailed deciphering and enciphering (coding and encoding) military messages for the Air Force and the U.S. Navy. Even though I was fascinated by the Turkish people and customs, I was glad to go home. The tour there was considered a "bad" tour by most military due to the location among other things. I still learned a lot from my experience there.
Occasionally, I was on alert status. When the alarm sounded, I had to get my ammunition and gear, and jump onto a truck that took us out to guard the flight line.
The Turkish base was known to occasionally have been taken over by the Turks, who put everyone under arrest and locked them up. Fortunately, that didn't happen while I was there. I did have the opportunity to get into town and see the sights and shop for souvenirs.
When my tour of duty there had ended, I couldn't wait to kiss the American soil. I was transferred to a Strategic Air Command Headquarters in Massachusetts, where I supervised the Relay Communications Center Command Post inside a mountain. The only problem I had was being younger than most guys and their having to take orders from me. Of course, I believe that came from a little "ego" problem I had, too.
But when my four active years were up, I just wanted to get back into the real world. Besides, I found out that had I re-enlisted, my next tour was targeted for jungle training and jumping out of planes. That was not for me. I had just gotten married and had a son on the way so I said, "next time."