Al Stanek

Episode 32 of the Madcat Podcast is with Al Stanek.  He is a legend of the PJ community! He survived a shoot-down, saved his pilots from a burning wreck, and spent a night in the dirt fighting off enemy forces to protect the wounded. He’s a Silver Star recipient and a PJ's PJ. Join us for an incredible conversation.

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Transcript

GMT20250620-200144_Recording 0:34

basically born and raised on a dairy farm in, in Wisconsin. My first, uh, 17 years of life was hating Holsteins, so to speak. Uh, graduated from high school, may of 64, and again, I love the farming so much. I left. In June of 64 and I went down to Milwaukee for a year to a private engineering school, Milwaukee School of Engineering. And it was way over my head. I was out of my plus maybe not ready to settle down at 17 and do serious studying.'cause that was serious work. There was no playtime at the private engineering school. As a matter of fact, back at that time, there was 2000 students. There was not one female student Really at that time. Yeah. So it was, uh, yeah. So, uh, I left the school and then at that time it was kind of like, maybe get drafted if you weren't in school. Uh, I had a invitation to go to work for Harley Davidson at the time, but I finally just enlisted in February of 65. Mm-hmm. Um, the first time I heard about para rescue goes back to when I was a junior in high school and I was on vacation one of those slight couple day vacation at my grandmother's house in Illinois. And she had. Uh, readers Digest magazines. I dunno if you're, that's might be before your time. I think they're still around. But anyway, I was looking through Readers Digest one day and I saw this article, it said The Jumping Angels of the Air Force and it was a story about para rescue at the time and it featured, uh, staff Sergeant DW Nelson. I dunno if you've ever heard of that before. The last couple of interviews. Nelson was the recruiter. Yeah, he was the head of the school at the time. Yep. Okay. So I'm reading about Staff Sergeant DW Nelson Para Rescue, and then I never think too much about it. Uh, and then after, again, back to when I enlisted, I qualified for and was interested in electronics. So I got my orders to Miss Electronic school, Lowery, everybodys Colorado at the time, about at the end of my basic training. And then. About a week before graduation, um, Roger Porter, who is, who became a pj, in fact, he's the first cousin to piss Ocker lives in Ohio. He said, uh, he's looking for somebody to go look at this volunteer thing about rescue and all that, and he can't find anybody in the barrack. So I said, okay, Roger, I'll go with you. And that was the last time we saw our, we didn't even graduate from basic, they took us right into the, uh, dormitory for PJ training. Mm-hmm. Okay. So we're running and swimming and doing all that. And, um, so at that time we were into PJ training, which really is so much different than today. I mean, today is so formalized, so right on point. Just, just as you well know, back then it was just. In the water all morning and running all afternoon. There was no real, real set pattern for anything. It was just run and swim, run and swim, run and swim. And, uh, we, in fact, the guy that was in charge of our training had been my basic training, uh, NCO when I was in, in basic, he claimed to be a British commando and played the role of being a British commando. The accent and the whole bit. Well, it turned out he never was. It was all bullshit. But anyway, he did a good job of getting us ready and then went from there. Of course, we went through the pipeline. Mm-hmm. And Roger Porter, I, and, uh, class of 65 2, I think it was. Anyway, so to regress a little bit, I read about Dean Nelson, and then when I get through my pipeline of the courses, you know, the jump school, the scuba school and all, we get to Eglin Air Force Base, which is the transition school. The final PJ school at Eglin Air Force Base at that time. And who's the Commandant? DW Nelson. Mm-hmm. So I meet DW Nelson after reading about him as a junior in high school. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then, uh, after graduating from the para rescue, uh, training course, I'm gonna jump back again a little bit because graduation ceremonies today are pretty, pretty, uh, formal and big deal. And we had our, our night of graduation was at Dean Nelson's house for beers and wrestling on the lawn. That was our graduation. Right. So he is an approachable guy after Oh yeah. Dean was. Oh, he's great. Yeah. But that was our graduation. Yeah. Okay. And that was before Berets too. Okay. Yeah, that was like, so. I'm outta sequence a little bit, but whatever, uh, later I am stationed at, I'll get back to my, but for sure, this is the DW Nelson story. I'm at Mc, I'm at Hamilton Air Force, California. Mm-hmm. At the, I think it was the 41st air screw. Yeah. It would be the 41st rescue squad at that time. And w Nelson comes in as the NCIC. Mm-hmm. So now I'm working for DW Nelson and my sister-in-law comes to visit and, uh, long story short, she ends up marrying DW Nelson. So now he's my brother-in-law. Wow. As a matter of fact, when they got married, Mike Fish was at Hamilton with us, and he and his wife, and me and my wife, we went to Reno to get them married. Really? Yeah. So now he's my brother-in-law. And then for years after, we're fighting over. Turkey dinners and stuff. So anyway, but then back to the pipeline after graduation, went through the normal pipeline as you well know, the jump school, medical scuba survival and on through. And then my first assignment was, uh, play c Vietnam. Mm-hmm. 1966. After first I had to go to Moody Air Force Base and do the firefighter training for the HH 43 fire suppression kit. Okay. So I had to go through the firefighting school,'cause the unit I was going to debt nine 38th at Plaku was a 43 squadron with the fire suppression kit situation. Is that one that Tommy Miles was on? Yes, that's the one Tommy got blown out of the sky. Yep. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, we used to call it the Whistling shit house. It's kind of a. But it did, it had, it had great hovering capabilities. Mm-hmm. It could hover forever, and I think at one time it even held the altitude record for helicopters at 30 some thousand feet. Really? Yeah. Are you familiar with what it looks like? Uh, it looks, it's real. It's got counter rotating blades. It doesn't have any tail rotor. Just the, it's like a non-traditional looking helicopter. Yeah. And like a boxed with, but it would hover really well. Okay. So I was there for a year and we did, most of our missions were for the army because they had no hoist capability. So anytime they had wounded or needed some help on the ground where they couldn't land mm-hmm. They would call us because we had the, the hoist hoist capability. So, and a lot of our missions were at night as well. So, um, I guess the highlight of my. Tour there was, uh, one of the worst times of my life is when October 28th, 1966 we're on a night mission for the Army and I'm on the ground. Well, platoon had been separated from its some other company by a big battle on the ground. Mm-hmm. This is near Plagiar, Ang, I think Vietnam. And they had, uh, six or seven wounded. They had a perimeter set up and we flew out to the perimeter. I went down on the ground, uh, littered one at a time, sent two up, and then the third one was on the way up when they shot down the helicopter and it inverted and came down through and landed in the middle of the, uh. Of the, uh, perimeter in a ball of fire. And then the enemy troops tried to overrun the position. Some of'em got into the, the, the, the perimeter and just this was all hell broke loose. Mm-hmm. Um, artillery started coming in. They were started calling iTill in on the perimeter, uh, buff at that time. Uh, was it Buff Puff? The magic dragon? Was it gunship? Uh, yeah, the Specter Gunships, yeah. It wasn't a one 30 yet. It was a, uh, C 47 gunship back in the time. Yeah. Yeah. And that was coming in the perimeter. And then a ones come in dropping perimeter stuff. A one was a bad night, and we lost, uh, the survivors lost my hoist operator and we got the pilots out through the glass bubble in the front. Uh. The young lieutenant died, and later the pilot, captain Verma did survive. Mm-hmm. So it was down, I was down there with that situation for 18 hours. The next morning they come in and napalmed the perimeter, and then, uh, our second 43 came in and got us out the next afternoon. Uh, other than that, just a lot of that type of missions without, without that disastrous event, obviously. Yeah. Just to kind of dissect that mission though, and I'm sure you got a ton of questions on it, but like, um, you're getting three patients up into the aircraft and you're like, man, I'm doing my job. Yeah. One after another and then it gets shot down and just lands. You obviously are going straight back into it, but now your new mission is extrication fire suppression. Yeah. I've just got out from under it in nick of time running. Mm-hmm. In, into a foxhole with an army guy. And then when it crashed inverted in flames, I went back, um, my hoist operator was still alive. Okay. They couldn't get him out. Yeah. That was, it was probably one of the worst helpless feelings, you know, you can have. So that was a, uh, a bad situation. I, I really don't talk about very often. But anyway, that was the situation at that time. And then also it, it gave the, uh, enemy troops a lot of extra visualization because you got this fireball in the middle of the perimeter and they can see from the outside in, you can't really see the outside out. So, and then it kind of, we had grenades in there too that were blowing up so. It was a, just a pile of burning rubble the next morning, next day. And then, uh, pulling the, the, the rain remains out. Mm-hmm. Uh, the next mission I remember quite vividly, and there were many, was, uh, one night on Army helicopter crashed into a ravine of, uh, bamboo Force Ravine. Mm-hmm. And we got the call and we, it's on a high ridge line. We get to, and we see one guy on the High Ridge line waving survivor from that crash. Uh, I go down the hoist, we don't know if they got shot down or it's a mechanical problem. You have to assume they were, he, I put him, oh, this is bad. He had a compound fracture of the femur and I could not deal with it at that time in place. I had to throw him on the hoist. Send him up with that, a bad deal for him. But he, he survived, right? Yeah. So then I had to go start looking for this Huey that's rolled into the, turned out, rolled into the valley all the way. It was a couple hundred yards down, but I, I started down through the bamboo, but where he had rolled, I couldn't get through it. And this is, this is pitch of night. Mm-hmm. So I had to go over to the side and fight my way through Bamboo, down to the stream level below, and then go up and then come back and go up, come back. I, I found it. And you're completely alone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if they've been shot down or not. Anyway, but finally find it about, uh, 10 15 yards up from the, from the stream. And there's three surviving Army guys in it. But again, I can't, they're, they're trapped. I can't get'em out. So we spend the night and the next day the Army brings in a, a Chinook. With the ladders and chainsaws and all, and we finally get'em out the, the next day. Mm-hmm. That was another extended mission situation. That, but other than that, it's just a lot of, uh, uh, air, air, you know, air crashes, uh, cargo ship crash, C 1 23, I think it is. I forget some of these. Went in on some of those, but we kept pretty busy until that last situation. Mm-hmm. And then we lost both, both of our helicopters the next day after we went down, our second bird got shot down, but it wasn't, they were able to land and the said, so that's the Vietnam thing basically. Okay. And you found yourself, uh, multiple times, like extended, um, uh, medical care and extended ground situation? Yeah. Um, one being alone and one being with, uh, army Security Force that was. Actively, um, in contact with the enemy. Yep. So what did you learn through those extended scenarios like, um, that prepared you for future missions, maybe could prepare future prayer rescue men for, for their missions if they have extended missions like that? You know, I, uh, for a long time I had a, uh, situation where I felt bad about surviving that situation since my copilot and, uh, hoist operator died. Um, but then you have to kind of go on and say, uh, you did the best you could with the training you had. And, you know, the training we had at that time was nothing compared to what, what you guys get. Mm-hmm. Our medical school was four weeks and then of course we went to the pj, uh, at, at uh, Eggland. Finally we'd get some more training. But basically it was, you know, airway. Breathing shock and patch'em up and send them on. There was no extended stay with anybody. It was always just mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's nothing like what you guys do today. It was just completely fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. So from there I was stationed at, let's see, where did I go from there? Spain of all places. Okay, nice, nice. Enjoy the beach. Is it Rhoda? Did you go to Rhoda? No, Marone. Okay. Marone Air Force Base. And so I leave Vietnam in March of 66. Yeah. And it's hot and humid. I landed in Minneapolis to visit my home before I go and it's 20 below. So I spent a month at at home and, uh. Also in the process got married and then, uh, my next assignment, like I say, was, uh, Hamilton Air Force Base, California? No. Yes. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm out of line. Spain for two years was a great assignment. Okay. Uh, from there I've got, uh, during that time I got my initial Apollo Recovery mission training. Okay. Yeah. You'd never guess where I got my initial, unless you interview guys. We got our sheltered water Apollo installation recovery training in the harbor of Tripoli Libya. Really? Yes. We had a unit there. They're good guys there. We had, we had, yeah, that's when the king was still, you know, they had a king at that time, you know, so, and we had a, we had a rescue. We had a a, a mission, a rescue squadron there. In Tripoli at that time. So then we did our, our, uh, day and night Apollo recovery training in the Mediterranean out of there after doing it in Tripoli. Did you guys ever cover down on any, uh, launches ever? What did you cover down on any launches? We used to go from Spain. We would go to Mauritius Islands and sit there in case they had to come down that side of the world. Mm-hmm. So through, yeah. So Spain, Spain, Spain. What else? Uh, Spain was a great place. We used to, uh, take our weekends and go down to a place called to Molina, which was on the Spanish Riviera. Okay. Drive from Marone Air Base, which is in the southern. Svia is the Southern Drive through Granada and down to Tor Molinas, and it's a great weekend. Um, we did our water work outta Roto Spain. And the Navy, EOD used to keep our boat for us, but it was about a two hour drive down there. So we do our scuba jumps and stuff down there, but we could leave the boat with them. We did that training there. Yeah. There's, uh, Spanish training still alive and well out. Uh, I was part of the squadron in Italy. Oh yeah. And, uh, we're going to Aliante. Oh, wow. Yeah. Like beach town. Yeah. We're still doing jumps, dives shooting with the Hispanic horses. Wow. Yeah. You got started with that. Well, well that unit, you know, that a unit originated in Scotland. Okay. And when I got to Spain, it had just moved to Marone from, from, uh, Scotland. Okay. And then from Scotland. It went to England. Mm-hmm. And from England on to Aviano. Right. Aviano, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So where we in Spain? Not much else in Spain, I guess, other than bull fights and. Flamingo dancing. And I got a kind of a funny story. Willie Williams, uh, Willie Williamson just passed. Yep. We did an interview with him too. Oh, you did? Yeah, we did. Oh my God. He was in my training class too. We went through training together. Uh, we were in Spain together. In fact, when I got into Spain, I said, I left from Minneapolis and went to Spain. Willie and a guy by Mike Halverson met me. A plane said, you wanna go skiing tomorrow? I said, I just landed. He just, they met me at the plane. I said, I haven't even checked. Well, the next day I'm in over store Germany for ski school. I dunno how we worked that out, but I was there. And so, have you ever heard about the, uh, Berg Walk? Have anybody mentioned that? No. All of our people in, in European area would go to Berg Walk, uh, OBOR, Germany, where the, the German Rescue Mountain team was called Berg Walk, and we would train with them. Mm-hmm. Skiing was a fun part, but, uh, the, the Arctic training, not, not a lot of fun. Right. Snow caves and that crap. Willie got out of the snow cave shit because he had never skied at all before from Florida. And this one day of skiing, he's, he's coming down this long last hill parallel doing about Mach 20, and he dives forward and rolls, rolls, rolls. So he's gonna spend the night in a room while we got to go, go dig a snow cave and stay in the snow. But yeah, Willie, so Spain training Berg Walk, and then also from Spain. We went there for summer mountain climbing training too. Mm-hmm. Which is really, really good. So on a Swiss Austrian border, beautiful place. That was one of the things we did in Spain too. Uh, from Spain. Where did I go from? Spain? Uh, Hamilton. Hamilton. Yeah. After stopping in, uh, Wisconsin on leave, uh, bought a brand new 69 Roadrunner. Okay. For 38 50 out the door. Nice. Still got it. Oh, I wish it's worth a lot now. And, uh, drove from there, uh, with my new wife at the time, to Hamilton, which is at, uh, uh, golden Gate Bridge area, just north of Golden Gate Bridge on the, on bis on Frisco Bay. It's a great, great place, but I'm traveling through, here's another PJ story, traveling through Nebraska. Middle of the week, no traffic. I 80, I think it is wide open. So I'm cruising along at about 90 and outta my rear view mirror. I see a car gaining on me. Mm-hmm. It didn't, and it got closer. It wasn't a, it wasn't a police car, it was a, turned out to be a, a gray two 30 SL Mercedes. Okay. With the German plate on the front. Okay. So we kind of slowed down a little bit and he comes past me. So I kind of look at him and then we're doing about 90 to 95 again, and he's going by me. And of course, well, we're preoccupied what happens? We get a speed trap. Mm-hmm. So we're both going now to a little county courthouse in New York, Nebraska, and we're sitting there waiting for the judge. And where are you going? Uh, California. Uh, we're in California, Hamilton Air Force, Hamilton Air Force. Wow. Me too. And then I looked down, that's the same watch I got. I said, shit, you're pj I, they're PJs in the middle of Nebraska in the middle, and he had picked up Drag race. Yeah, but what are the odds? Right. You were the odds. And he picked up a car in, in New York. He had married a, a German, he was a German, uh, scent. He married a German girl. He picked up her car and was driving it through to California and she was gonna fly in next. So we got stationed together. Steve Irik was his name. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that was another situation. And then Hamilton Air Force Base, I told you, uh, Holly Favor was the, uh, NOIC. He was a icon on the career field. And Dean Nelson came in and replaced him. Like I mentioned earlier, uh, Dean Nelson was one of the original PJs. He came out of the army airborne into para rescue back in the fifties. So he was. He and Chuck Walters were two of the, did anybody mention Nick de Greek? No, he was the chief para rescue man. When I first came in the career field, uh, chief, master sergeant headquarters guy of Greek descent had been a, I guess he was a sponge diver as a kid in, in Greek. Nick. Nick, the Nick de Greek. Nick the Greek, he was the man, the guy nickname New Yorker, you know, Nick the Greek. And uh, he was famous. One of the things he was famous for was he could make a scuba jump without his cigar getting wet. Yeah. He always had a cigar in the mouth. Okay. Really bluster old guy. And he also was the Mac handball champion at the time too, so he was burly strong. Pretty well coordinated too, I guess. But yeah, he was the chief when he first came through quite a character. Um, so at Hamilton Air Force Base did get one jump mission, a scuba jump mission outta Hamilton to a British ship. Had a, uh, Asian guy fall off a mask or something and got injured and we, we treated him for about two days until we were close enough to California where helicopter came out and Coast Guard I think, came out and picked us up and brought us back. That was one mission that there, that had. Um, other than that, not many missions there, just a lot of training. We did do, at that time, training for, we were the ground crew for the surface to air recovery missions. You familiar with that? No. At that time, uh, the one 30 had the capability of, well, the ground crew. We would go out, send up a big balloon, and then the one 30 come along, click and then pull the survivor behind. And they reel it in behind. Yeah. Yep. Okay. It serves there. So we did that training at, uh, Beal Air Force Base in California, and of course we had the. We had to fill these balloons and we had the rot, we had the retrieving device for all the lines and stuff.'cause you had the flow of the balloon. Then you had to have another retrieving line over here with a smaller balloon. Anyway, so they would practice picking up, uh, sandbags. Mm-hmm. Weight equal to, or I was never gonna, I don't think I had to volunteered for that ride. But the commander at that time of rescue, Colonel Brooks, he volunteered and he took the ride just to, just to make the deal that hey, this system works and it's safe. So hats off to him. I didn't, wow. I don't, I would've never, I think that's how they got Pablo Escobar outta Columbia. I'm pretty sure. Oh, maybe, yeah, because he, he did it with an air, with an airman. The two of'em, it was a double pickup and, and he and an airman did it, and that was hats off to him. Are there ever any, uh, mishaps with that?'cause uh, we don't, we don't do that anymore. It's like ya. Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't think, I don't remember of any mishaps with that. Yeah. I don't know how many times it was actually used, but yeah. So, uh, and that's the first time I've saw the SR 71 because they were stationed on a Beale Air Force base. Okay. So this was 1969, but they had been around for a while already. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So that was not the last thing I had to do. This R 70 ones, but so Hamilton and then from Hamilton it went to, wow. Where did you go? Azores? I think so Hamilton to the Azores. Yeah. We had a, a rescue in 57th a RS at, at in lodges field at the Azores. And, um. That was a, I think we spent two years there and, uh, I had one jump mission on the Azores on a Indian ship that had an injured, uh, person on board, I don't even remember the exact injuries, but stayed with that ship for two or three days before they dropped us off into car Africa. Really? Yeah. And we had no paperwork or passports or anything to put us into car Africa. Yeah. So we kind of had EE to the, uh, embassy. Yeah. And then the embassy, uh, drove us to a runway where we were on the. The roster is coming in with the one 30, whatever. Mm-hmm. And then we got back, back to the Azores. Wow. By the Azores too. We also did a lot of training with Apollo. You know, you always had to keep currency. You had your day in your night missions and stuff and all that too. So we did that there too. The Azores, just seeing pictures of it. Never been, looks absolutely gorgeous. Can't imagine training and yeah, it's a tropical paradise. Yeah. Yeah. And strange thing though, about being a pair rescue squadron there, uh, the KO Kelly was the, uh, NCYC at that time. Bill Davidson, I don't know if you met Larry Wellington out here. Not yet. Uh, he was this tall when we were in the, in the Azores. His dad, uh, Larry Wellington Sr. Was the second in charge of the Azores. Okay. And, uh, as a side note later, he got banged up really bad outta a tree jump In Oregon, you know, normally your tree jumps, you get the hang. Well, he was in high trees and some, or Oregonian forest didn't hang up. It kept breaking, breaking, breaking. By the time he got to the ground, he was all busted up and in the hospital for a long time. Oh wow. Yeah. Uh, so that was, that was a kind of a bad deal there. But the other thing in the Azores, uh, everything in the, in that island, Sera Island is only like seven by 14 miles. Mm-hmm. And everything's divided into farmland and rock walls. And none of these spaces are big enough for a drop zone. Okay. Yeah. So we used the third fairway of the golf course for our drop zone. Okay. And we had to jump early in the morning to prevent being, you know, in the way of some, some golfers. So we would jump early in the morning, throw our stuff in the trucks, go to the clubhouse, get our stuff, go play night, 18 holes, then go back to the base. Which is just about a 15 minute drive back to the base. Amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just jump with your clubs. Yeah. What the club in the clubhouse, we kept the stuff there. You know, we were all golfers, but we had professional clubs because over there you get everything about 40% price. Everything was cheap. Yeah. Yeah. So I had Wilson staff X 30 ones, and Mike Gallagher had, you know, Mike Gallagher? Uh, no, I've heard the name. Yeah. He was, when our, he was in my training class too, and he went on to be a, a physician's assistant and I think he retired as a major. He's here, he's here at the, and uh, so we used to play golf. In fact, I said one of the most dangerous missions I ever had was looking for a lost golf ball with Mike in the rough, because he had kind of a temper and we're digging through the rough and he takes his iron and goes with a swearing and just went, went by my nose, 50 miles. I could have tied on the golf course Azos. One, the one thing to take out of PJ golfing under the Azos would be, yeah. Can you read that story? That's cool. That's awesome. I, I, uh, we say it time and time again. I don't know where we went wrong with our duty stations, but man, you you got some pretty cool ones. Yeah. Well, yeah. Kind of an isolated one, but the, the Azores, was that in the eighties or, I know you retired in 1990, correct? Yeah. I was in the Azores from, let's say I left the Azores had to be early seventies. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The Navy had the planes, the army had the boats,'cause out of the Navy, they, they flew their, uh, P three, uh, sub chasers out, out of there. Yeah. And of course, the Azores originally was designed as a stop over World War II for refueling and all, and they still had a lot of, of refueling stuff out of there. So from the azos. Hmm. Where'd I go? I think I went to, let's see, from Azores, we went to Florida. There was a small debt, a helicopter detachment in, uh, homestead Air Force Base, uh, Huey Detachment that was assigned to the Sea Survival School. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't a lot of PJ work, but we became great hoist operators because the mission for that helicopter unit was to, uh, support the Sea Survival School. And one of the training aspects of that school was they put theirs, their, uh, students or whatever you wanna call'em, of sea survival, they put'em out in the water and their one and their one man rafts in their survival kit. And they had to learn how to come up a hoist when a helicopter came in and pick'em up. So you had a long line of these guys, maybe 10 or 12, 50, 60 yards apart in the water. Mm-hmm. We had two lines and you have two helicopters and the PJs did the hoist operating, you know, forward, back, up, down. And uh, so we'd go and you'd hover over one of these guys and they were told to jump out of their, their one man dinghy and get over to the penetrator. And we would lift them up maybe 10 feet before outta the water and put'em down and they'd unhooked and we'd go to the next one. Mm-hmm. And, uh, shouldn't have raced sometimes, but sometimes we get to see who could get through their line of Yeah. Uh, whatever, anything to save you from the boredom. But you came pretty good with the left, right up, down, you know? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it was like almost a. Reflex after a while. But yeah, that was, it was there, uh, uh, I made a standup scuba jump there one time. We had a nice scuba jump out of, uh, homestead and, uh, Biscayne Bay and the tide was out and when I landed, I come pick me up. No kidding. Standing on the bottom first ever stand up. That's amazing. Stand up. Come get me. I'm right here. So we, that was, uh, so from Homestead, that was the major part of the mission. And, uh, I kind of messed up a little bit there because I wasn't real happy. That was my first N-C-O-I-C job. Mm-hmm. I was a tech sergeant. Uh, what was kind of funny is, as a background, I was recruited out of Milwaukee by a staff sergeant recruiter. Okay. I later met him in the azos. He was a staff sergeant. And I was a tech sergeant. Really? Yeah. So I had made that tech under six or, or something like that. So he was, I said, you're right. This is, this Air Force is great. He's like, I'm still getting paid. You. Well, I think that was maybe credits your Silver Star, right? You promoted. I don't know because I, I whatever, but it doesn't matter. Yeah. But So any major lessons you learned as A-N-C-O-I-C that you set in terms of just leadership? Yeah. I kind of messed up at Homestead. I wasn't happy with the assignment and uh, chief Walters came in and I kind of, uh, told him how I felt about it and I kind of, I kind of like to think if, uh, if I'd have been smart enough and played that part well, I'd have probably went on to make Master and gone right up like a John Toby situation.'cause I had everything going for me. You know, John Toby made everything from right through straight. Every time he was eligible, he got promoted. Mm-hmm. I think he made that chief in 16 years or so, whatever at the time was unheard of. And I think I was in the same situation because Dean Nelson and Chuck Walters were, sometimes it's who you know, and Dee and Chuck Walters, who was the chief of para rescue at that time, were good friends. And so Walters kind of, kind of had a, uh, setting me up. Mm-hmm. But I was too stupid to take advantage of it, so I kind of shot myself in the foot at that debt. Okay. I even went in and got out and, uh, later came back in. Six months later I came back in as an assistant to Chuck Hassler at the three Oh first at Homestead, which is a reserve unit. Mm-hmm. I dunno if you heard named Chuck Hasler or not, but he was in one class, right? And then later he moved on and I became the head of the team at the three. Oh, first when you said you got out, well, he went back to active duty, but you separated from the military. I did for about six months and then I came back. Chuck gave me a call. What was your thought process in terms of like getting out and then choosing to get back in? Uh, I wasn't happy on the outside. I wasn't finding a good job. I was back in Wisconsin and uh, for some reason Chuck gave me a call, said, Hey, we got this, you know, would you come down? I said, yeah. So I was back in Homestead, Florida with us real first and then for about a year and then working for him, and then he went back to active duty and then I became the, the chief of that unit for, uh, couple years. Sometimes it takes just stepping away for a little while to Yeah. Realize. Yeah. So it was, yeah. And, uh, Chuck Hassler and, uh, homestead for, you heard the name Rick Prado. Yep. Big time. Yeah. Rick was one of, I think, uh, Rick was one of our reservists at that point in time. Okay. So I knew him fairly well. Interviewed him as well. Oh, you did? Yeah. Yeah. Because he came from what, Miami-Dade fire? Yeah. That was part of his occupation. Mm-hmm. Yeah, man, in many hats. But you know, he had quite a story. I dunno if you read his book. I mean, he was I did, yeah. He came from, uh, Cuba was in a home of like a what? Home for boys for several years for his family. He was able to get out. Yeah. So I know Rick really well from, from that point and from Homestead we just did a lot of water work at Homestead and Survival and in support of the, but the three, first we had Huey Helicopters and yeah, it was all Huey's pretty much. Lot of retire, a lot of airline pilots doing their reserve time there and so forth. So your air reserve technician job was to support the teams when they came in for their weekends and their summer camps and stuff. So it was a good job. Then I went back active duty and went to from there to uh, McClellan Air Force Base, which is at, uh, Sacramento. Yeah. And, uh, did several years there. And I was also, at one point in time I became the N-C-O-I-C of, uh, that unit as well. I never was a headquarters type guy. I never really wanted headquarters, and I was thinking I had five NCIC jobs within my career. I don't think anybody ever came close to that number. Not that that was an effort to try, but it just happened, happened to be that way. So that was a great job there. A lot of great people. I wish I could remember all of them. Um, Mike Vogel. Mm-hmm. He was there. Uh, Stu Stan. Mm-hmm. Stu he was there. Um, I, anyway, McClellan was a 53 unit and a HD with, uh, HD one 30 unit. Okay. But I don't have a lot of things I can remember 1976, bicentennial year got my one tattoo in, in honor of the 200 year, so that was 1976. And then from McClellan in 79, where did I go? You're not helping me much helping. You're gonna look sharp as a attack. You're gonna be like, alright. Yeah. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Right. I don't have your full bio. So I, I, I should have brought my, my, my military resume I see. From McClellan. Go. You were, you were all over. You really were. Every three years a move. You know, it was overseas, back overseas, back overseas back, let's see, from McClellan, I think I went to, uh hmm. Philippines. Philippines, yeah. Spent three years Simon into Philippines. Um, I assume the N-S-O-I-C position in the Philippines from Bre Wayne Fisk. Really? Yeah. And, uh, we spent three years there. Uh, it was a great assignment. It was, it Clark Clark, Clark, Clark Air Base before it. Got hit by Mount pin, tuba exploding. I left well before that. And the mission there was, uh, of course any kind of rescue that would come up. And also we supported the, uh, uh, the drone. See it was Camp Wallace. They used to shoot drones outta Wallace Air Station, and the fighters would, uh, use them as targets and then they would splash down. And then our mission was, we'd go in with the H threes and the PJ would go down the hoist, hook up the, the drone, and they'd fly it back into the air station to re refurb it. That was one of the big missions there. And, uh, other than that, it was just regular, uh, rescue missions. Do you know Mark Brasad? No, I don't. He was a lieutenant there. He's here at the, at the reunion. He retired as a colonel and was the commander of a lot of the rescue units that the PJs were. Associated with, and he was a, he was a great friend of, uh, para rescue all the way through the career field. So I was there for three years and then from there I went to Kirtland Air Force Base. And, um, there I worked in the, um, the Wing. I was a flight examiner and stuff at, at the Wing across the runway from the schoolhouse and Oh, from there, oh, we got, at that point in time was when we first started, uh, the, the free fall jumping. Okay. Okay. 1982 ish, I think is when, and this was a crazy way of doing things, but we had our, our big sky divers were kind of in charge of training the career field in, in, uh, in. Freefall jumping and like Bob LaPointe and those guys, you talk about lack of standardization. I can remember going out a jump of a one 30 in Albuquerque. 10 different guys, seven different shoots. Colored, none colored, non-colored PUDs, rip chords, uh, chaos, uh, ropes and ring shoots. Yeah. Do you ever pack a ropes and ring? Shoot? No. All kinds of crazy stuff. We appreciate you guys doing that. Different, yeah, different jump, different jumpsuits. Yeah. Yeah. Standardized things. Well, God, so the way that all went down right? Wasn't like. Dave Milton tried to staff it. Then Mike McManus said, Hey, we're gonna assemble a team to do an MTT and then we're gonna do it all in Kirtland. Bring everybody out. Yeah. They had, they, they did formalize it, but then while I was there, they sent, uh, about seven or eight of us went up to the Air Force Academy. Okay. And went through their, their free fall course, which was, was a crazy way they had of teaching it. But we did that and then later did it through, you know, they set up the course and did it through, uh, through, uh, our own, our own, uh, means. So the Air Force Academy probably still teaches it the same way. Um, I, I went there, that was my Oh yeah. But, uh, do they stand in a door like this? And they got it. They just jump out for you. Fall. So based on, it's based on your academic, uh, performance. Yeah. So the smart kids get a jump. So I was, I did not jump there to the bottom. They gave me the glider program, so they didn't even trust me with the engine of a, uh, of a plane. They said, you're just gonna, in other words, the app. And, but, uh, I said my buddies did it. And essentially their training was, Hey, this is how you do free fall, getting count to six, and you pull your parachute, go ahead, jump out. The, the door position was crazy. Yeah. It was like, like this. And then you had to kind of, yeah. Whatever. But it was, was that the first time you jumped free fall there, or had you been doing it on the side? I had done a few jumps on the side when I was at, uh, at, uh, where was I? At Hamilton? No, at McClellan. There was a drop zone away from McClellan. I did a couple. I never got outta the pre, I was still on the static line. Uhhuh then named Bob Holler ever. Yeah, he's one got killed a few years ago, unfortunately, in a three fall accident in, in Florida after about 8,000 jumps. Um, so I had a few, this was crazy when I was in, uh, the Philippines. Yeah, it was at Clark. Bob Holler was a sky, god. Mm-hmm. LD Jeffries. You know who him? I've heard the name. I, he's here. Yeah. Okay. He was a pilot and they threw me out. I said they tried to kill me. They threw me out of an air airplane. Uh, I forgot the altitude, but I never did. I never did establish stability, Uhhuh. And I remember opening and having a shock on my life. Finally, under a para commander. You know where the para commander is? No. No. It's kinda like the ultimate shoot before the squares came along. Okay. It had, did have a certain amount of forward motion and it was, it was called the Para Commander. So I opened it and that was one jump, but doesn't count for anything. To your surprise, it was this. Oh, okay. I got this one. Yeah, I was, anyway, did you know Bob Hower? He passed, he died in a accident in Florida with a combat controller collision at 500 feet. Really? How old is he? Bob was a retired chief at that time. I don't know. He might've been 50 forties. Yeah. Still jumping. Yeah. He and, uh, LD Jeffries were good friends. Good friends. LD Jeffries went on to be a captain with, uh. United Airlines just retired a few years ago from there, and his wife Kelly, is still a captain with, uh, United Airlines vice versa. Mm-hmm. They're both here. Big pair rescue, uh, supporters when it comes to the reunion and all. Yeah. Did you, uh, did you retire outta Kirtland? From Kirtland? I went to England Okay. For three years. And I was the, in CIC of England for the three years. And, uh, another, uh, great assignment. I was back at the 67th, even though they changed the name. But, uh, yeah, I was there for three years and then, uh, from there I went back to, uh, Portland and retired for the last two years at Kirtland. Okay. Yeah. And then that brought you to Vegas to be a police officer? When I was at Kirtland the last couple years, I was director of training and we had a foreign weapons course at Nellis. Okay. Run by the PJs here at Nellis. So I visited the, uh, weapons course at Nellis, and at that one time, some of the metro police officers were out there shooting with our guys at Nellis out on area two or site two or whatever it is that, and they mentioned they had their recruiting for police officers. And I never, my wildest imagination thought I'd ever be a cop. Mm-hmm. But there I was. And so I, I volunteered and came out and I was in, uh, the academy. Right. My, uh, my last, what do they call the last minute leave? Or you have Uh Oh, terminal leave. Terminal leave? Mm-hmm. I spent my terminal leave in the academy here, here in Vegas. I was the oldest, obviously I was 43 years old. I'm always, yeah, most of the, I was the old man and the, I'm always the old man everywhere. I don't know why, but I'm the old man because I'm, I'm the old man here, old man there, whatever. I guess it's good to be old. And what's that old man power lifting to be still winning? Yeah. Yeah. I'm 78, I'll be 79 a month or two, but, so yeah, I did that and, uh, did 22 years. Okay. Now, that was a real eyeopener, uh, psychologically as much as anything. Uh, when you grow up in a farm community, a handshake is as good as written word, whatever. Mm-hmm. In fact, I know, I remember my dad bought a farm from a brother, sister, brother, sister, family on a handshake. They didn't even sign anything. Really? Yeah. And they had an agreement that he would send a percentage of the, of the milk check every month. Whatever percent it was to them. They never signed a, never signed a, any paperwork. Simpler times. Ain't that something? Yeah. So I came from that mindset into the military. In the military you have people you believe pretty, you know, there's war stories, but basically every honest, and you know, people are honest and true. Mm-hmm. So you go into the cop business and it all switched. Uh, I would go out in training after the academy. You went with a training officer for several months on the road and you do a suspect interview with your training officer. And the suspect, of course, is a professional wire many times, and I, oh, well that sounds reasonable. Mm-hmm. And then my trainer would tap me on the shoulder, take over. Complete lie. Complete lie. So I had to, I had to change the paradigm from assuming when people talk, they're telling the truth to now I know everybody's lying. You start there. Yeah. And then you go, you don't start with a truth and look for a lie. You start with a lie. He's lying. She's lying. That's it. We'll see if it is. Otherwise, yeah, it took me a, it took me a while for that, that internal mindset to switch. Yeah. Yeah. That is an unfortunate kind of mindset switch you have to make. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Almost with further just the handshake environment. But yeah, handshake give you the lines. Everybody's lying. Um, I guess the, uh, the back part of our interview is really focused on helping next generation PJs and stuff like that. One of the questions I like to ask for people to go into a career after their career in the military is what in para rescue helped you to be a cop? Like, what did you, you know. The, uh, police academy was one of the worst times I ever had. It was miserable for me. It should not have been hard based on, again, my, my military past para rescue in particular, physically should, shouldn't have been hard at all, and it really wasn't. But emotionally, uh, they, they treat it like a basic training situation where they're screaming at you and you're doing pushups, and it's like back at the bottom. It's going right back at a, you know, back at the again. And, uh, at the time I had some issues, personal issues that made it bad timing wise. So it was a miserable, uh, experience that academy, it was a miserable experience. Uh, wanted to quit, wanted to quit, but there was not. Again, I think it's because of the Paris Rescue training. Not gonna, it's not part of the vocabulary. I'm not gonna quit. I was miserable every day. I hated going in every day. I hated it. Hated it. And, uh, but no, I'm not gonna quit. Uh, I might add too, when I was in Paris rescue training, what's the single most area where people wash out? Water. Water. Right. I was not a good swimmer. Mm-hmm. I was not a good swimmer. And, uh, but, uh, not gonna, I'm not gonna quit. And I, I struggled through it, became a better swimmer, but never was really that good. Mm-hmm. And, um, but I was not ever, they were gonna have to throw me out before I quit. And that pool harassment into, we didn't have that pool harassment like you have now in training at, at uh, at, uh, Lackland. Mm-hmm. But at the scuba school, they did. They would throw you under and then they would die on you and take your mask and all that. And we had some of the best swimmers washed out of the training at that point. And uh, I won of the least swimming capabilities. Survived it somehow. Yeah. I never had to come to the surface. I remember going down to the bottom of the, and reaching on the last, I was probably about to see the wizard, about to pass out. Yeah. I got the air back on. Just that. It never did have to come up, so I made it, you know, but it's just through. And I think that's, you know, there's no quit. Yeah, no quip. But you don't need enough swim. When you stand up scuba jumps like you, what's that? Oh, my standup scuba jumps. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I actually got a buddy, uh, Joey listens to this, had a standup scuba jump, but he landed on boat, on accident. Robert bruised, you know, I had, uh, uh, Stan Sanders, a friend of mine, a PJ retired. Reminded me of something the other day. He said, do you remember this, uh, night over the North Sea out of England when we had to get the guys a nice scuba jump and we're running out of time. It one January's coming up, they're all gonna be an noncurrent if we don't get it. And so we had like eight guys on a 53 to get to this last scuba jump. But we also had a guy in jump master training. We had a guy getting this, getting that was a whatever. Mm-hmm. So I was the last man out and I sat and Stan says, uh, I said, what's the count? He said, 45. I said, what's the count? He said, he said 45. 45. It was over a mile away from the target. Yeah. Yeah. From 53. So, okay. Stan at 45 and I landed 10 feet from the target. No kidding. I was just by sheer whatever. 10 feet from the target. Coldest I've ever been jumping of that English channel. Oh. Oh man. Nice and cold, isn't it? You get, you get in there and then we had zodiacs and jet skis. But you're dodging these massive ships. You Oh, cargo ships right in the channel, so, yeah. Yeah. Not fun. Well, you guys have such, oh wow. I shouldn't complain. Yeah, we had some good wetsuits. Oh, no, no, I'm just saying, you know. Yeah. I used to hate, remember the wet, you never knew they called a uni suit. Mm-hmm. Was it like a Mustang suit? Kind of. I don't know what a Mustang suit is, but it was hard. It was like real thick, uh Okay. Cold water suit. Mm-hmm. And you had to zip it from the back and you had to pull the, it was very cumbersome. Mm-hmm. You could hardly move in a sucker. And that was before they finally came up with a Viking suit, which was better. But that was a Oh, terrible suit. Yeah. Yeah. It was a pain. You had a busy, uh, a busy career. I wanted to ask, um, do you have any advice in terms of. Maintaining, you know, your healthy family life work balance while traveling everywhere. And then even, you know, that was very hard on family life. I ended up divorcing my first wife and my three daughters were at the time, teenagers. Mm-hmm. Um, the PJ attitude at that time might contributed to that somewhat. Mm-hmm. Um, away from home, temptations messing around, that kind of thing. And that doesn't lead to a happy home life. It's hard enough being away from the family without, you know, so yeah, that's, that's something I think really need to think about hard as far as maintaining a, a, a home life and a happy family life. Mm-hmm. Because, uh, I think that's true of any in the police career field too. That was a, another major factor. Many divorces. Uh, suicides I had, uh, during my time at Metro, I think I know of five suicides, uh, during my PJ career field. I know of three or four suicides. Um, yeah. It's can be, it can be emotionally tough. Yeah. Yeah. I definitely think it's just one of those things that's not talked about enough and it's worth just trying to gain insight and knowledge from those that, you know, already been through it. Yeah. I think for the young guys too, thinking about getting married, um, now I grew up on a farm again. Here we go. It's a man, it's a normal thing when you're 24, 20 you get married, you know, it's like part of the, you just do it, you know? Right. It's like that mindset without actually understanding the ramifications that this is a mind, this is a life changing event forever. Biggest decision your life. Yeah. Biggest decision of your life. Mm-hmm. And, uh. I think, uh, understanding and knowing that the only thing I tell sometimes I tell people younger than my, if two things I didn't do, I wish I would've done. This isn't directly related to that, but keep a daily journal. If you, if you go online and you look up the, as the positive aspects of keeping a daily journal, it's amazing what it does for the mind and how it keeps you even more focused on what you're doing at the time and what you're gonna do in the future. Not to mention the, uh, great feeling of being able to look back and refresh your memory, but I forgotten a lot of stuff. I, because I, and the second thing is, uh, live in the moment, I was, I was always never right there. And I think that's why I don't remember a lot of things back then.'cause I was always, you know, I'm not focused on the, the moment in time. There's as there's times when you are focused all the time, like jumping, whatever you Yeah. Yeah. But, but other than that, you know, you miss a lot of stuff'cause you're not focused. But keep the journal helps you, keep you focused too. It helps you remind you, yeah. At the end of the day and then years later you'll be faking yourself for doing it. Yeah. And if you can develop that habit, it's only five, 10 minutes every night before you turn in. Just jot it down. I think that's great. Just that's some good advice. Um, wish I'd done that. I've got, I've got another Willie Williamson story. Okay. Go. Okay. We're in Spain, Bob Gabriel, Bob Williamson, myself and Mike Verson. We're at a bar one night in Spain in Seville, and we're in Gabriel's VW Bug. It's late at night, we're driving back from. The club in Seville to the base Maron and for some reason Gabriel lets Willie Drive. Now we've all had a much drink. I don't think Willie was any better off than Gabriel, but Willie's driving and so it's all cobblestone streets, uh, and it's night. And the cobblestone has got some kind of a mist or a little bit of misty moisture on the street. Mm-hmm. And Willie's driving and I'm in the backseat with Mike and Gabriel's up front and he starts making this long term and suddenly the ass starts passing, passing the front. Oh, nice. We do a complete 360 uhhuh and no flipping that VW bug really. And on we go. And Gabriel is just beside himself, is Willie's driving And Willie just laughing. Well, he sounded like an awesome guy. Yeah. Yeah. Willie was Charact.