Chasing Paradise Ch 01 05

No character in this story was under 18 when they had sex.

I will leave it to the reader to decide what is true and what is fiction. I have been around long enough to know that each person decides what is true or not based on their own experiences, and NOT based on what is actually true.

Chapter 1 -- The Early Years

Hi. I'm Pete. I was born in 1949 to a father who was an Air Force pilot and a stay-at-home mother who was a perfect officer's wife. My father piloted mostly multi-engine aircraft, and because of that, spent most of his career in either bombers or cargo aircraft. It was a good career, and my father was one of the best pilots around (according to those who had flown with my father). There were a lot of times when crew members would tell me that they trusted my father more than any other pilot they had ever flown with.

What my father's career meant to me and my siblings as we were growing up was that we were never in one place for very long. I went to ten different schools growing up. Think about that, and what it would do to a child trying to be accepted by their peers. Because most of my friends were also Air Force brats (kids of servicemen), either my father or their father would quickly get orders for another assignment, and I would never see them again. The result was that I became very skilled at making new friends, but had no idea how to maintain long-term relationships. This shaped a lot of what I did throughout my life.

I got into the Boy Scouts when I was 10 1/2 years old. I loved it immediately. The first Boy Scout troop I joined was sponsored by my father's bomb wing, which meant it had good adult leadership and lots of boys (50 to 75 at any given time). It was known as a "no match" troop. In other words, boys had to start their fires using methods that did NOT require matches or lighters. I became very proficient starting fires with flint and steel, friction and magnifying glasses.

The troop also emphasized survival skills, since our scoutmaster ran the survival shop on base and pushed these skills. I learned orienteering with maps and compass and traveling in various weather conditions, both day and night. I became quite good at hiking at night because I had excellent night vision. We didn't use flashlights. I went on, and later led, dozens of night hikes with the Boy Scouts. I also learned about what could or could not be eaten, how to make water safe to drink, and how to avoid venomous critters. I had no idea that this training would save my life later many times when I was assigned to ferret out NVA strongholds along the Ho Chi Minh Trail ... all while avoiding becoming a casualty or a POW. However, that was far in the future.

I enjoyed Scouting, and I did well. During my time in Scouting (in three different troops due to transfers), I held every leadership position in a troop that was possible for a boy, and I was elected a vigil honor member of the Order of the Arrow (Scouting's service organization). I took three important traits from the Boy Scouts: outdoor skills, leadership, and service to others.

One of my most formative experiences occurred in October 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. My father was a B-47 pilot, and before he left our base to fly away, he called me and told me that I was to build and stock a bomb shelter in our basement. It turned out that our base was within range of the missiles on Cuba. Of course, I had no idea at the time where my father was, but I knew that all of the B-47s had flown off the base loaded with nuclear weapons. I later learned that they had dispersed and took turns flying what was known as the racetrack near the Arctic Circle, ready to fly on to targets in the USSR.

I had not yet turned 13 when I got that phone call, but I found plans for a bomb shelter and had my mother take me to get the materials needed. I built a bomb shelter in our basement out of concrete blocks, lumber and sandbags, and then I stocked it with food and water. I spent my thirteenth birthday sitting in that bomb shelter wondering in it would be good enough and worried that I would never see my father again.

I was never the same after that experience, and I took things a lot more seriously than I had before. I also developed a deep hatred for communists. They had almost destroyed everything we held dear with their placement of missiles in Cuba, and I would never forgive them.

It wasn't until I got to my final high school that I finally got into sports. My parents had started me in school early, so I was always younger and smaller than all of the other boys in my grade level. Therefore, I was usually always chosen last when it came time to pick teams. That didn't exactly motivate me to play sports.

I transferred into my final school midway through my junior year of high school, and I was finally starting to catch up with my peers in strength and coordination. I got into football and wrestling and did well, even though I was a novice at both. In reality, I didn't reach my maximum height until the end of my first year in the Air Force. I was 5'10 1/2" when I was a senior in high school, and I was 6'2" at the end of my first year in the Air Force. That was quite a growth spurt.

I always wondered how my life would have been different if my parents hadn't started me in school early. Very different, I imagine. I had a high IQ, so I usually had no problem keeping up in school if I wanted to, though I now know that I was (and am) ADHD, so I often found it difficult to concentrate in class. I also had trouble focusing on homework. Of all the problems that I did have in school, most were caused by my not understanding how to concentrate and focus. That was something that my later time in the Air Force taught me. It was either focus or die.

I also became an object of desire to the girls when I arrived at my last high school (isn't it always that way with new boys and girls at a school?), and I suddenly found myself being paired up with cute girls in my new school. There seemed to be a lot of gossip, and I often overheard girls talking about this girl or that girl's attraction to me. They weren't being very subtle about it either.

Unfortunately, I really had no experience at the time on how to handle the opposite sex, and I muffed it pretty badly. I was intimidated by girls, and I didn't want to do anything that might reflect badly on my father (who by that time was a colonel). Therefore, I was hesitant to push a girl into doing anything she might object to. Since this was in the 1960's, that covered a lot of territory.

I had dates for proms and dances, but I never became intimate with any girls I dated. I never even kissed any of them. I have to rack that up to shyness, naivety, and inexperience. As you will see later in the story, once I found out what I had been missing, I caught up very quickly.

After I graduated from high school, I got a job as a backpacking guide for the Boy Scouts up in the Sierras. My summer after graduation was spent leading teenage boys and their adult leaders around the wilderness areas of the Sierra Mountains to the west and south of Lake Tahoe. It was a happy time. I hadn't done all that well in high school, and I was pretty sure that I would fail if I went directly to a university. I had done well enough in high school to get into a university, but not well enough to sustain me through to a degree. Therefore, I decided to start out my adult life by going into the military like my father had.

My father had joined the Army Air Corps during World War 2 as an enlisted man, but then went through Air Cadet training to become a pilot. He served as a B-24 pilot during the war, and then went on to fly 28 different planes during his Air Force career. This was the world that I was born into. I didn't turn 18 until the fall after I graduated from high school, so I waited until my 18th birthday to visit the Air Force recruiter's office.

While at the recruiter's office, I took the aptitude tests and also a bypass test to become an engineering draftsman, which I passed. I did well enough on the aptitude tests that I was deemed qualified to go into any field the Air Force offered. Passing the bypass test gave me an automatic 3-level (apprentice) in the engineering draftsman specialty code, an ensured promotion soon after basic training, and a guaranteed assignment in engineering drafting at my first assignment (at least that was what the recruiter told me).

Reality hit when I reached my first assignment after I completed basic training. My orders sent me to the personnel section on the base instead of directly to the Civil Engineering Squadron, which should have been a red flag for what was to come. They told me there were no vacant positions in civil engineering, but they would move me as soon as one was available. However, I still believed that the system would treat me right, so I accepted being assigned to the Base Supply Squadron "until there was an opening" for a draftsman at Base Civil Engineering.

I kept himself busy and learned my job at base supply and everything I could about logistics while I was in supply. I quickly earned a 3-level in inventory management and then turned around and completed the course and exam to earn a 5-level within a few months. That meant that my pathway for promotion was clear for the foreseeable future, since I had already learned that promotion qualifications allowed that promotions could be given regardless of where the required skill level had been achieved. I also got a secret security clearance because of my job in Base Supply.

It was during this time, that I was introduced to a cute Mormon girl who lived in the nearby city by a friend of my mother (who was also a Mormon and the wife of another colonel who had flown with my dad previously). Jill was a beautiful girl with long, dark brown hair and dark eyes that were captivating. Amazingly, Jill's Mormon parents liked me even though I was a Catholic. They trusted the mutual friend enough to believe that I would be a gentleman with their daughter. However, they set strict rules on what Jill and I could and couldn't do while on dates. For one thing, Jill was not allowed to ride on the back of the motorcycle that I had just purchased. Another rule was a strict curfew. It just meant that Jill and I had to walk or take a bus and plan our dates out a little better.

I met Jill when my mother's friend invited me to a dance put on by the local LDS (Mormon) stake, and although I was introduced to many other girls that evening, Jill and I spent most of the time dancing and talking together. By the end of the dance, I had asked Jill out on a date and she had accepted. I learned a lot about Jill during our first date. First of all, she was only 16 and a sophomore in high school. I was only 18, so that wasn't too much of an age difference, but it still presented obstacles.

After a few dates, Jill professed her love for me and we kissed in front of her house. It was an innocent kiss, but it left a mark on my soul. I started worrying that this might turn into a serious relationship ending in marriage. Because I had spent my life around the Air Force and mixing with enlisted men, I knew what happened to guys who got married during their first enlistment. They were trapped, and they usually ended up in unexciting Air Force jobs with no future. I didn't want that. However, I didn't want to hurt Jill either, and she had a lot of dreams that would never happen if we married. I was confused as to what I should do.

After a few months not hearing anything from Base Personnel about moving me to an engineering drafting job, I decided to visit Base Civil Engineering myself. What I learned shocked me. The drafting section was double-staffed, and the lowest ranking person there was a staff sergeant (E-5). There was absolutely no chance that an opening would ever exist for me in drafting.

Because I had been guaranteed assignment as an engineering draftsman in writing by the recruiter, I believed that the Air Force was in breach of contract. I went back to Base Personnel to complain. Of course, they laughed at me. They told me that I had three options. First, I could stay in Base Supply and make the best of my situation. Second, I could formally protest the breach of contract, in which case I would eventually be released from the Air Force to be immediately drafted into one of the other branches (yes, I was still eligible to be drafted). Third, I could go over to a bulletin board there in Base Personnel and apply for another assignment in the Air Force (provided I was qualified).

I didn't like either of the first two options, so I went over to the bulletin board. Most of the potential assignments that were posted were pretty hazy, but it wasn't too difficult to figure out what they were. Unfortunately, most held no appeal for me. However, one of the cards intrigued me. Amazingly, I qualified for every requirement listed for the assignment, even though the actual nature of the assignment wasn't spelled out.

The assignment required high score on the recruiting aptitude tests. It required that the applicant already hold a 5-level in some Air Force Specialty Code (AFSC), which I had just completed early. It required that applicants must qualify for a secret or higher security clearance, which I had just been granted for my job in Base Supply. Most interesting, though, were the other requirements. Applicants had to have a perfect score on the range with a rifle (which I had accomplished in basic training), they had to have good orienteering skills such as map reading, compass orienteering and range estimation, and it required that applicants have survival skills they listed (all of which I had acquired through my time Scouting and hunting throughout my youth).

I took the card to the sergeant at the desk and placed it in front of him. The sergeant looked at the card and asked, "Are you sure this is what you want? You have a comfortable life at Base Supply."

"I'm sure," I replied. I was breaking the number one rule in the military... NEVER volunteer for anything.

"OK," the sergeant said. "I will process this, and you will receive orders if you are accepted into the program. This looks like a dangerous assignment to me, and it is classified, so you won't even know what it will lead to until you are already into it. Oh, and there is a school required for this assignment. I don't know how long the school is."

A month later, I had received my orders. I knew that I should go see Jill and tell her what had happened, but that scared me more than anything else. I knew that I wouldn't handle it well if she fell apart or was crushed by the news, so I decided to just go to the assignment and see what happened. I might be right back if things didn't work out, or I might not ever be back. Either way, I thought a little time away might be good for both of us. I was wrong, and Jill was deeply hurt when I just disappeared without saying anything.

I showed up at the wing headquarters for the First Special Operations Wing (1SOW) waiting for somebody to tell me where to go. There would be a school where I would learn more about the assignment, but for now, I would just have to wait until everybody else arrived.

I was advised to get out and run a good distance every day, and to spend time at the gym getting into shape. I would be doing a lot of running and exercise during my training. In reality, I ran everyday anyway, and I was already in good shape, so this wasn't really a hardship.

The school started a few days later near a place called Rock Hill out on the Eglin AFB Range. It had an abandoned airstrip and several WWII era buildings. It was to be the Air Force Scout School for the next couple of months and the airstrip was to be the rifle range. Much of the first week was spent running, exercising, shooting and finding our way around in the forests and swamps of the Eglin AFB Range in the dark. It wasn't anything new to me and even though I was the lowest ranking (and youngest) student in the class, I did well.

By the end of that first week, the class had already lost about twenty of the original 105 students. The next three weeks were increasingly grueling, with harder and harder problems and tests as they progressed. At the end of the first month, the class was down to less than sixty men, and the school leadership sat the students down and explained what the mission would be. It was a classified briefing, so regardless of each person's decisions, what was said had to remain classified. I found it interesting that even the instructors were not present for the briefing.

This was an all-volunteer unit, and all a student had to do was lay down his rifle and boonie hat on the front porch of the school building, and they were gone. After the briefing, the class was given the next two weeks off to decide whether or not each person would continue. If they stayed, the instruction would get tougher and they would be fairly locked into the program (although they could still opt out).

The mission was simple. Air Force Scouts (as we would be called) would be inserted into areas near the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos or Cambodia and we would try to infiltrate NVA areas to pinpoint likely targets for Air Force aircraft to strike. These targets were well camouflaged from the air, so it required boots on the ground to find them. If an Air Force Scout found a target of opportunity (such as a high-ranking officer), he could take it out using his scoped rifle.

The original plan (that they outlined for us) was to send the Scouts in two-man teams, but that fell apart quickly when three teams (six men) were caught and killed within several weeks of the insertions starting. After that, Scouts were then sent in one at a time (lone wolf). It was a terrifying mission, and the Air Force wanted only men in the detachment who wanted to be there and were fully committed. I saw a lot of value in the mission, since I had concluded that our activities had the potential of saving the lives of thousands of Americans in Vietnam.

At the end of the two-week break, there were only twenty men left in training, and all of us were committed to the effort. The training became even more intense, and by the end of the second month-long block of training, we were as prepared as the school could make us. All twenty men "graduated," but there was no ceremony, no pins and no certificates. This whole program was highly classified, and the Air Force thought the less paper trail the better.

Much like the US Navy SEALS at the time, Air Force Scouts were not given a unique specialty code (AFSC in the Air Force). They simply kept whatever AFSC's they already had. Unlike the SEALS, no permanent record was kept of the schools the Scouts attended. I mean NO official record was kept, as in nothing I did connected to this program even showed up on my discharge paper (DD 214) when I left the Air Force.

So, thus began my journey that took me to the Philippines, Thailand and Laos multiple times during my enlistment. The detachment was originally split up between five Air Force bases, with four Scouts at each base. That was intended to keep the program as low-key and below the radar as possible. In each location, there was an administrative officer who kept track of the training regimen and took care of all administrative matters. The number of bases shrank as the number of Scouts decreased. When I first became an Air Force Scout, there were twenty men in the detachment. By the time I left the Air Force, there was only one other surviving Scout. I felt that I had already used up twelve of my nine lives (twelve missions into Laos), and it was time for me to get out.

Therefore, when the retention officer at my final interview asked what I wanted out of the Air Force, I replied, "Me." They even offered me a $20,000 re-enlistment bonus, which was unheard of in those days, but all I wanted was out.