newbury
Super Star Member
- Joined
- Jan 8, 2009
- Messages
- 13,613
- Location
- From Vt, in Va, retiring to MS
- Tractor
- Kubota's - B7610, M4700
Long story, it's raining outside.
My Dad had been in the Army Air Corps and my uncle in the Navy in subs. So I was mentally prepared in 1969 to join, but my grades and my SAT's demanded I go to college even though I had to pay my own way.
I was a senior at the University of Vermont in the fall of '72 when my number, 121 (IIRC) won the lottery for the paid vacation to the Far East, all travel and food included. Just not gauranteed to return alive. I had had several close high school buddies that got one way trips to the Far East in that lottery.
The day before I was supposed to report for my physical and tickets Nixon stopped the draft.
WHEW!!
Then after I graduated I hitchiked to California for a summer vacation, returned, waited for my first future wife to graduate. We then drove to Seattle and then down to Portland, Oregon for a vacation/looking for work trip. One week end we slipped down to California. Somehow we ended up outside a recruiters office and for a lark we took their tests.
Man, the recruiters almost tackled us to join.
So we ended up joining, subject to be able to find where the Army could place both of us.
It took us a few months to find the correct "slots", sort of hard to place a Biologist (me) and a Geologist (her). They offered me jobs in research labs (studying the impact of small particles on protoplasm [shooting dogs]) but nothing I liked.
Ended up getting called by a Major at an Army Lab. They were looking for field assistants to help scientists doing reearch in image interpretation.
They took us, location Fort Belvoir, Virginia we got there after basic training about June, 1975.
Had to figure something strange was going on because they had us enlist on April, 1 1975.
Ended up spending 3 glorious years working in a lab of 300 civil servant scientists and about 6 to 12 military.
Our duties were to assist in 2 week long training classes for the civil and military in image interpretation and assist and lead studies in image interpretation. Besides traveling most of CONUS for training classes, usually 2 to 3 weeks on site, we had to go on frequent trips to place like Fort Bliss, Tx, Fort Dix, NJ, sites in Florida and New Hampshire for field work.
So although I'm a Viet-Nam era Vet my 3 years was mainly spent in hotels and classrooms around the nation. My field experience was learned in the "desert" of Ft Bliss and White Sands Missile Range.
I still have vivid memories of being on-site photographing coppice dunes and suddenly being surrounded by slightly lost new M60's.
I learned to become very proficient in firing the 35MM and 85MM (glass) slide projector.
I also got many flights in Huey's and a few Chinooks, where my preferred weapon was the 70MM Hassleblads. And they let us strap in, open the doors and lean out to take pictures! We must have had a dozen of those fine cameras.
One interesting side story to wrap up -
We were doing research at Yakima Proving grounds. I had a pair of 70MM Hasselblads one with a standard A12 film back which I used for color shots, and one A70 for B&W, which took like 100 shots and I devloped my self back at the lab. My coworkers were using standard 35MM cameras.
So 3 of us were being choppered around Yakima in a Huey doing ground truth for imagery. Procedure was we'd have the doors open, lean out and take pictures of the rocks and vegetation. When we wanted to we would tell the pilot to put down and we would take some closeups. We had to go through a short "pre flight" brief, which for us boiled down to "be careful where you regurgitate".
Now at the time Yakima was involved in hush-hush radar tracking.
So we were going around, up, down taking pics by the dozens in color and hundreds in B&W.
Then Range Security grounded us. They were concerned our photos would show where the radars were pointing which was a flagrant breach of security. But we were able to confirm that we had not been told.
Well, the 35MM cameras were no problem, they confiscated the film and sent it off for processing in a secure lab they had.
But my 70MM was GAD!!.
So the head of security takes me aside and starts to grill me about processing etc.
They figured they might be able to handle the color film,
BUT this guy had no clue about photography and kept asking me how much was it going to cost to process the big roll in the A70. I told him I didn't know, and I didn't. Based on my
past experience I was figuring maybe $5 or $10 in chemicals, another $10 or $20 in paper if I went to prints. But I couldn't tell him an accurate number, and I didn't share my thoughts.
So he made me treat it as "might could be" and report to my security chief when I got back to Belvoir and developed the negatives. Which I did, and my security chief tossed few negs in the trash, and called him back without telling him the cost.
I don't think the guys with the 35MM cameras ever got their ground truth pics back.
Taught me early on security doesn't mean intelligence.
Since my "Army" career I worked at the same lab, with many of the same people, until I retired in 2010,after getting paid to travel Europe, some Asia, all the US.
My Dad had been in the Army Air Corps and my uncle in the Navy in subs. So I was mentally prepared in 1969 to join, but my grades and my SAT's demanded I go to college even though I had to pay my own way.
I was a senior at the University of Vermont in the fall of '72 when my number, 121 (IIRC) won the lottery for the paid vacation to the Far East, all travel and food included. Just not gauranteed to return alive. I had had several close high school buddies that got one way trips to the Far East in that lottery.
The day before I was supposed to report for my physical and tickets Nixon stopped the draft.
WHEW!!
Then after I graduated I hitchiked to California for a summer vacation, returned, waited for my first future wife to graduate. We then drove to Seattle and then down to Portland, Oregon for a vacation/looking for work trip. One week end we slipped down to California. Somehow we ended up outside a recruiters office and for a lark we took their tests.
Man, the recruiters almost tackled us to join.
So we ended up joining, subject to be able to find where the Army could place both of us.
It took us a few months to find the correct "slots", sort of hard to place a Biologist (me) and a Geologist (her). They offered me jobs in research labs (studying the impact of small particles on protoplasm [shooting dogs]) but nothing I liked.
Ended up getting called by a Major at an Army Lab. They were looking for field assistants to help scientists doing reearch in image interpretation.
They took us, location Fort Belvoir, Virginia we got there after basic training about June, 1975.
Had to figure something strange was going on because they had us enlist on April, 1 1975.
Ended up spending 3 glorious years working in a lab of 300 civil servant scientists and about 6 to 12 military.
Our duties were to assist in 2 week long training classes for the civil and military in image interpretation and assist and lead studies in image interpretation. Besides traveling most of CONUS for training classes, usually 2 to 3 weeks on site, we had to go on frequent trips to place like Fort Bliss, Tx, Fort Dix, NJ, sites in Florida and New Hampshire for field work.
So although I'm a Viet-Nam era Vet my 3 years was mainly spent in hotels and classrooms around the nation. My field experience was learned in the "desert" of Ft Bliss and White Sands Missile Range.
I still have vivid memories of being on-site photographing coppice dunes and suddenly being surrounded by slightly lost new M60's.
I learned to become very proficient in firing the 35MM and 85MM (glass) slide projector.
I also got many flights in Huey's and a few Chinooks, where my preferred weapon was the 70MM Hassleblads. And they let us strap in, open the doors and lean out to take pictures! We must have had a dozen of those fine cameras.
One interesting side story to wrap up -
We were doing research at Yakima Proving grounds. I had a pair of 70MM Hasselblads one with a standard A12 film back which I used for color shots, and one A70 for B&W, which took like 100 shots and I devloped my self back at the lab. My coworkers were using standard 35MM cameras.
So 3 of us were being choppered around Yakima in a Huey doing ground truth for imagery. Procedure was we'd have the doors open, lean out and take pictures of the rocks and vegetation. When we wanted to we would tell the pilot to put down and we would take some closeups. We had to go through a short "pre flight" brief, which for us boiled down to "be careful where you regurgitate".
Now at the time Yakima was involved in hush-hush radar tracking.
So we were going around, up, down taking pics by the dozens in color and hundreds in B&W.
Then Range Security grounded us. They were concerned our photos would show where the radars were pointing which was a flagrant breach of security. But we were able to confirm that we had not been told.
Well, the 35MM cameras were no problem, they confiscated the film and sent it off for processing in a secure lab they had.
But my 70MM was GAD!!.
So the head of security takes me aside and starts to grill me about processing etc.
They figured they might be able to handle the color film,
BUT this guy had no clue about photography and kept asking me how much was it going to cost to process the big roll in the A70. I told him I didn't know, and I didn't. Based on my
past experience I was figuring maybe $5 or $10 in chemicals, another $10 or $20 in paper if I went to prints. But I couldn't tell him an accurate number, and I didn't share my thoughts.
So he made me treat it as "might could be" and report to my security chief when I got back to Belvoir and developed the negatives. Which I did, and my security chief tossed few negs in the trash, and called him back without telling him the cost.
I don't think the guys with the 35MM cameras ever got their ground truth pics back.
Taught me early on security doesn't mean intelligence.
Since my "Army" career I worked at the same lab, with many of the same people, until I retired in 2010,after getting paid to travel Europe, some Asia, all the US.
