Ghosts

"You can never go home again," or so it's said.  Well, you CAN go home... just don't expect it to look the same as when you left.  I've mentioned Fortuna AFS, North Dakota several times in these pages (one such mention here)... a place I was stationed for one year, three days, eight hours and ten minutes.  Not that we were counting, or anything.  But we digress.  Great good friend and partner-in-crime (I mean that last quite literally) Lori from the Fortuna days gave us a link to a sad and comprehensive photo essay on what remains of Fortuna AFS today.  A couple o' pics from that essay follow.

Then, c. 1977.  I was there in '77 and worked on that big-ass checkerboard antenna*.

Now, c. 2013.

You can see Part One of "Fortuna Air Force Station" here, Part II is here.  I was a radar guy for 16 years of my 22-year USAF career and nearly ALL of the sites I was stationed at are either gone or will be soon.  It's kinda-sorta like bein' a Squid and seein' yer former home turned into an artificial reef or cut up to make razor blades.  Mebbe worse, I dunno.

* "The system suffered frequent bearing problems as the antenna weighed seventy tons."  That's from a brief article on the FPS-35, with some interesting pics.  I managed to get through MY year at Fortuna without antenna bearing problems.  I had problems of a different sort, like working on the antenna deck in the winter, when ambient... NOT wind-chill... temps fell to ten or 20 degrees below zero.  That was more "fun" than one is supposed to have.

Well, You Sure Don't LOOK Like You're Over 60

From the Usual USAF Source...

Air Frame: A B-52 Stratofortress takes off from Andersen AFB, Guam, July 2, 2013. This aircraft, assigned to the 23rd Bomb Squadron at Minot AFB, N.D., is on a rotational deployment to Guam, where the United States maintains a continuous bomber presence to promote stability in the western Pacific. (Air Force photo by A1C Marianique Santos)

Lookin' pretty spiffy fer an old lady, ain't she?

Apropos o' that location... I did a week on Guam once upon a time, where three of my best friends and I changed out the bull gear (a huge gear... about six feet in diameter and weighing several hundred pounds... that drives the radar's antenna) on an FAA-operated FPS-67 search radar, for which USAF had heavy maintenance responsibility.  That was a miserable job, mainly because we worked inside a radome that only had three small access hatches for ventilation... and Guam is a tropical place, as you know.  We worked at night on that job, for the most part, since the radome had all the qualities of a convection oven during the day.  Miserable.

Another fun fact: I learned that "Guam" is actually an acronym* during that TDY.

* Give Up And Masturbate

Why Not Minot?

Air Frame: A B-52H Stratofortess comes in for a landing at Minot AFB, N.D., on Jan. 7, 2013. (Air Force photo by SrA. Brittany Y. Auld) Click on image above to reach larger version.  (Ed: And don't that look COLD?)

The answer to the question is "Freezin's the reason."  That's an old AF saying, one I heard many, MANY times when I received orders to this gawd-fersaken place, which was 138 miles northwest of Minot.  Like this:


View Larger Map

Minot was my support base and we... my Fortuna-Friends and I... used to go down that way to party when we weren't headed north to Regina, Saskatchewan (both "cities" were about equal distance from Fortuna).  But yeah, freezin' WAS the reason.  I never really knew what "cold" was until I spent a winter up that way.

In other news... I poured my first cup at 1312 hrs today, a new personal worst for me (without a hangover).   But I'm one-third of the way through Season Three!

A Blast From My (Almost) Past

So... this photo appeared in today's edition of the Air Force Association's Daily Report:

Air Frame: A forklift off-loads supply pallets from the back of a C-130 Hercules at Cape Newenham in northern Alaska, Dec. 4, 2012. Cape Newenham is a remote radar site that is part of the North Warning System, a string of aircraft-detection sensors stretching from northern Alaska across upper Canada to the Canadian Atlantic coast. Sites like Cape Newham are dependent upon air-delivered resupply. (Air Force photo by TSgt. Brian Ferguson)

The photo brought chills to my spine and grins to my face, alternately.  Why?  Because back in 1977 I had orders in hand for Cape Newenham AFS with a report NLT date of June, 1977.  Cape Newenham was a remote tour and I was looking at spending one year... alone, except for about 80 of my soon-to-be closest MALE friends... in that dreary place.  Fate intervened, however, due to this happy event (from the linked Wiki article):

On 1 October 1977, AAC, after a trial period, implemented a site support contract with RCA Services as part of an Air Force-wide effort to reduce remote tours. Eighty military positions were deleted.

One of those positions was MINE.  I was informed at the very last minute my orders to Cape Newenham had been cancelled and I was diverted here:

That would be Fortuna AFS, North Dakota.  I was prolly the ONLY guy ever assigned to Fortuna who arrived with a smile on his face.

Mt. Tam Time-lapse

Occasional Reader and Good Buddy Rob sent along a link to the following:



In his e-mail he said, and I replied (in part) as below...

If I could get a job like that I'd die a happy man. Whoosh.

There were several hundred of us USAF radar types that had such a job.  From an old post:

Today’s Pic: Photographic evidence that San Francisco is indeed America’s most beautiful city. Taken from the summit of Mt. Tamalpais, October of 2000. That’s my buddy John silhouetted against the view.

Just as an aside, Mt. Tam used to be the home of the 666^th Radar Squadron (Mill Valley Air Force Station), and as such was one of the best kept secrets in the entire United States Air Force. The Officers/NCO Club had a million-dollar view of the Bay Area through huge plate-glass windows and folks in the know could get a room in the BOQ for about ten bucks a night, back in the day. Although I was never stationed at Mill Valley, I did take advantage of those “low rates” at the BOQ once or twice…

When I say "million dollar view," I mean just that.  TSMP and I stayed at Mill Valley AFS on two occasions when we were stationed at North Bend AFS, (ed: I added that link for this post) just up the coast a ways.  All it took to get a room was a phone call to the site billeting office, who would advise if there was or wasn't a vacancy for the weekend.  Cheap rent, cheap drinks, and a brilliant NCO Club with an excellent chef... what's NOT to like?

All of the above is true.  The Air Force had more than a few places you DIDN'T wanna go (this bein' one of 'em) but there were more than a few "Garden Spots," as well... Mill Valley bein' one such.

I Got Nuthin'...

... you get a re-run.  This one's over five years old so it will prolly be new to most of you, seein' as how there are only about two of you Gentle Readers who have been with me since 2006.  This lil bit o' nostalgia was prompted by blog-bud Glenn, who posted a lot o' pics of the Edwards AFB air park... one such bein' an F-101 Voodoo.  I had a close encounter of the underwear changing kind with a Voodoo in the way-back...

Saturday, March 18, 2006

Old Computer Tech and a War Story

Lileks has some great old computer advertising promotional photos from the ‘60s and ‘70s here. Browsing through those old photos made me a bit nostalgic for the old USAF Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) system, the nation’s air defense system from 1963 until 1983. (More on SAGE, including some pretty cool old photos, here. Click on the “SAGE” links in the left hand sidebar.) I enlisted in the AF in 1963 and spent almost half of my life working in the SAGE system, albeit on the sensor (radar) end, not the computing end. Here’s a thumbnail description of SAGE:

By the time the system was fully deployed in 1963, according to MITRE, "the 24 SAGE Direction Centers and three SAGE Combat Centers were spread throughout the U.S. Each was linked by long-distance telephone lines to more than 100 interoperating air defense elements, requiring system integration on a scale previously unimagined. At the heart of each center was a new large-scale digital computer that had evolved from MIT's experimental Whirlwind computer of the 1950's. The largest real-time computer program of that time, it automated information flow, processed and presented data to 100 operator stations, and provided control information to the weapons systems. This processed information, including aircraft tracks and identification, was presented to operators on a cathode ray tube -- one of the first uses of this device to display computer-generated data." Each Center was built around a huge A/N FSQ-7 computer with 60,000 vacuum tubes requiring 3 megawatts of power and running the largest computer program written up to that time, with 500,000 lines of code. This program used an area in system memory called COMPOOL that could be shared by several subroutines. This would become one of the founding concepts for the COBOL computer language. The communications devices from Burroughs allowed each center to communicate with other centers, creating one of the first practical computer networks.

The air defense of the entire United States and Canada was based on a network of 22 “Direction Center” computers, each of which ran mere 500,000 lines of code. Your desktop machine has 40 million lines of code in its operating system, assuming you’re running Windows XP. We’ve come a long way, Baby!  

If you followed that “here” link above, you’ll note the main page has a photo of an F-102 superimposed on a radar tower, with a clickable link called “Bubble Check.” Click that link! The pilot that wrote that piece describes the bubble checks he performed while up in Alaska and maintains that USAF pilots only did that sort of thing at remote sites where the possibility of civilian complaints was low to non-existent.

Hogwash.

I got the living BeJeebus scared out of me while at Lompoc AFS in the mid-60s by an F-101 pilot out of Oxnard AFB pulling an unannounced bubble check. Just to be clear, bubble checks had at least two purposes: one was to impress and entertain the troops at the radar sites, the second was to express displeasure with ground controllers who screwed up intercept vectors, causing the fighter jock to miss an intercept on an in-bound target. When the latter scenario happened, said displeased fighter jock would buzz the ground control intercept site, unannounced, usually lighting off the afterburner(s) in the process, which caused a helluva lot of racket and startled everyone within a couple thousand yards. Point made, and all that.

So, there I was, about 60 feet off the ground at the very top of the antenna of an AN/FPS-6 height finder radar which was situated on the edge of the “hill” the radar site was located on. Or, to put it another way, the radar tower overlooked a valley that was at least a couple of thousand feet wide and several hundred feet deep, the point being one could fly an aircraft through that valley and be beneath the elevation of the radar station.

It was a fairly warm and clear summer’s day and I was inspecting the antenna for cracks, a normal preventive maintenance routine. I caught a flash and a glint out of the corner of my eye, turned and looked over my shoulder and DOWN, right into the cockpit of an F-101 doing about 600 mph, 90 degrees to the ground, a mere 150 feet or less from my poor frail body. The pilot lit off the afterburners just as I caught the flash of the aircraft as it sped by and the entire antenna—including me, holding on for dear life—was rocked by a thunderous KA-BOOM-BOOM! The pilot stood that 101 on its tail as it passed over the search radar tower and shot straight up into the sky, disappearing in a matter of seconds.

As for me, I was left completely shaken, clinging to that antenna with a veritable death-grip. I was damned lucky I didn’t have to go home and change my pants after that event. And it took me about ten minutes or more to gain enough composure to climb down from the antenna. Bubble checks are impressive, indeed. Scary, too. 

I did some minor editing to the above, such as removing dead links and adding the pic of  the Voodoo (which sits on the prem at the AF Armament Museum at Eglin AFB).  We weren't much on graphics back when we started out with this bloggin' thang.

♪♫ Memories... Like the Corners of My Mind... ♫♪

With apologies to Barbra.  I was reading thru the (other) usual source this morning and came upon this lil blurb...

A Beacon of BRAC: Air National Guardsmen from six states have potentially saved the Air Force some $31 million by stepping up to move a radar research tower from Rome, N.Y., to Springfield ANGB, Ohio. Mandated under BRAC 2005, the Air Force Research Lab set out to consolidate four radar towers near Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. With initial contract estimates as high as $35 million, AFRL sensors directorate officials turned to the New York Air National Guard's 213th Engineering Installation Squadron in 2007. Harnessing Air Guard manpower from across the nation, the squadron estimated that it could complete the project for just $4.2 million. In late May, the Air Guardsmen, supported by active duty airmen, completed the disassembly, move, and reassembly process at Springfield, all for $600,000 under the unit's cost projection. "The underlying theme behind BRAC is achieving savings for the taxpayers. This effort is one of our biggest success stories to date," said Frank Albanese, AFRL's BRAC director. (Springfield report by Derek Kaufman)

Hey!  I used to do that!  And apropos of sumthin' I said yesterday, one of my claims to fame in this life is I was part of a multi-functional USAF Engineering-Installations team that set a record for taking a bunch of big-ass boxes... and I mean a BUNCH, like about 100 semi-tractor trailers worth... and turning them into a fully-functioning aircraft control and warning (AC&W) radar ground control intercept site.  Me and about 100 of my closest friends from the E&I division of the 1956th Communications Group spent four months on Doi Inthanon (the tallest mountain in Thailand) putting that site together.  That was in the way, way-back... sometime in 1976.  I've posted about this before but always in passing, like this:

There are others, of course, most of which we have no photographic record. And most of those events are minor… mundane, even... such as the time my buds and I walked off the hill at Doi Inthanon, Thailand after a hard day of raising the search radar antenna at a long range radar site we (a USAF Engineering & Installations [E&I] team out of Yokota AB, Japan) were building for the Royal Thai Air Force. Raising that antenna was a milestone in a long and difficult installation… and we celebrated by unfurling a home-made banner on the radar antenna… a huge thing cobbled up out of bedsheets, emblazoned with our makeshift "Baker and Sons Radar Installations" logo, and visible throughout the radar station. That banner was a thing we spent the entire evening admiring, all while hoisting many Singhas in celebration… accompanied by team members from the various E&I disciplines deployed with us… radio, telephone, construction… among others. A victory of sorts, and one to be celebrated. Once again… we were heroes, just for one day.

I'm pretty sure I took my camera with me on that TDY, but any pictures I took of that adventure have gone missing over the years. I bitch and moan constantly about losing all my photos and this is yet another case of that.  There's always The Wiki, though... and here's what the RTAF station on Doi Inthanon looks like today:

DI was a LOT less civilized the last time I saw it and that microwave tower on the right wasn't there. But that golf ball behind the green water or fuel tank?  My buds and I built the radar antenna inside that and all the other radar stuff, too.  I've got the tee shirt.

Air Force News From New Mexico

From the (other) Usual Source:

Bye, Bye Black Sheep: Airmen at Holloman AFB, N.M., held an inactivation ceremony for the 8th Fighter Squadron. The "Black Sheep" are standing down after less than two years of operating F-22s due to the Air Force's Raptor fleet consolidation plan, which calls for Holloman to lose its two squadrons' worth of F-22s and take on two F-16 squadrons for training. "We flew 2,500 sorties and over 3,000 hours. That's more than 10 sorties a day, with less than nine F-22s," said Lt. Col. Craig Baker, 8th FS commander, in highlighting his unit's accomplishments during the inactivation ceremony. The inactivation takes effect on July 15. Some of the 8th FS' F-22s are going, for the time being, to Holloman's 7th FS, while others will bolster the ranks of F-22 units at JB Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska; JB Langley-Eustis, Va.; and Nellis AFB, Nev. The 7th FS' F-22s will eventually shift to Tyndall AFB, Fla. This is the second time in the 8th FS' 61-year-history that the unit will go on inactive status. The first time was in April 2008 following the retirement of the F-117 Nighthawk. The Black Sheep have flown 15 airframes throughout their history, and they dropped the first bombs in both Operation Desert Storm and Operation Iraqi Freedom when they flew F-117s. (Holloman release by A1C Siuta B. Ika) (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Eileen Payne/Released)

There's a short video at the "Holloman release" link, above.  I gave that vid a look and the first thing that struck me was "it's painful to watch a unit retire its colors."  I've never personally witnessed a unit inactivation, at least not any unit to which I was currently assigned when it ceased to exist.  I DO have the dubious honor of stating all four radar squadrons I served in have been deactivated (the 669th, the 750th, the 761st, and the 780th) and their physical locations have nearly deteriorated into nothingness.  It's a true fact you can never go home again, particularly when "home" doesn't exist any longer.  The 8FS may live again sometime in the future but it's a pretty safe bet there will never be another radar squadron, because time and technology marches on... relentlessly.

And I Was VERY Glad...

From today's AFA Daily Report:

Texas Tower Victims Honored: President Obama has sent letters of gratitude to the families of the 28 airmen and civilians who died on Jan. 15, 1961, when the offshore NORAD radar platform on which they were serving sank more than 80 miles off the coast of New York during a storm. The Boston Globe reported that the President's acknowledgment came on the 50th anniversary of the loss of "Texas Tower 4," one of several radar platforms sitting off the US East Coast in the 1950s and early 1960s to provide advanced warning of a Soviet bomber attack. Obama also sent letters to the families of four men who died in accidents on the other platforms, according to the newspaper. The Air Force closed the last tower in 1963. (For more on the Texas towers, see The Rise of Air Defense and More Guts Than Glory from Air Force Magazine's archives)

First of all:  Good On President Obama.  Acknowledging troops we lost during the Cold War, for whatever reason, is an admirable thing and something that doesn't happen all that often.

Now that we got THAT out of the way (and I was serious)... I highlighted that bit above (and titled this post as I did) because (a) 1963 was the year I entered the Air Force and (b) I could have VERY easily wound up on one of the Texas Towers, seeing as how I was that kind o' radar guy for the first 16 years of my career.  

And while both of the linked articles at the end of the Daily Report blurb are worth your time I especially recommend the "More Guts Than Glory" piece.  That one is interesting for a number of reasons... not the least of which is the fact it was written in 1958.  Times and styles... especially writing styles for the quasi-official House Organ... most certainly DO change.  I thought it was kinda cool to see archaic terms like A/2C and M/Sgt sprinkled throughout the article.  But then I would, wouldn't I?  Coz that was the way we were in Your Father's Air Force.

Heroes... Just For One Day

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be Heroes, just for one day
We can be us, just for one day

We did an extended Happy Hour this past evening, given as how the wind died down late in the evning and the temps were oh-so-moderate, bordering on chilly. Now…who'd a thunk that… the "chilly" bit, I mean. But it's true… and I digress, as ever and always. You'll note I've embedded Bowie and quoted one small bit of the lyrics to "Heroes." There's a reason for that, of course.

First and foremost… we had our windows open and our Very Expensive Radio (aka our peesee) cranked up so as to furnish an appropriate soundtrack for the after-dinner whiskey and cigar extravaganza. And then there was this moment in time... which would be the middle tune in this series of three:

Which got us to thinking… a dangerous pursuit in the best of times, but more so when we're (nearly) in our cups than at any other time. Or close. We were thinking, specifically, about the lyrics to "Heroes"… which we've committed to memory in that strange way reserved only for rock 'n' roll tunes but somehow escapes us for shit that truly matters, like our grandchildren's birthdays. I was wondering if we (all of us) understand what it means to be "heroes, just for one day."

I've had more than a few occasions where I... or we... were heroes just for one day, but never considered them as such until this evening. This moment comes to mind:

That fuzzy and almost indistinct image would be YrHmblScrb holding SN3, only an hour or so after SN3 entered this world. We were heroes at that moment, The Second Mrs. Pennington and I. And SN3, too.

Or this:

That would be SN2, The First Mrs. Pennington, SN1, and grandson Sean… on the occasion of SN1's commissioning back in 2000. TFMP and I were heroes just for that day… celebrating our first-born's accomplishment and the fact that our second-born had sworn SN1 into the officer corps… and bursting with pride we were, despite our difficult past and considerable angst with each other.

There are others, of course, most of which we have no photographic record. And most of those events are minor… mundane, even... such as the time my buds and I walked off the hill at Doi Inthanon, Thailand after a hard day of raising the search radar antenna at a long range radar site we (a USAF Engineering & Installations [E&I] team out of Yokota AB, Japan) were building for the Royal Thai Air Force. Raising that antenna was a milestone in a long and difficult installation… and we celebrated by unfurling a home-made banner on the radar antenna… a huge thing cobbled up out of bedsheets, emblazoned with our makeshift "Baker and Sons Radar Installations" logo, and visible throughout the radar station. That banner was a thing we spent the entire evening admiring, all while hoisting many Singhas in celebration… accompanied by team members from the various E&I disciplines deployed with us… radio, telephone, construction… among others. A victory of sorts, and one to be celebrated. Once again… we were heroes, just for one day.

There have been many, many more... most of 'em minor… like when The Second Mrs. Pennington and I had a couple of drinks in this way-cool little bar in Rochester, NY to celebrate the closing on the next-to-last house we ever bought together… but all of 'em significant in their own way.

I suppose my point is we should celebrate these victories whenever they happen… and recognize that ALL of us can indeed be "heroes, just for one day." I spent the better part of last evening reminiscing and celebrating those victories, small as they may be. Yep… we were heroes, just for one day.

Bowie had it right.

Harsh and Harsher

Dang, Ralph…that’s harsh!

FP: What are your thoughts on Obama wanting to attack Pakistan? That is after all where the terrorists are lurking.

Peters: It's a classic example of the fateful mix of hubris and naivety on Capitol Hill. Mr. Obama has yet to supply any details, so let me help him out: Sure, we can invade Pakistan. Of course, we'll need a draft to round up enough troops. And we'll have to kill, as a minimum, a few hundred thousand Pathan tribesmen and their families, and we'll have to remain as an occupier for many years. Oh, and Pakistan's got nuclear weapons and it's already torn by civil strife. But no worries there for good, old Barak--who was too important to serve in the military himself (military service is just for chumps like me or for those who are, as John Kerry pointed out, so stupid they're stuck in Iraq).

Now, I'm all for targeted air strikes and special ops raids in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan where al Qaeda has been re-grouping. But, hey, I've actually been there. It's some of the toughest terrain in the world, and the mountain ranges are vast. A classic military invasion isn't the answer. So, if Obama wants to invade, I'd just like to hear the details of his plan. Of course, he hasn't got one. He's just blowing smoke. He knows less about military matters than I do about neurosurgery. The difference between us is that he's convinced he's qualified to operate.

In the Queen's English, the guy's a wanker.

For those of you unfamiliar with Brit slang, here’s the definition of “wanker.” I think Col. Peters got it right, even though it’s kinda hard for me to visualize Her Highness calling anyone a wanker.

Hat tip: Lex.

Harsh, Part II. Or...About Today’s Pics… Two views of a radar site that overlooks Layton, Utah, taken while I was visiting SN1 last month. This particular site is most likely owned and operated by the FAA, but it could very well have been part of the extensive network of USAF radar sites that were built in the ‘50s and decommissioned in the ‘70s. There was once a time when every single square inch of the Lower 48 was swept by a USAF radar beam every 20 seconds, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Continuously. Not so any longer.

I spent two-thirds of my USAF career on sites just like the one in the pictures…the only thing that really varied from site to site was the elevation. In the flat parts of the US of A, the sites were situated on the highest ground to be found in the vicinity, which was often only a slight rise of 20 to 25 feet above the rest of the countryside. In other places the sites were perched on mountain tops that were literally thousands of feet above sea level, specifically in the coastal mountain ranges of the west coast and up in Alaska, where some truly spectacularly scenic locations existed. “Spectacularly scenic,” of course if you only just looked at a picture of two little dots perched on a mountain overlooking, say, the Bering Sea…not if you had to live and work in that sort of isolation for a year, which was the “standard” tour. And if one was in the radar business back in the day, one could look forward to doing a “remote” tour every four years or so, just like clockwork. I never did go to Alaska, but I did have orders to Cape Newenham that were canceled at the very last minute. I was sent to Fortuna AFS, ND, instead. And was probably the only guy to ever report in to that God-forsaken location with a smile on my face. At least Fortuna was in the US of A, albeit just barely.

So why am I on about this today? Simply because I chased up another Lex-link, this time it was photography of abandoned military bases. Buried within that link was a mention of Boron AFS—another radar site I called “home,” once upon a time. And then the synapses began to fire off, just like clockwork. The mind is a funny thing.

Update: If you follow the Cape Newenham link, don't miss the "Information Brochure," circa 1976. Since I received my orders to Cape Newenham in 1977, the chances are quite good I would have received this very same brochure, had I not been diverted to Fortuna. Just reading the thing sent shivers up my spine...

An EARLY Start, for a Change

Peggy Noonan wrote a stunning op-ed in the WSJ yesterday (An Ode to Ceremony), and I’ll quote extensively (emphasis mine):

A few days later, the great state funeral of Gerald Ford. I didn't plan to watch it, but every time I saw it I couldn't stop. Why do we do this, dust off the pomp and circumstance and haul out the ruffles and flourishes? It's not only to mark a death, even of so respected and highly charged a figure as a former president. Why do network television chiefs and newspaper editors decide not to leave the story until it's over, even when from day one it seems stale?

Because it's not stale. We're renewing.

The Marines snap their salutes and bear the flag-draped coffin up the marble steps and we hear the old hymns--"Going Home," "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," "The Navy Hymn": "Oh hear us when we cry to thee / For those in peril on the sea." We don't hear these songs much in modern life, only at formal occasions like this. We lock them in a closet until a state funeral, and then they come out and we realize how much they meant, and how much we miss them.

The ministers speak of God's grace and ask him to welcome his humble servant home. Which suggests, and in a formal state occasion, that there is a God, a home, a soul. The eulogists speak of the wonders of the human personality, and of a specific and particular life in the long continuum. They praised Ford's honesty, his modesty, his patience. They said he always put himself second. They said he loved his country. In doing so they reminded us that effort is rewarded, patriotism is praised.

We do all this to remind ourselves who we are. We do it to remind ourselves what we honor, and what we believe, as a nation and a people. We do it to remind ourselves that America yields greatness, that here a seemingly average man raised in decidedly average circumstances can become someone whose passing deserves four days of a great nation's praise.

Praising these things reminds the old of what it is we should be aiming for each day, and instructs the young on the elements of a life well lived.

We do it to make the picture broader for a moment, and free ourselves of our cynicism. And we do it finally to enact what so many feel and rarely say, not only because it's corny but because if you mean it, it's beyond words.

Ms. Noonan’s thoughts are spot-on, particularly about the significance of ritual in instructing the young about who we are and what we stand for.

I put up a couple of posts about President Ford’s funeral and I watched most, but not all, of it. I also remarked about how impressive the ceremonies were. I neglected to address exactly why I found the rituals so impressive and, truth be told, I suppose I wasn’t completely in touch with my feelings. Or, much more likely, I was unable to articulate my feelings. As Ms. Noonan so correctly observes: “And we do it finally to enact what so many feel and rarely say, not only because it's corny but because if you mean it, it's beyond words.” The meaning of the occasion was most certainly beyond my words.

And while we’re on about “values,” here’s a follow-up to my recent post about the retirement of Steve Yzerman’s number. From an editorial by Lynne Meredith Schreiber in the Detroit News:

They lauded Yzerman for his integrity, his sportsmanship, his teamwork -- all the things I always loved about him. The way he married his high school love and stayed married. His humility. The way he took little, if any, credit for his great, great talent on the ice, instead sharing his night of honor, his career highlights and his Stanley Cup wins with all those around him, from the front office and locker room alike.

These used to be standard American characteristics quality, integrity, character. That's changed, big-time. Now, the words most often used to describe our nation are divorced, obese and lawsuit-happy.

As Americans have devolved as a people, individuals like Stevie Yzerman have soared to stardom not for his winning, his 692 career goals or the way he came to work even when he was injured, all admittedly fantastic. He is a star because he does not tell everyone he's a star. He is a star because he is, at heart, an average family guy who plays well with others.

I mentioned in passing that Stevie Y is in the “A” rank of my personal heroes, and Ms. Schreiber captures— perfectly —the main reason I hold The Captain in such esteem. And, to a lesser extent, my love for the sport of hockey. Anyone who has watched hockey for more than a season or two recognizes there’s a certain gestalt that runs through interviews with hockey players: they tend to be personally modest and attribute their successes to “the team.” In other words, they play well with others. There are lessons to be learned here.

I’ll offer up just one comparison: Terrell Owens. Stevie and TO come from entirely different planets, and the NHL and the NFL are two completely different universes. I know which universe I want MY kids (and grandkids) to live in. Just sayin’.

Today’s Pic: Photographic evidence that San Francisco is indeed America’s most beautiful city. Taken from the summit of Mt. Tamalpais, October of 2000. That’s my buddy John silhouetted against the view.

Just as an aside, Mt. Tam used to be the home of the 666^th Radar Squadron (Mill Valley Air Force Station), and as such was one of the best kept secrets in the entire United States Air Force. The Officers/NCO Club had a million-dollar view of the Bay Area through huge plate-glass windows and folks in the know could get a room in the BOQ for about ten bucks a night, back in the day. Although I was never stationed at Mill Valley, I did take advantage of those “low rates” at the BOQ once or twice…

Does That Look COLD?

Well, it was. Cold was the operative word at Fortuna AFS, North Dakota. Even during the summer, the talk invariably turned to "cold." War stories about things freezing...cars, pipes, people. Today's weather forecast for Fortuna is typical for December: the high will be 15 degrees, the low 6 degrees. Right now it's 3 degrees...at Williston, ND, the reporting station for Fortuna. Williston is about 85 miles south of Fortuna.

I was stationed at Fortuna from 1977 - 1978...12 months, three days, eight hours, and ten minutes. One of the fondest memories of my Air Force career was watching that checkerboard FPS-35 antenna fade into a dot in my rear-view mirror as I left Fortuna, headed west to North Bend AFS, Oregon. All that said, I did have a good time while I was at Fortuna. Like everywhere else I've been in the world, Fortuna was what you made it. The people I met there were great and we had tremendous fun!

My good friend Lori, who was a young two-striper while we were at Fortuna (I was a young TSgt), will be arriving in Portales in about an hour. We'll reminisce, laugh, and have a few beers. One of the best things about a military career is the friends you make, and the friends you keep. I can't wait!