Our targets would have been the big bombers. We had air force squadrons stationed everywhere, up along the border with Canada, in Greenland, and in Alaska, as a perimeter defense of the nation. We were trained to intercept those incoming Soviets as far out as our airplanes could fly, and to knock them out of the sky before they could get close to American shores. I’m glad that we never had to do what we were trained for.
All of my previous flying was in a training environment, but now I was in an operational environment. We stayed on alert just like firefighters, sleeping in bunks and ready to fly into defensive action. It felt very different from training. And once again, as the new, green pilot, I started at the bottom of the heap and had to work my way up.
Pam and I could finally afford to buy a home, in the District Heights area close to the base. It cost us more than thirteen thousand dollars, a fortune in those days, but it was a beautiful brick house on a pleasant street and we loved it. I wasn’t paid much, but we got by. In fact, I think we had more disposable income than I have ever had since, because we had so few expenses. After the frenetic years of moving, I felt I could finally give Pam a moment to breathe, and a little stability.
It also seemed like the right moment for us to start a family, and in 1958 we had our first child, Merrill Ellen. We gave her my father’s first name, which is also my middle name. I wasn’t totally sure it could be used as a girl’s name, too, but there were a lot of women called Meryl around, so we figured we could get away with it. I was extremely excited to become a father, and it was a very special moment when we visited my family back in Michigan with our new baby.
Nevertheless, my career still consumed me. In my second year at Andrews, the air force finally gave us new fighters, high-altitude supersonic interceptors called Convair F-102 Delta Daggers. These airplanes were specifically designed to defend the United States, and yet we still didn’t fly much. With the new focus on nuclear warfare, the air force was given little money for spare parts. We had a hard time keeping our airplanes flying. We’d cannibalize one F-102 to repair another, and plenty of aircraft just sat in the hangar and looked pretty, because they couldn’t fly. A lot of the pilots sat around, too, killing time, drinking coffee, and playing Ping-Pong.
I was disenchanted by the lack of focus and flying time. But there was more to it than those factors: there was added tension within the squadron because of two very different generations of aviators. My flight commander and the other senior officers in the squadron had advanced through the ranks during World War II, a decade earlier. They’d been let go at the end of the war, but pulled back in to fly in Korea. Many hadn’t flown for years, and when they did it had been propeller planes. They learned to fly jets relatively late in their careers and were cautious and uneasy about jet aircraft quirks. Little things in the air made them jittery, and I kept a wary eye on them when flying close by.
Despite my caution, I respected their years of experience. I didn’t get it in return. Most had never been to college, and they resented those who had. They particularly disliked West Point graduates, believing that we received preferential treatment over war veterans. As there were only two of us in my squadron, we were easy to single out. I gritted my teeth and said nothing—for a while.
My superiors also wrote efficiency reports about me, which went in my military record. These reports were always good overall, but I was still convinced that my flight commander knocked me down a little simply because I had gone to West Point. A report that was merely okay would slow my chances of promotion. I vented my frustration in a private letter to Jim Allen, the tactical officer at West Point who had convinced me to become a pilot. He wrote back and told me that if I decided to resign I would be giving in to those people, who would then be in total command of the air force. He advised me to stick around, both for me and for the service. Jim was a clever guy, who ended up heading the Air Force Academy. It was some of the best career advice I have ever received.
I didn’t waste any more time sitting around drinking coffee and talking to those guys. I began to wander around the hangar more and more. Just as I had been curious about taking car engines apart and putting them back together as a teenager, I was eager to see what went on with airplane maintenance. I hung around the maintenance crews, talked with them, and grew even more fascinated. There were storage areas for munitions, guided missiles, folding fin rockets, and other amazing things. I wanted to know it all inside out. The guys who worked there, however, told me that they were having problems. They could never get the attention of the officer in charge, as he was always in the lounge with the pilots, relaxing with coffee and cigarettes. They were left to flounder on their own, and as a result the squadron received poor readiness ratings. It was not a good time to be so disorganized, because the air force was adding a special weapons storage facility, which meant we’d be able to have nuclear weapons on-site.
The squadron commander was aware of the problem and noticed my interest. He finally came to me and said he wanted to make some changes, and they involved me. He told me to take over and run the armaments and electronics shop. I had no idea of the scale of the problem when I began, but once I did my weekends were gone. I put in 120-hour weeks sorting out the mess, in addition to being on constant alert as a pilot for three-day shifts. With the help of my senior master sergeant, I put in all my time reorganizing.
The working conditions were deplorable. All the sensitive electronic repairs took place in a lean-to shed that wound around the back of the hangar wall. It was filthy, and despite the sweltering summer heat it had no air- conditioning. So we approached the Convair company, which built our F-102 airplanes, and Hughes, which built many of the weapons systems, and asked a question they had never heard before. We told them that if they would buy the materials, we would rebuild the armament shop. They saw that we were serious and agreed. It took a while, but we put in sound-absorbent ceilings, fluorescent lights, air-conditioning, brand-new workbenches, and a gleaming tiled floor. The place looked like a medical operating theater when we finished. The tools and all the test equipment were where they were supposed to be, and there was no longer any confusion about who did what. The whole operation turned around, and our air force readiness rating jumped from very low to very high.
It turned out that we fixed up that shop just in time. In 1960 we upgraded to the F-106 Delta Dart, dubbed the “ultimate interceptor” airplane. This sleek jet was an advanced version of the F-102 design, with a more powerful engine. It also had an almost completely integrated electronic flight system, with navigation, radio, munitions, and the flight-control systems in big racks. The F-106 was complex and needed the efficient maintenance facility we now had. Because we were so organized, when the air force demonstrated the airplane to senators, congressmen, and others from Washington, they frequently used our facility.
Our second child, Alison Pamela, was born that year. Many fathers would try to be at home and spend more time with two young children. I focused more on my job. I rationalized the decision by saying it was good for my career—and it was. But, to my regret, I missed a lot of my daughters’ precious early years: time that once lost is gone forever.
Luckily, Pam was a wonderful mother, who could fill in for my absence. I don’t remember her ever complaining about me being gone all the time. Perhaps it was my own guilt that I did not spend more time with my family and was not more of a father when my kids were small, but I suspect that a sense of unease crept into our marriage at that moment.
Up until then, despite any hardships, we had made it through on the understanding that we lived the roving military life. I don’t think Pam expected that things would change when we had kids, but I believe she became increasingly wary about what I was doing. When we married, she was a little upset that I chose to join the air force. She didn’t really want me flying, because there is an obvious element of danger to it. I am sure she must have struggled with the fears that all aviators’ wives have, and the pressure to not outwardly show them.
Then I got into the all-weather fighter business, which was not like flying cargo airplanes—it was far more dangerous. Adding to that stress, I was away from home and flying city alerts in the middle of the night. No wonder it was a tense time for her. I was getting more and more into my work, and she had the frustration of covering for me at home because I wasn’t there.
I understand now that Pam needed me to slow down. To reconsider what was most important to me. To invest in my new family. Yet I have to admit that I was oblivious to her worries at the time; I was so caught up in my career. The Air Defense Command came and inspected our maintenance work, and enthusiasm grew about the great job we had done. They particularly appreciated that the contractors, rather than the air force, had paid for most of the rebuilding. Soon I received a phone call summoning me to headquarters. They wanted me to visit all of
