Military Physician Travelogue

In 1966 I arrived at Mather AFB and found that I could travel any place in the world on a "space available" basis. I immediately scheduled myself for a meeting at Boston University to attend Doctor Ed Gaensler's Pulmonary Function and Physiology course. I flew to L. G. Hanscomb Field outside of Boston, five days. It was a superb educational experience and clinched my decision to go into pulmonary medicine. I felt enriched by seeing the century old "Halls of Ivy," and enjoyed the reception in the university library where cases were made of engraved wood instead of steel.

When the meetings concluded on Friday afternoon, I immediately called the base flight desk and was told that a fighter jet with the second seat empty had just taken off for Omaha. I could have flown in it had I called ahead and rushed a bit. The Sgt. told me that the pilot, a Colonel, would probably have waited an hour if he knew a doctor wanted to go along. The prestige our profession carries!

The next plane out was a small Navy propeller plane which was headed for Norfolk, Virginia. Since Hanscomb was a small base, with no other flights scheduled, I thought it best to get to some base with more traffic. There were three seats across in, perhaps, eight rows. This was a commuter flight where Navy pilots got practice taking personnel home on Friday and picking them up again Sunday afternoon. I was sitting by the window over the wing. The landing gears raised the plane with hydraulics and it appeared to "push" the plane into the air. Landing in Norfolk, I called the flight desk and found there were no planes heading west until the next morning, so I checked into the BOQ and set out to see a Navy base.

I met a surgeon who was about to begin sea duty on a carrier, and we set out to tour the famous carrier, the Enterprise. At the top of the gang plank I saluted the officer on deck and recognized him as an old fraternity brother. He enlisted the services of a junior officer to take over the guard duty and escorted us on a "royal tour" of the carrier. We ended up in the officers mess hall and enjoyed some of the best dining service I've ever experienced.

The following morning I boarded a plane headed for Mare Island which stopped briefly at Tinker Field, Oklahoma to drop off a retired Navy Admiral. Since this was a cross country training flight, and the pilot needed takeoff and landing practice, the crew was happy to stop in Sacramento and let me off at Mather AFB. When we touched down, the crew cut the engines on the side of the plane from which I emerged and then immediately took off. What a way to travel.

I was assigned to the Internal Medicine and Chest clinics and made ward rounds in the barracks-style hospital before and after clinic duty. The CMO had read my CV by now and, since I had done an extra rotation in allergy, he assigned me to the Allergy Clinic also.

Eventually I realized that meetings were work and not leave time, so I scheduled myself for "temporary duty" at the International TB & Lung Meetings in Amsterdam the following fall.

McClellan AFB had a weather wing that flew on a daily basis to or from Mildenhall Royal AF Station outside of London. It stopped overnight in Fairbanks, Alaska. Since this was a polar flight, I was required to check out Arctic gear and carry it with me in case we landed or crashed on the ice. We were an hour into the flight when a navigation system gave out. Duplicate systems were required for over water flights. After dumping our fuel over the ocean, we returned to McClellan AFB for repair. Four hours later we were refueled and in flight again. Fairbanks in October was mild, clear and relatively green.

The next morning we continued the flight over the north pole and saw nothing but polar ice and snow covered mountains. I asked the crew about the equipment we carried and external mounts on the sides of the plane and was told, "it's classified." The plane was a Boeing 707 (WC-135) and we flew at 10,000 feet which is considerably lower than the plane was designed for and, therefore, causes undue stress to the airframe. There were strain gauges along the wall of the fuselage to monitor structural damage. For me, the most excitement occurred when a jet bearing a red star flew next to us, watched for a few minutes and then banked off disappearing in seconds. The crew, which was constantly busy with radar and monitoring equipment, told me that the Red Air Force sent a fighter to check them out on most flights.

Arriving at Mildenhall RAF Station, I took my arctic gear to Columbia House, the BOQ in London. They were kind enough to store it for me and I took the next flight to Frankfurt an Mein. The cargo space was nearly filled except for a two-foot path leading to the back seats where a half dozen of us were flying "space A". The pilot announced that they were unable to get the plane pressurized and so we would be flying at 10,000 feet. Since we had no military facilities in Holland, I took a commercial KLM flight to the Schiphol in Amsterdam. I checked into Hotel "de Roode Leeuw" for the week-long meeting at the RAI International Congress Centre.

Every morning the canal ride to the Centre was enlightening. There were always famous professors from different countries discussing lung disease on the way to the first session of the day. The meetings were translated into English and French. It was interesting to see the entire Communist Block nations present their papers in French. One speaker from the USSR stated that all significant research occurred after the great revolution of 1917. He felt there was nothing of medical importance prior to that time. My English interpreter was behind sealed glass and it was interesting to see him register his surprise at the Russian's statement by coming out of his chair to peer at him - never once missing a word in the delivery of translation.

After the meeting, I returned to the Columbia House in London to retrieve my Arctic gear. While at Heathrow, there was an announcement over the PA system stating that a flight "would be delayed until someone could come up with a rubber band." Everyone thought it was funny. The headlines in the papers the next day revealed that Scotland yard didn't think so. I subsequently returned on the same weather wing flight to McClellan AFB since nothing more adventurous in nature was available.

I was now into the second year of my two-year tour of military duty. Although Mather was a Navigator Training base, there was a SAC (Strategic Air Command) Bomb wing of B52s stationed there. My AF patients told me they had B52s on alert loaded with nuclear weapons at all times. I inquired about the possibility of going on a training mission. My background was investigated and I was given the "secret" security clearance and approved for a SAC B52 flight. I must have had a clean record with both military intelligence and the FBI. I went to the SAC command post at 5 a.m. on the designated day and faced a mirrored door and spotlights. After giving appropriate identification to the cameras, I was allowed to enter and introduce myself to the two pilots, two navigators, a tail gunner, and crew. I noticed hand guns at each desk in the entire SAC command center. These men were serious about the business of WAR. We went out to the flight line and climbed into the B52 where I was given the IP or instructor pilot seat between and behind the two pilots and above the navigator pit. Flying at 40,000 feet, the radar navigator told the pilots which way to look for a fighter jet streak across 2,000 ft above us.

Each pilot was following his log and doing things independent of the other. I was jarred to attention when the plane shifted and seemed out of control. One of the pilots had killed three of the four engines on one wing causing the plane to fly nearly sideways. The other pilot's job was to keep the plane flying while re-igniting these engines. All in a day's work. No wonder the pilots who came into the clinic were always so stressed.

Some time later I ducked as I thought a pipe was coming through the canopy. I soon realized it was the boom of a tanker flying just ahead and above us. The boom connected to our plane and fuel was transferred under pressure. Putting on my ear phones, I heard the co-pilot being told he needed to "do it better," and they disconnected and reconnected a couple of times. I was amazed at the skill involved in an exercise which required two large aircraft to be flying at 1000 feet per second with only 30 feet or so between them. A tenth of a second error and we would all be a ball of fire. No wonder pilots thought they were god when seen in the Internal Medicine clinic.

After flying for 14 hours across the northern USA and Canada doing maneuvers which included bomb dives and low level terrain avoidance, we headed for Mather after shooting an approach at Beale AFB in Marysville.

I was now half way through my second year and still had not been to Asia. One of the radiologists had a similar interest and we began making plans to go to Southeast Asia. He was generally able to read his films by noon and play golf most afternoons, meeting many officers from both Sacramento bases. One day he was told the Royal AF was coming through McClellan, and if, on the following day, we were on the flight line, we might be able to join their flight.

We were there and were invited to go along. We were told they were going to Australia. We felt that was a good start in the right direction, so we called back to Mather to have our Airman sign us out, called our wives and told them that we had gotten the ride, and took off in a prop jet.

Our seats were in the back of the plane and immediately the pilots, navigators and we two doctors were served afternoon tea and cakes by three British airmen who looked after all our needs for the entire journey, including three lovely meals a day. We asked these attendants when we would be arriving in Australia and they looked shocked. They said we were going to Singapore. They looked even more shocked when we were elated to be going to Singapore. We enjoyed our first Asian city for two days and then took a flight to Bangkok, Thailand. A "Batt", the size and value of our nickel got us on any cab to go any place we wanted to see. A native adopted us and was waiting every morning to take us to a new sight or new temple. Being a collector of bells, I doubled my collection on this one trip.

After a week of checking the flight schedule daily, we were unable to obtain a flight to Viet Nam or Japan, so we decided to head back for the states. We went to the base and signed up as number 4 & 5 on a 165 seat plane leaving the next morning. As we waited through the night with the lizards keeping us company, more and more troops seemed to be arriving. As a result, when we finally got on the plane, our "space A" seats 4 & 5 had became 161 & 162. We just barely made it out of Thailand without the expense of a commercial flight. We were glad to go home.

With my tour ending, I had decided to complete my Pulmonary Fellowship, and make Sacramento our home, the city which thankfully was introduced to me and my family by the USAF.