By Don
With a few days left before reporting to the new squadron, we settled into an apartment, familiarised ourselves with the Oakland area and the roads leading to the Alameda Naval Air Station, and relaxed a bit at the end of February 1966. From gravel roads to major interstates, from a somewhat primitive life to the big city.
I decided that I did not want to commute on the Oakland area interstates and was interested in the Oakland hills which meant a commute on city streets and through the Alameda tunnel. With that in mind, we looked at the rental ads in the Oakland Tribune. One real estate ad found Doris and the kids in the car with Christian, while I knocked on a door at 13500 Skyline Blvd Oakland. I introduced myself as Don. The man at the door replied he was Don. I said I had a daughter and son in the car. He said he had a daughter and a son. He said his son had red hair and was named Kent. I told him my son had red hair and was named Kent. I told him I had a German Shepherd. He called for Ringo, his German Shepherd. I begged him to tell me his wife’s name was not Doris. He thankfully introduced me to Bev Stivers and a lifelong friendship began.
Doris came to the house and in a few minutes we had rented the house, bought sight unseen, an old Dodge with push button transmission controls for $50, and firmed up the dates for his moving to Connecticut and our moving in. “Conn., that’s where the money was for a commercial artist," or so he said. We soon moved in. All this despite his having been told to never rent to the Navy.
We loved the place. About an acre with a great patio, tree house, and a huge sandbox. It was on a ridge, overlooking the Bay, with grassy knolls and horses at stable only a three minute walk away. It had three bedrooms, all of which had a door to the outside, a great stone fireplace and a great atmosphere. We moved in after our furniture from Mississippi storage became available. I still email with Don’s son. Both Don and Bev have passed on but not before we visited them in Connecticut and met them both at Disney World where he was a VIP for doing the artwork for the boxes for GI Joe dolls. Now to the squadron to see what was going on there.
C-131 1016 in VIP Paint @ NBG.jpeg
Learning the C-131, a 44 passenger/cargo transport was my 12th different Navy A/C. The training was exacting as now I would be in charge of a three man crew and the safety of a full load of Navy passengers. We also moved cargo such as atomic weapons. It is strange sitting on an atomic bomb and eating your box lunch.
The Vietnam war was in full swing and we mainly flew up and down the west coast with a few trips to the east coast. Flying in the Navy was always a secondary job. My primary billet was to be the squadron Legal Officer: non-judicial punishment, courts martial, and whatever the troops did wrong, working with the Naval Investigative Service, you name it…it alone was a full time job. It needs to be said that the USAF trains a pilot in type and he stays in that A/C sometimes forever. That is their primary job or billet. In the Navy, flying is something you do after you do the work in your primary billet or job. Consequently, you always both flew and worked at a desk during the week and many times flew on weekends.
Doris enrolled Jennifer into a local grammar school, watched Kent in the sandbox and monitored Christian who took well to the neighborhood. She also adjusted to my flying for two days all day and then flew for two days all night, then a day off. Somehow she managed all that including taking the kids to a park and lake to feed the ducks while I slept during the day to get ready for the next flight. I used the old Dodge that smoked very badly and Doris used the new Square back. In effect, Doris raised Jennifer and Kent much of the time on her own, certainly through high school and even to their leaving for college.
This went on for two years until February 1968 when I got very sick and so tired I would pull over and rest on the way home from Alameda. I was sent to the Oakland Naval Hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia. I fought that hospital like it was the enemy because they might take away my wings and the family livelihood might be in jeopardy.
I was a lousy and angry patient in the hospital’s Nimitz ward for officers. I would refuse a car to the x-ray place and jog to the building. I met Chicken Delight at a back gate in my pajamas and robe. Squadron mates would come at night and bring beer and pretzels. I refused to lie in bed after Nurse Cratchet made hospital rounds so the Chief of Medicine could ask me questions. Instead, I sat on the bed with a yellow pad full of questions. At night, the corpsmen and I would listen to tapes from Vietnam made under fire. These guys were my kind of guys as were the Marines on the amputee ward, fresh from ’Nam. I did squadron legal business from a payphone in the lobby.
The docs now said I had asthma which was very bad news for remaining a pilot. I educated myself on everything about asthma and my lungs. Another Navy doctor told me I needed to be my own advocate, to keep fighting them and to always remember, “All that wheezes is not asthma.” They then sent me to a psychiatric consult. I told the shrink what was happening to me. He told me to “go get ‘em” and wrote in red ink sideways on his report...”There is no basis for a psychiatric diagnosis.” I even thought about getting a stool sample from Christian to see what they would do with that but chickened out. To cut the medical bracelet off my wrist they had to have a finite diagnosis. So they gave me a medical board at which I could not participate. I was entitled to a Flight Surgeon present and did not have one. I was declared an asthmatic, told I could no longer be at the controls of any A/C, due bronchodilator medications, and sent back to the squadron.
I wrote a letter to the Navy Bureau of Medicine pleading my case relative to the Navy throwing away a pilot for a diagnosis that I maintained was not finite. The response came back and modified my status. I could keep my flight pay and fly but not in control and I would be in that status for one year and then get a reevaluation. So said a letter of July 9, 1968 from D.C. I later found out from a Navy MD in Pensacola that I was the first pilot so managed. For the next year in the squadron, I did my job but more importantly, I managed to wean myself off of prescriptive bronchodilating medicine and substitute massive amounts of over the counter equivalents. I stopped wheezing and was ready for my reevaluation.
Now came our orders to leave Alameda for...the Naval Air Station New Orleans. We got ourselves in order once again. We packed out and sent our furniture and belongings to storage at New Orleans. Don and Bev came west to prime the house for sale. In the years there I had done a lot of landscaping — pruning, and planting hundreds of ice plant cuttings to stabilize the hills — and maintained the house and grounds. They were overjoyed with what I had done.
I was sitting in the patio resting from cutting the grass and in old clothes when some woman with a poodle arrived with a realtor. I quietly reached a finger into Chris’s choker collar after she said to someone to not let Poopsie out because there was a big dog out there. Don Stivers heard the comment and climbed off a ladder. The old biddie came outside and asked if my dog would bite. I looked at Chris, sitting quietly with perfect discipline and said..."Christian, do not kill.” As the prospective buyers left Don Stivers said loudly to them...”And do not come back, this is German Shepherd country.” How could you not love Don Stivers?
Doris flew east with the kids and I managed to get the now second car (an oil eating old Nash) safely to New Orleans, flew back to Oakland and this time drove the Squareback to New Orleans. Once again, I lived in another BOQ, however temporarily. I spent some hours in a west bank library, interviewing mothers about the quality of the schools in the area. Satisfied, I found a realtor and bought a two story three bedroom house on Comet Street and sent for Doris and the family.
So began the first story of New Orleans. There were actually two separate tours of duty at NOLA, as locals called it.
While there I went to the Pensacola Naval Hospital and lied and cheated my way to pass a pulmonary function test, pass muster and get back to being a pilot again...Grandpaw