My sister had not been to school in the States, so when I went off to my freshman year at Iowa, my folks rented a house for a year; it was down the street from E. F.Lindquist, my dad’s cousin, a professor. His family helped us get situated. JK went to junior high and I was a freshman. Expect for Political Science, I was a good student. I made some friends and enjoyed the life of a Big Ten College student. I ran freshman track and thought about becoming an officer in the Air Force through the ROTC program.
My dad came to Iowa City at the end of the spring term and we spent the summer visiting Lindquist relatives in Iowa City and Madrid (Aunts Mary and Sarah Lindquist). Then, we drove to California to be with the Angelich and Christophersen families. My folks went back to Dhahran after a nice, long leave.
My sophomore year proved to be my undoing. I roomed with three Iowa young men from Davenport and Klemme. We partied too much and this led to my being put on the academic probation. The best part of the year was, I met my sweetheart, Clarice. It was a hard choice to leave Iowa City, but I decided to join the Navy after a long discussion with my geology professor Tuttle. He set me on the road to responsibility. I took the tests and scored high enough to get an aviation school. Boot camp in San Diego was nine weeks; I was in an all IOWA Company and became the batallion yeoman. The company learned to become sailors and I did the books and made out the watch lists. Since I did not attend classes, I had to hit the books hard. When our orders came, I was assigned to AEW school, in Brunswick, GA. No one in the personnel office knew what that school actually taught. I took two weeks leave and went to Iowa to be with my sweetheart. We made plans to get married.
I took the bus GLYNCO Naval Air Station. At the main gate, I handed over my orders and after a few minutes, I was directed to the AEW barracks. I hoisted my seabag and walked the mile to the barracks. It was full of young sailors like myself. After I was assigned a bunk and locker, I asked what AEW was; a young Airman Apprentice took me behind the barracks and over to a low fence. He pointed across the taxi way. “See those birds?” He was pointing to four Super Constellations- Lockheed patrol aircraft, big four engine search and rescue airplanes (WV-2s). “We’re in this school to learn to be radar intercept operators on that plane.” I was stunned. He finished by telling me, “and we get flight and hazardous duty pay.”
The 20 weeks flew by; I graduated second in my class. Two startling things happened at school. During the second week, I met Bobby Head; his step father worked for ARAMCO and Bobby visited Dhahran in the summer of 1955; we met that summer. He hung with the Dhahran airbase crowd. We became close friends in AEW school. Bobby came from an aviation family, both his father and brother flew. Bobby taught me a lot about aviation. The study part is more revealing. My time at Iowa taught me how to study and I was able to excel in that Navy school. That’s when I fully realized I’d made a huge mistake by not buckling down at Iowa.
I got orders to a squadron in Newfoundland; I went home, married Clarice, honeymooned in Chicago. Clarice went back to Iowa to finish her senior year- she was studying to be a teacher. I flew on to Pax River, MD and then to Argentia and VW-ll. I was assigned to a flight crew immediately. VW-11 was permanently assigned to Argentia with quite a few airplanes and 800 officers and men. With two other rotating squadrons, VW-13 and VW-15, we shared the responsibilities of the eastward extension of the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line over the North Atlantic Ocean; it was the Cold War and we were operational. We flew 12 hour RADAR surveilence missions in a race track pattern from Newfoundland down to the Azores and back. There were four airplanes and four radar picket ships on what was called the North Atlantic Barrier.
Bobby Head was assigned to Argentia as well and after a few months we maneuvered and got into the same crew, Crew 12. Bobby went home and married Jan Briner; they had met in Brunswick, GA.
Clarice called with news. We were pregnant! She left school and came to Argentia. Bobby and Jan, Clarice and I…we were a team. Jan was already a teacher. She got on at the DoD school for dependent military children. Kelli was born in early July of 1960 and the following year Bobby and Jan had Marty. We lived down the block from one another in Freshwater, and spent time as young families do.
Bobby and I flew heavy schedules. In addition to the barrier flights, we flew search and rescue and iceberg patrols. In spring, the far north glaciers calved icebergs. The radar scopes were dotted with these giant bergs. One actually came into Placentia Bay and parked itself at the end of our runway, interfering with airport traffic. A Navy crew set bomb charges and knocked the top off so airplanes could make safe approaches and take offs.
On one barrier flight, we were a little over half way back to our base in Argentia when a Mayday distress call came from an airliner headed west. We held the airplane on radar and the flight station talked to them, assessing their emergency. They had lost an engine. We vectored them into a close formation with our airplane. With about four hours left in our barrier flight, I was relieved from my work station. I went to the rear of the airplane and looked out the port. The sun was just coming up behind us and as I watched the lights of the airliner, the sun broke through the clouds and I was able to see it was a TWA Super Constellation. The number two engine prop was slowly windmilling. Here were two different models of the same basic Lockheed airframe, one commercial and the other a Navy patrol plane flying in loose formation. We flew along until we reached Newfoundland. The airliner flew into Gander safely and we broke south and flew down to Argentia. I thought of all the times I had flown the Atlantic since dad joined ARAMCO. I was homesick for Dhahran for the first time in years.
I made rate fast (E-5). Clarice and I figured out how to get her back into school. We had gotten Lady, a terrier-mix. I put the dog on the train for Iowa. Clarice took Kelli and flew back to Iowa to finished her degree in education. She graduated and got a job teaching English in Cedar Rapids, a few miles north of Iowa City.
I got orders to the fleet; I transferred to Quonset Point, RI, and after a few weeks of training for a new aircraft, the WF-2, we flew down to Norfolk and went aboard the USS Forrestal (CVA-59). We cruised to the Caribbean and joined the Enterprise searching out targets, controlling fighters and using our radar to protect the task force. The Cuban missile crisis loomed. We had the most modern fighters aboard the Forrestal, the F-8 Crusader and the F-4 Phantom; we flew almost every day. Flight operations aboard an aircraft carrier are dangerous. I saw a degree of professionalism among the flight and deck crews that I had not seen in Newfoundland. Sailors went beyond the call of duty daily.
One morning I visited sick bay with a small scrape that would not heal. I was med-evacuated to Boston. I was in the hospital four months with a blood disorder. My spleen was removed and I was returned to duty at Quonset Point, but not in the squadron. I became a flight planner at the Naval Air Station. I finished my enlistment at NAS Quonset Point, I was fit for reassignment but my four year obligation was up.
I went back to Iowa, worked for the telephone company until school started and did another year and a summer. My grades were much better, but I was working full time at the hospital children’s school on campus and taking a minimum full load. I put my degree on hold and went to work selling paint.
Curt was born in March 1967. We were a two child family. Clarice stayed home for a while. I got a job at the local TV station in Cedar Rapids as a broadcasting engineer. I worked there four years. We bought a house in Cedar Rapids and I started learning to fly on the GI Bill. The military helped me see a track to the future. I got my private and commercial licenses and my instrument rating. I was hired by a small computer company which eventually leased three airplanes.
I flew as second pilot, trained clients on the company products, electronic order entry storage devices. I worked there eight years. We settled into a nice family lifestyle in Cedar Rapids and I went back to school at Mount Mercy College, part time. I was graduated seven years later in 1981.
I had a degree in history and varied work experiences including computer service, customer training, business credit, air traffic control, and aviation. I networked with a childhood friend, Steve Furman, which turned into a job offer. I was hired by ARAMCO and reported to Dhahran in January 1982. I had come full circle with my Middle East experience. It felt like I was coming home.
Dhahran was bigger, more diverse, and much busier, but the biggest difference was- my friends were gone. This made living in the Middle East less appealing. I still enjoyed the lifestyle. ARAMCO, soon to become Saudi ARAMCO in 1983, paid well and there was a career future. I was a planning and programs analyst for Office Services. We stayed with ARAMCO three years. Clarice worked in Training as a typist. We lived on her salary and banked mine. At the end of two years, Clarice went back to her teaching job in Cedar Rapids,and six months later I resigned. I returned to Cedar Rapids and Mount Mercy College. I took a second undergraduate degree, this time in education. I added a visual art major. This enabled me to teach 7-12 History and K-12 visual art.
After teaching for a year in Cedar Rapids, Clarice was employed by the Department of Defense Dependent Schools (DoDDS). We flew to Japan and began teaching in the fall on the airbase at Misawa in Northern Japan. I did not have a job, but I substituted 52 times that school year. I got on the following school year full time. We stayed in Misawa for 12 years and retired to Colorado in 2000.