Flight from Arabia: The Embassy Flight

By Bruce M. Barrett

Right after author Bruce M. Barrett graduated from high school at Peacock Military Academy in San Antonio, he accompanied his father and mother to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where his dad was to be the military attaché to the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia.

Flight from Arabia recounts Bruce’s adventures in Saudi Arabia, including accompanying his dad on some pretty hair-raising then-secret missions and his trip home to go to college. Bruce’s father assigned him to accompany a general’s daughter back to the States, and they wound up on an air force cargo plane traveling through Egypt, Libya, and Pakistan, among other places. Together they explored the cultures and their budding friendship along the way. Bruce shares his memories of Saudi Arabia and its people from the heyday of the nation’s alliance with the United States.

This memoir recalls the adventure of a lifetime as two college-bound military brats in the mid-1960s take a military flight from the Middle East across Africa and Europe to the States.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781480881556

Bruce M. Barrett

Bruce M. Barrett was born into a military family and traveled the world with his air force father and his mother. He earned a BS in commercial art from Texas State University (then known as Southwest Texas State University) and made a living as a musician, artist, house painter, carpenter, and a variety of other roles. He is currently retired and living in Pensacola, Florida.

Book preview

FLIGHT

FROM

ARABIA

THE EMBASSY FLIGHT

BRUCE M. BARRETT

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Copyright © 2019 Bruce M. Barrett.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Author’s head shot by Brooke Martin.

Photo of Kasham’s knife by Ryan James Witty.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8154-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8153-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8155-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019912970

Archway Publishing rev. date: 10/4/2019

CONTENTS

Prologue

1.   Mom and Dad

2.   Peacock, San Antonio, Texas

3.   Off to Arabia!

4.   Stopover in Spain

5.   Last Leg to Arabia

6.   Bahrain

7.   The Real Last Leg

8.   Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

9.   On to Jeddah

10.   Jeddah

11.   Welcome to Jeddah

12.   Settling In

13.   The Attache Business

14.   Daily Life

15.   Party to End All Parties

16.   A Royal Summons

17.   Diplomatic Negotiation

18.   In Deeper

19.   My New Passion

20.   Another Culture Lesson

21.   To the Sea!

22.   College Send-off

23.   Mom

24.   The Sojourn Begins

25.   Lainie

26.   We Get Acquainted

27.   First Date

28.   Take-off

29.   Karachi, Pakistan

30.   Karachi…Really!

31.   3,2,1…Blast Off!

32.   Next Stop: Egypt

33.   Cairo

34.   Spain? Not Yet!

35.   Nice, France

36.   The Hotel Negresco

37.   Torrejon A.F.B. Spain

38.   Last Night in Europe

39.   Charleston… via the Azores and Bermuda

40.   Frostburg State College

41.   T-Day! Lainie!

42.   Lunch at the Goldman’s

43.   Alone at Last

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

Okay. I guess I’m just a lucky guy. I admit it.

I mean I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth or anything like that. And I’m not all that smart…or all that talented. Talented, I like to believe… but not all that talented.

I did however have a fortunate turn of events in my life that not too many people in this world get to experience.

I’m a military brat. Born in 1947 to a World War II vet. That good fortune led to my coming of age in the 1960s traveling the globe…Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and lots of other places that are still in the headlines today. I was just a teenaged guy doing what teenaged guys do…trying to get laid, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m a part of what they call the Baby Boomers.

Everybody was so ecstatic after we beat the Nazis and the Japs in 1945 that…. there was an explosion of babies!

We owned the world.

The Baby Boom!

My sister was born in 1943, but she’s still considered a Baby Boomer. My parents must have been pretty damned confident about the outcome of the war back in 1943 and went ahead and boomed a sweet little baby girl a little early. Optimists I guess.

Or maybe they just couldn’t help themselves…if you know what I mean. They weren’t really thinking all that straight at that particular point in time. They were young. It was wartime. The world was upside down. Hell, we could actually lose!

They were probably just horny. Horny as all living hell, like young people get sometimes. A lot of times. And wartime is no exception. In fact it probably was a catalyst.

A baby was more of a consequence than forethought in 1943.

Never tell my sister she may have been a consequence and not a forethought, however…unless you’re ready for a fight. I do however believe that we are all a matter of consequence.

This was before the commercial advent of one of the greatest birth control devices of all time of course.

TV.

Just what the heck did you do on a Saturday night if you were out on the town? Or if you just got back from being out on the town, dancing to some Glen Miller, or Julie London, by a Holiday Inn band that, sounded… well, pretty good…so you took a little load on… and were ready for bed…but not necessarily ready to sleep.

In 1946!

That meant a BABY BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

I am a product of what has been called The Greatest Generation, although I’m not so sure, they, the real Greatest Generation, would feel like they had spawned another generation that would make them feel anywhere near as proud.

You see those Baby-Booming, depression-busting, war-winning, Greatest Generationists wanted us to have it better than they did, and man, because of them…we did!

They spoiled the graduex (That’s Americanized French Louisiana for…a shit load) out of us.

They won the war!

The World War.

They won it in the ditches and the bushes. They won it by inches. The War to end all wars.

At least they thought it was the war to end all wars. And they actually thought they won it. A lot of wars we have won have turned out in the long run to be wars we wish we had never been in in the first place. And I’m talking about some pretty recent wars.

The Korean War is one. Vietnam for another. Grenada, Afghanistan, Iraq, and…Iraq. These were…of course…wars to end all wars.

It was just like their Moms and Dads thought they had fought the War to end all wars, which was, World War I.

There sure have been a lot of wars since then though, haven’t there?

Then they spoiled us rotten. We got more than we deserved and didn’t even have to learn the work ethic to get it.

We thought the world was at our beck and call.

At least I did. I didn’t try to learn the work ethic.

My life was all about sock hops and soul music. The Beatles. Mo-ped motorbikes and the Dairy Queen. Peg-leg pants. Garner State Park.

Garner State Park?

So what the heck is Garner State park you ask?

You must not be from Texas. Texas folk know what I’m talking about.

I feel it necessary, for the purposes of this tale, to try to explain my perception of the mentality of an American teenager in the mid 1960’s, in the United States of these Americas, and of the world, and I believe, a Garner State Park point of view will help me do it… I hope.

Garner State Park is where Texas teenagers wanted to go in the mid-sixties summertime.

I was raised pretty much in Texas. So I understood.

What’s so special about Garner State Park you ask?

Everybody thought they would get laid at Garner State Park.

That’s why.

Every teenager in Texas at least.

And this book is about getting laid.

I take that back. But not all the way back.

This book is not about getting laid particularly. But it is, to some extent, a great extent, a book about trying to get laid… actually.

I believe most books are about that to at least a certain extent.

That being Trying to get laid.

Not the entire book of course. But a nice chunk of it. Many books are very deep in the way they approach the subject of getting laid and have lots of activities surrounding it (it: being trying to get laid of course). And those books are usually called the Classics.

In Gone with the Wind, for example, no doubt a classic,

Rhett was definitely trying to get a little piece of Scarlet.

In the beginning of the story at least.

At least that’s what I got out of it. But…like a lot of women I’ve known, Scarlet had a natural womanly instinct. She gave it up a few times. She had to keep the possibilities worth pursuing.

She knew how to use the tools God had blessed her with to their fullest extent without having to give up too much of the goods.

Rhett, pity the fool, seemed always baffled.

Scarlet kept pretty darn clean petticoats.

Except for that wimp she had such an attraction to who was married to her best friend, and was skinny like a whooping crane. I’m talking about the movie version, of course.

She never got with him, at least according to the movie…but she wanted to. She tried.

With the exception of non-fiction books, they, the classic novels, pretty much all have a little womanizing, or vice versa, going on somewhere. Hey! There’s nothing better than a little fuckin’ to keep the pace of a book moving on.

Many modern books sometimes seem to have a gratuitous sex scene or two in them somewhere. Usually by at least the end of the third chapter. Usually because they need it. Who can blame them? I’m probably going to throw in a couple in this memoir…just to try to keep you interested.

Sex is a great thing. I’m a man. I love to read about sex stuff sometimes. Not all the time, and not too graphic… to tell you the truth I would actually prefer to use my imagination. I have a vivid imagination…but sometimes I like to read about a little sex stuff. As a catalyst.

Being a man I understand the term womanizing, but I’m not sure exactly what the feminine version of it is.

Manizing? …Naw.

Manningizing? Don’t think so.

Vixenizing? Oh yeah! Maybe that’s "it".

And like most men, I find "it" intriguing.

"Vixenizing" may not be a word you will find in Webster’s, but we men understand, and appreciate, a little vixenizing. We like being paid that kind of attention. Makes us feel…good. And macho. Being vixenized.

I’m talking about hormones. Those nasty little bastards none of us have even the least bit of control over. But we all have ‘em. No matter how old we are. We have ‘em.

Look! It’s hard!

When you’re an American teenager, it’s like having something exploding inside of you when you’re around 12 or 13 years of age. Some kids get it earlier.

Look! It’s hard!

Something you just discovered, something you didn’t know how to deal with, or explain…and not knowing exactly what to do with them when you get them.

Look! It’s hard!

I take that back too.

It’s more like teenagers from anywhere in the world having something exploding inside of them.

Which they do.

And not knowing what to do with themselves.

Which they don’t.

Boys start using conditioner and hairspray… and girls start using eyeliner.

It has nothing to do with culture, color, race, religion or creed. It’s hormonal. And that… by God…is universal.

They had campsites and cabins you could rent at Garner State Park. You could rent nightly…for the weekend, weekly, or even monthly.

Garner State Park is a hilly, rocky, and well-wooded, beautiful State Park right on the Central Texas banks of the Frio River. Frio means ‘cold’ in Spanish…and it was too! It made teenage nipples stand up straight and mature beyond their years, and post pubescent teenage boys look deceptively shrunken and innocent, standing waist high in that freezing water.

Crystal clear, spring-fed freezing water.

Smack dab in the middle of Texas.

If you wanted, you could pitch a tent just about anywhere. And they had tent spaces you could rent all along the riverside. Please use the existing campfire areas for campfires only.

S’mores were the all time favorite treat. Graham crackers, Hershey chocolate squares, and marshmallows melting on a coat hanger suspended over the coals of a fire. Pure teenage Heaven.

They had a pavilion up on top of the hill overlooking the park where a live band played every Thursday through Saturday night. Memorial Day through Labor Day.

That’s where the chicks were.

Those young plums would primp all day long getting ready for the dance.

See…the dance was what it was all about at the Park. This was their chance to shine. Bleached blonde cotton candy hair tortuously twisted up in curlers… all day long. I mean all day long.

It was worth it though…if they shined. And all the girls just knew they were shining at the Pavilion dance. With those cotton candy curls. It was a veritable goddamn teenage heaven on earth.

It was a family outing too though.

We teenagers…teenage boys mostly, probably, thought families brought their female offspring to Garner State Park to mate.

Teenage boys and teenage girls both thought that, actually. Why would they bring us here otherwise? Why on God’s earth would they bring us to this teenage den of iniquity otherwise?

We young Texas studs didn’t know the girls thought pretty much the same thoughts we did.

I mean the boys didn’t know the girls thought about stuff like that. They just plain didn’t know. But believe me, they…the teenage girls…thought about stuff like that. I know they did. I’ve had two teenage daughters, and as much as I hated the idea that they might be thinking about stuff like that, they made it quite clear… they thought about that kind of stuff quite a lot.

We, the teenage boys at Garner State Park, thought we were sneaking up on them. Sneaking up on those teenage girls.

We thought we were pretty damn clever.

That’s one reason they, whoever they are, say girls mature faster than boys.

You see, they, those teenage girls, were really the clever ones. They seemed to know when they were being snuck up on. And why. And how to use their natural physical and maturity advantages to their best advantage. And use it to their advantage they truly did. Their very best advantage.

But never forget one fact! Those teenybopper boys are still quite potent. Like little baby rattle snakes that just got their venom.

Immature no doubt. But they will crazily strike anywhere they can.

And potent. Very potent.

It only takes one out of a million little spermy boys to fertilize a big sensually undulating egg.

I think maybe the girls forgot that sometimes. They over-undulated. They couldn’t help themselves. It’s hormonal by God.

Sometimes they would let themselves be snuck up on. Sometimes they liked it. But like it or not, (maybe sometimes it wasn’t the particular dude you really wanted doing the sneaking up on you), but it was at least great to have the affirmation that you were worth being sneaked up on!

And that’s the scary part. When they let it happen. And when they liked it.

That showed that even though they were considered more mature at that age, they still weren’t quite mature enough.

They liked being snuck up on.

I think a lot of them still do; after they grew up they still liked to be snuck up on.

Upon occasion.

Scary.

But fun.

The boys would frolic in the cold, swift water of the Frio during the day, splashing and punching and wrestling in the rushing current, trying to show off their macho side to the twisted up female teenage hairdos strewn randomly all along the riverbank.

The girls, all tightly tied up in their hair curlers, would sit on the bank and giggle. And wiggle. They would wiggle in a way that made the boys giggle, jiggle and…. frolic harder…frolic as hard as they could as a matter of fact. And the girls would giggle and wiggle harder. And the boys would frolic with even more wild abandon.

God! We all loved it so.

Even the parents would sit and drink their beer at a picnic table by the river, or perched on an Igloo cooler next to their parked pick-up, or picnic table in front of their pitched tent, and chuckle at us.

Dumbass parents, who by the way were not supposed to have alcoholic beverages in a State Park in the first place, but did anyway, not thinking that what appeared so innocent, frolicking, and cute to them was actually a time bomb, ticking… Tick-Tick-Tick. And they were really thinking they were being role models. And excuse me but…all us teens wanted to do was… you know. Fuck.

Didn’t they know that? Had they completely forgotten their own youthful days?

But the dance was where it was at. The Pavilion Dance.

Hot damn!

Those gals looked so sweet with their teased up cotton candy hair and their short, short, blue jean shorts; so tight it looked like they were wearing most of their pooty on the outside of the crotch of their pants. You needed very little imagination when they were groovin’ to some Sir Douglas Quintet. She’s about a Mover And I had an exceptional sense of imagination. We all did. I used to close my eyes in the bathroom and use that imagination upon occasion. I had a great imagination.

I loved the pavilion dance.

Out of the cold river water, and stuffed into their sweaty Levi boot cut jeans, the little boy parts of the teenage boys grew into truly intimidating denim chunks in back of their zippers. Were these the same shrunken teenybopper boys that were frolicking in the cold rushing water of the Frio?

Yes!

And then again…no!

They even had a song by B.J. Thomas called ‘Garner State Park’ that went close to #1 in Texas. BJ’s first hit. Just before "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head". Right behind that came Sally was a Good Old Girl by the upstart Waylon Jennings and Black Land Farmer by, who among you remembers Frankie Miller? Just me? I looked it up!

And those teenage honeys smelled like heaven in their White Shoulders.

As far as I know…we all got majorly titillated… us teenage boys…but I don’t know anybody, personally, who ever got laid.

Actually laid.

With proof.

We all said we got laid.

We bragged.

But I never did.

Actually get laid I mean.

I did brag of course.

I did tell all my friends I got laid. Like everybody else told all their friends they got laid.

What the hell was I gonna say?

"Duh! Am I the only dumb and unappealing sombitch among us that didn’t get laid?

Of course not!

Of course I said I got laid!

Some of them even had the audacity to ask the age-old question…. Wanna smell my finger?

I always hated that.

A couple of my friends asked me that…and I said… Shit no! Smell it yourself! Heyzues H. Keerist!

That’s why everybody couldn’t wait to go to Garner State Park.

To be able to say they got laid and tell all their friends how they got laid. With lots of spurious details and stuff. And say, Want to smell my finger?

You know what I mean.

I don’t think my Depression-bred parents ever even dreamed of a place like Garner State Park when they were teenagers. But they used to let my friends’ parents take me there. They never went. They considered it a week off.

And God I loved it.

Even though I never got laid. I mean actually laid.

And that, my friend, is what this book is all about! Not getting laid! Just trying to get laid.

And some other stuff too.

CHAPTER 1

MOM AND DAD

My old man grew up in the family printing shop, Annapolis, Maryland, working there after school, every weekday, and on Saturdays. He was taught the work ethic. He had no choice. He was a Depression child.

My mother was also a Depression child, raised on a Snyder, Texas farm. She actually picked cotton, for 10 cents a bag when she was a child. She’d work all day long when she was 7 years old and made about 20 cents a day at it. But it helped the family put food on the table. Those 20 cents would get you eggs, milk, and bread in those days.

She used to tell me when she got pissed that The world doesn’t owe you a living.

I had no idea what she was talking about. I was no damn depression child. And I couldn’t seem to comprehend why she got so riled up about the garbage not being taken out. Or when I left the back door open. She was a Depression child. And I have not, to this day, ever picked even one boll of cotton. Shit… we just couldn’t relate.

What the Hell are you doing? she’d say, Trying to air-condition the whole damn neighborhood?!

She of course didn’t have AC when she was growing up.

Her parents’ house always had the doors and windows wide open in the summertime. Big old emerald green horse flies buzzing, biting, and sneaking in through the holes in the screens. And some beat up little fan puffing as hard as it could. To no avail.

Everybody would just sit and sweat.

I’ll bet hot tempers were always bubbling near the surface in Snyder, Texas. pig farms back on those sticky August afternoons.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Where’s that damn flyswatter!

She appreciated her comfort. But it was expensive, and my mother never liked to give money away.

She was a Depression child of course.

I think I may have said that.

Shut the damn door! was a familiar phrase around my house when I was growing up. It was pretty much mostly directed at me. I was not a Depression child. And neither was my sister…. but my sister was smart.

Smarter than me.

Smart enough to close the door behind herself.

She’s proved it many times.

And my Dad…he was paying the bills. So you know whose side he was on.

He shut the doors.

But that’s not what this story is about. This is about years afterward, when I was in my later teens. The Big War was long over. A small one was just beginning in Southeast Asia. Mid 1960’s. Just before free love and the psychedelic explosion. Just before Aretha started asking for some respect. Before Hendrix electrified us with his ‘Purple Haze’ and Janis my girl Joplin gave us a big old piece of her heart.

This was Wooly Bully time! Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. 1966. Green Onions! Doin’ da Bird-Leg!

This was the summer I graduated from military school. The now defunct Peacock Military Academy… San Antonio, Texas.

CHAPTER 2

PEACOCK, SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS

I hated that name.

Peacock.

It had no balls.

Peacock.

But I had to go there. My parents wanted me to go there. It was a discipline thing.

I had proven to them over the short and early years of my life, that…. I couldn’t be trusted.

Most of the students who went to Peacock went for the same reason I did. They couldn’t be trusted, and they were driving their parents nuts. It was a boarding school.

As a group, we all looked sharp in our crisp khakis and spit shined black brogan boots… but we couldn’t be trusted.

My Dad at this point was a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force. He had been working for years to get into the intelligence business, and was finally assigned to be the Military Defense Attaché to Saudi Arabia.

Massive training was required. Two full years of language, photography, and recon, d-con, military faux faux, and coded message training.

How to sneak stuff in…and how to sneak stuff out.

All the bits and pieces you have to learn to gather information about the military capabilities, ideologies and plans of your host country.

An attaché is kind of an out of cover spy so to speak.

Touchy business.

They, the host country, Saudi Arabia in my Dad’s case, know what you’re doing… but you have to act like you’re not doing it, and not get caught doing anything while you are doing it. Then you try to make them like you while you do it to them. And act like you like them…the ones you’re doing it to. You might even really like them. The ones you’re doing it to. They might even really like you. But you still keep on doing it to them anyway. No matter how much you like them. Or they like you.

A job’s a job. And my old man never forgot that. He just kept doing it and doing it and doing it to them. No question. And he liked them. But he liked doing it to them even better.

This job was right up the old man’s alley.

He was a likable guy. Great sense of humor, and, an American patriot 100%. He also had a bit of a macho streak, and this assignment helped him feed the ego as well as having some prestige. He loved it! It was the crowning glory of his career, and he was chomping at the bit to get to Arabia and get started.

My parents came to my graduation from Peacock Military Academy.

A very formal affair.

Full dress regalia.

I graduated 7th in a class of 51 wearing the rank of Staff Sergeant. I was even presented a medal in the Honors Program. I was the best marksman in the school. Four-position 50-foot small bore competition. I also placed 2nd in the Texas state high school championships that year.

They were proud as punch.

Big deal huh? I didn’t win science, physics, English or math. I won 4-position small bore. But they were proud just the same. I got to march up in front of the entire school and collect my medal. Just like the physics champion did.

I got a bigger applause.

The physics champ was a little prickish and everybody knew it.

I was a sharp shooting son of a gun. He was Cadet Commander of the school.

I never told Mom or Dad about my making lieutenant.

But I was selected to be an officer in the corps.

It was quite an honor to be selected to be an officer.

So, about 45 minutes after lights out, to celebrate my promotion, I snuck out of my dorm window and over the 8’ chain link fence late that very night, and went to Guiseppe’s pizza joint down the road. Thought I’d bring my boys Randolph and Reordan back a fat pepperoni pie or two to celebrate.

But the Officer of the Day greeted me as I slid back through my barracks window and…I was busted.

He was a bit of a jerk this Officer of the Day. He was the physics champion. And I don’t think he liked pizza or me all that much. He must have been jealous about how good a shot I was.

I offered him one whole pie as a bribe, but he turned it down. He knew he’d end up with it anyway.

You know how it is…some fuckers are so brainwashed by the rules they forget whose fricken side they really ought to be on.

Busted with pepperoni pies at midnight, a major infraction… and busted back to staff sergeant by eight a.m. the very next morning.

I never got another chance to be an officer. And oh God! It’s haunted me all my life! Not!

I couldn’t be trusted.

Only those of us clever enough not to get caught at whatever we were clandestinely doing made it into the Officer ranks and stayed there.

The sneakiest of us were the highest ranking. Military school was excellent at teaching one to be sneaky and rewarded the sneakiest among us with lots of extra privileges and cool looking shit to pin on our uniforms.

Apparently I was not that good at it. At being sneaky that is.

But you can bet your sweet petunia I tried!

And I had ungodly respect for the Cadet Colonel, Student Commander of the Corps, Butterball Williams. The physics champion. He was one sneaky sombitch. And ended up with lots of free pizza.

I used to hide in the bushes growing along side of the library building after evening study hall…with about 20 other guys, including a shit load of Officers, and smoke, smoke, smoke.

Cigarettes.

Damn we loved them cigarettes.

Cigarettes were strictly forbidden. So you had to be pretty sneaky. And being that sneaky made you feel so damn cool!

Butterball, the cadet commander, student colonel, always had plenty of smokes, and he sold them.

He was an entrepreneur.

He held shop in the bushes beside the library three or four nights a week. Everybody respected him. Everybody bought their cigarettes from Butterball. He was so cool. He was exceptionally damn sneaky. And according to Classmates.com, he’s still doing pretty well. So I bet he’s still kind of sneaky.

The worst part was, they took my pizzas. But I bet they never had a chance to get cold. That was one of the perks of being Officer of the Day. An occasional hot pizza. Sometimes a bag full of hamburgers and fries. Especially if you were the physics champion. He never let anybody get by. Most guys just took your food and let it drop. It was kind of a cool game, except when the physics champ was Officer of the Day.

I was graduated though. 8:30 a.m.

CHAPTER 3

OFF TO ARABIA!

WEDNESDAY THE 28TH OF MAY, 1966.

At 8:30 in the fricken a.m., we had a morning graduation, as I said, and I hated it. By 9:45am in the fricken morning though, Dad and I were throwing the remainder of my gear into the back of an old Ford Comet station wagon, and I peeled off my wool dress uniform jacket for the last time.

Well… not the very last time.

When the Beatles came out with Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, about a year or so later, I pulled that cool wool dress coat back out and it was too fine to have a gray woolen military jacket, with a Peace sign hand sewn to the shoulder. It was like I was a real Sergeant Peppers man. Psychedelic man! I even wore it to the 1968 Peacock graduation. But they asked me, and my steadily growing Beatlesque hairstyle, to leave.

So I left.

I put on khaki pants and a Banlon shirt in a filling station bathroom on Austin Highway.

Uniform of the future.

And after lunching at our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant, Karams, (still one of the top ten rated Mexican Restaurants in San Antonio, Texas, ‘the Tex-Mex capital of the world!’), convinced there would be no enchiladas worth a hoot in the Arabian sands, the three of us, me, Mom, and Dad, set out in the old Ford Comet station wagon that very afternoon for Charleston, South Carolina.

We had an appointment with an airplane there. A Military Air Transport Service (MATS) C-141. We were on our way to Arabia.

It was just a day and a half of hard driving, a couple of nights in the Charleston A.F.B. Dependents Inn, and a windy afternoon on the Charleston beach away, to…The Embassy Flight.

Mom bought a new black one-piece bathing suit for the beach outing, but after she put it on, and caught a glimpse of herself in the vanity mirror, she spun on her heel and re-entered the bathroom. She came back out wearing a pair of crisp royal blue pleated shorts and a starched white blouse. These she would wear to the Charleston beaches instead.

She had decided, at 46 years of age, and still looking good to me, that she would never wear a bathing suit again. As far as I know…she never did.

And then a 6 a.m. departure on…The Embassy Flight. Monday morning the 3rd of June.

June 3, 1966

The Embassy flight is a special aircraft.

Not because of the aircraft itself…but because of what it accomplishes.

Actually there were two of them, Embassy Flights that originate in Charleston, SC.

If you are on your way to an assignment in one of the Embassies around the world, and you are military, you get there via… "The Embassy Flight".

Two planes take off. One headed east, one headed west. They fly completely around the globe picking up and dropping off people at their respective destinations. They don’t stop at all Embassy locations, but instead at centralized ports of call with easy access to wherever you are trying to get. The plane circles the entire globe in a one-week period. If you miss it, you’re shit