Red Wings TeeVee takes a trip out to Selfridge ANGB just northeast of Dee-troit in honor of "Military Appreciation Night" at The Joe this evening. The clip contains some medium grade plane pr0n which is why I'm posting it, among other things (like nostalgia for Former Happy Days).
Well. We sure would like to be at The Joe tonite, if only to get one of those cool Red Wings dogtags. Not to mention the hockey, of course.
That said... I feel a major digression comin' on. It's good to see Selfridge has a mission again... flying KC-135s and A-10s. The base had no mission at all back in the day when I lived in Deetroit... other than hosting drill weekends and the like... and was on and off the BRAC list several times (IIRC). Still and even I was grateful for the commissary and BX at Selfridge and made a pilgrimage out that way every month without fail. It's good to see the Michigan ANG back in the fight.
Buck, the North Bend AFS...Man, I had that identical Ford Courier! Same color...the tie-off handles, everything!
ReplyDeleteBut, I had a camper shell on mine. #2 son was about 2 years old, and I caught him up in the bed of the truck fiddling around...I dragged him out of there, and shut it down for the night.
The next morning, I headed into town to work about 7:30. When I hit about 45 mph on Hwy 80, the danged camper shell blew off, and landed top up in the middle of the hwy. Thank God nobody was following me close!!!
That little rascal had removed all the nuts from the 6 bolts that held the shell to the bed. The crescent wrench was laying in the bed as proof!
Jeepers man! I haven't thought about that in years, and did I laugh when I did! Oh...I know that had zero to do with your post. Just thought I'd reinforce the truth that sometimes the junk we post REALLY blesses others...even if we only post it for our own good.
Oh, Andy, that's a good story! I had the occasional use of one of those Ford Couriers myself around the same time. Fun little trucks, they were.
ReplyDeleteBuck, you really got the interesting assignments. The closest I came to anything like that was an assignment to the weather detachment at Hector IAP, a.k.a. Fargo airport. But my asshole CO got it changed to Grand Forks AFB at the last minute.
Andy: Heh. Your SN2 had quite a bit of manual dexterity for a two-year old! I'm bettin' the air turned a bit blue when that shell blew off! Quite the story and I'm glad ya told it here.
ReplyDeleteGordon: Yeah, the radar biz was FULL of "interesting" assignment possibilities... back then. Not so much anymore, tho. Guys (and gals, now) with a radar AFSC work on tactical (read as air transportable and deployable) radars now and are always garrisoned on real live air force BASES. I got out of the radar biz when USAF shut down the SAGE system in 1980. I didn't wanna play Boy Scout for the remaining four years of my career. Best move I ever made, too.