Cherry Pawn

By Alan Davis

This is my true story at the age of nineteen. The book tells how I was involved in a Top Secret mission from basic training to being hand picked by the US Air Force to go on the mission. My story tells how I almost got killed. The book has heroes and zeroes in it too. It tells how my team was transported for the missions to Taiwan. My job was a Quick Reaction Force team member assigned to scramble (launch) out and recover F-4 Phantoms to engage the Communist Chinese and defend Taiwan. The book tells how the mission started, how we scrambled out the fighters, what protocol was used to start the fighters. The highly dangerous action that we had to engage. It also tell about the Alert Compound and its security and nuclear weapons we had at the base. I tell about the night life, visiting American Generals, and the Republic of China Taiwan dignitaries who inspecting the alert compound. The mission itself in in the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA). The book shows also shows the mistakes made by the US Air Force putting my team at great risk to our health. There are also photos, and documents in the book proving my story is true. Simply put it is a "Thriller"!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667895628

Book preview

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Cherry Pawn

Alan Davis, Author

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without written permission from the author.

Book Cover Designer  Issac N. Davis

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901336

ISBN: 978-1-66789-561-1

eBook ISBN: 978-1-66789-562-8

Contents

Introduction

Author’s Note

Chapters:

Chapter 1: The Start

Chapter 2: The Brain Washing

Chapter 3: Tech School

Chapter 4: Cherry Boy

Chapter 5: Party and Work

Chapter 6: Typhoon and Korea

Chapter 7: The Crash

Chapter 8: The Snake

Chapter 9: Losses

Chapter 10: Dragon Country

Chapter 11: Alert Pad

Chapter 12: The Scrambles

Chapter 13: Practice War

Chapter 14: Fire Fight, War

Chapter 15: Paybacks

Chapter 16: Court Martial

Chapter 17: The Runway

Chapter 18: Alert Again

Chapter 19: Last Party

Chapter 20: Going Home

Dedication

Introduction

During the early 1970’s the Vietnam War was not going well for America. The USA was bringing a lot of our military personnel back home. There was also an internal war going on at home with Vietnam War protesters. There were almost weekly clashes with authorities. There was also a The Cold War between the United States and Russia. The Berlin Wall was still standing, that separated West Berlin from East Berlin, which Russia controlled. The Russians were suppling weapons to North Vietnam. Communist China was also supplying weapons to North Vietnam. The United States knew that the end was near for the Vietnam War. America had won every major Battle in Vietnam but would lose this war. The morale was bad in the military and race riots were happening which was tearing our military apart. The leaders of America were concerned about the Domino Theory. That meant one Asian country would fall after another. Communist China maybe the country trying to control parts of Asia. They were a growing Super Power with nuclear weapons. That would put America’s security in danger. One answer to stop Communist China’s aggression was to place Nuclear Weapons, in certain countries one country was Taiwan, Republic of China. That is where my story comes to play. I was there with the United States Air Force! Our mission was to help prevent Communist China from taking over Taiwan, if that was in their plan. Flashing forward 50 years, it does looks like their plan. The Communist Chinese military is harassing several countries in the South China Sea & the South Pacific.

Note from the Author

    All ex-military personnel have a name that will them stay with them the rest of their lives, Veteran. The US military can go anywhere in the world, at any time. They are ready to lay their lives down, so others can be free! The military pay was horrible, the food was not much better. Those who stepped forward are heroes to me. No matter their job titles that were given to them by the US military. The United States Military Personnel are the best in the world, when politicians will let them do their job! The US military are the protectors of our freedoms, without them, we would be attacked and lose our democracy. The USA must always have the strongest military in the world. America is the brightest light for freedom in the world. We still have problems but the best country on Earth. Thanks to our military personnel, who has served in the past, and who serve our country now! I will always remember one part of my oath as a military personnel Never Surrender and Continue to Resist!  I have done that throughout my life!

Chapter 1: The Start

There are four countries in Asia that are considered Dragon Countries. Two of these countries are Taiwan and South Korea. I served in both countries while in the United States Air Force.

I hear screaming bells, like the ones they used in schools, it is a fighter jet scramble. I am at Tainan, Taiwan AFB and I also hear horns and a klaxon.  There are explosions going off a few feet over my head. I am a US Air Force Special Operation, F-4 Phantom Crew Chief on a Quick Reaction Alert Force. My team and I are in a scramble for our lives and for the millions of people who rely on our team! We are scrambling out our F-4 Phantom Fighters to engage the Communist Red Chinese. There are Security forces running around with weapons, they are securing the alert compound. I can feel something running down my lower back, I rub my hand on my back to see what it is I am bleeding. I am also choking on thick black noxious smoke from gun powder charges. They have been fired off simultaneously by the fighter pilot to start the jet motors. I can hardly see I have tunnel vision due to a blow to the back of my head from a surface to air missile that was mounted to the fighter. I also ran my back into a missile’s fin because of the smoke. That caused me to jump up striking my head on the fighter’s fuselage. The pilots, weapons system operators, and other crew-chiefs are running toward the fighters to scramble them out, to engage the bad guys too. Will this be the last day of our lives and all life as we know it on earth? The base has Nuclear Weapons, we are here as an Air Defense Team. I look up at the scramble board it is located on the top of our command post. I have to focus on the red and green lights, to see if a war has started with the Communist Chinese. If all the green lights on the scramble board are turned on, that is the sign to scramble all fighter jets. That would mean that war has started with Communist Red China. That was how fragile our World’s peace was back in the 1970’s. It is even worse today according to the Doomsday Clock! The Clock now is the closest it has ever been to doomsday.

Flash forward mid 1990’s my wife and I are getting ready to enter the Federal building in Portland, Oregon. It is a tall building and my wife doesn’t like heights. We were up about 20 stories. The view of Portland was excellent. The building had large glass windows you could get next to them and look out. I asked my wife, Kayleen come see the view, she didn’t want to she said she hates heights. She stayed next to the wall. I am getting ready to testify in front of a Veterans Administration Board about a Sensitive Top Secret mission. That I was involved in for national security reasons, while I was overseas on an 18 month tour of duty. While on my 18 month tour of duty I was hand-picked and then asked to volunteer by the USAF. I would be involved and a key team member on a special operations missions from November 1972 through part of January 1973. I am again picked for another mission in February-March, 1973 in the Republic of China, Taiwan. I was stationed in Taiwan for almost 8 months.

Kayleen and I entered the room with a lot of people waiting for me. I have the Disabled American Veterans Group representing me. I sat with them. I am asked, to sit down in front of several microphones, I am sworn in and then I was told my testimony is being recorded. I was also told that I can be charged under penalty of Federal law, if I am not truthful. I told them what happened on my tour of duty, to the best of my memory. I told them I had numerous photos I could show them to prove what I said, is the truth. They were not interested in the photos the VA said they could be faked. I told them, they also can be authenticated. The VA doesn’t care! They are not interested and I knew then this is a farce hearing!

So here is my true story, my adventure as I remember it but first of all, what were you doing when you were nineteen? If you are under nineteen, learn from my experiences from this story. Think back, were you in college, working, a new mom or dad perhaps. I was helping to protect a free world.

  I joined the United States Air Force at the age of 18. I just graduated out of high school, June of 1971. Muscle cars, rock and roll and pot were very popular with the young people, during that era. Hell, it still is in America. It was a rebellion from the baby boomers from their WW-II parents, in a lot of cases. I was born in a small town in Oregon, near the coast range. I went to school there, first got drunk there, lost my virginity there too. I had a lot of friends that I grew up with in that little town. I was the third generation that lived in Toledo, on my dad’s side.

My dad and I watched TV for years in the past, about the Vietnam War. The war was still going on in 1971. The news had changed from bad to worse about the war. One TV news station started to add the weekly death count of our military personnel who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. The draft was in effect, as war protesters were still protesting the war and the draft. They were trying to stop the war. Some men even went as far to burn their draft cards. A lot refused to fight and went to Canada. The fact is my folks didn’t have the money to send me to college. I did not expect them too. My dad taught me at an early age, if anything is worth having it is worth working for, right? He was a forester and I started working with him at the age of 12 during the summer and weekends in the beautiful Oregon Coast Mountain Range. I loved the large Douglas Fir Forest that went on and on as far as the eye could see, like a giant green carpet, magnificent! The wildlife that lived and roamed in the forest are, bear, elk, deer, cougars, etc. I was living a dream for a twelve year old. Sometime we would camp out, at an old homestead that had a clear sparkling creek near it. The creek flowed over lots of spawning Chinook and Coho salmon. There scales shined in the sunlight, like stars in a clear night sky. The salmon fought their way up the creek, to the small gravel bars which was their spawning grounds. The homestead also had a green grass meadow with multi-colored wild flower there was also apple trees. We would shoot a deer and catch some salmon and pack them out, to feed the rest of our family. My dad knew how to survive in the wilds. He did it in World War II, in the Pacific Theater and later on in the steep rugged hills of the Oregon Coast Mountain Range until his late sixties. I knew my only path to college was the military or stay working in the woods with my dad. I wanted to do more with my life and further my education. They had a veteran’s college program, the USAF recruiter told me about. My plan was to do my 4 years in the US Air Force in Florida or Europe. I also thought I could also learn a trade in the military, just in case I decided not to go to college. My mom wanted me to become a minister or a catholic priest. I went to catholic school, after regular school and then summer school until the 8th grade that sucked.

  The main reason I joined the US military. I felt an obligation to serve my country just like my dad did during WW-II, a combat veteran. His dad and his brother also served in WW-II. My uncle served in the Korean War, my older brother 3 tours in Vietnam.  I had a patriotic duty to serve in the military. I was hoping to stay out of the war. I had an uncle from our extended family MIA in Vietnam. We found out later, it was actually Laos. He is still MIA. I had a close friend who was wounded and received the Purple Heart and other medals while serving on a Patrol Boat River (PBR) in Vietnam. He was part of the PBR brown water Navy. They paroled the rivers and deltas, etc.  His name was Brad, he pleaded to me not to join the military. Brad was not happy with me when I told him I had joined the United States Air Force. He told me not to listen to the lifers. They were there to get another stripe. Don’t trust them at all. I should have listened to Brad. Lifers are career military personnel. Then Brad said Fuck Alan, we can get you to Canada. We can stop at Wallace, Idaho, they sell Coors Beer there. Oregon at that time did not sell Coors. Brad also told me they have prostitutes there too. I didn’t know if they did or didn’t.

I declined his offer, although it did sound exciting. I look back now I should have taken his offer! Not for the ladies or the Coors Beer but for my own safety.

Chapter 2:  The Brain Washing Begins

  I joined the United State Air Force at Corvallis, Oregon, as someone had set a fire in the recruiting center in Newport and at that time it was closed. It was unusable due to the fire damage. My dad drove me to the recruiting center in Corvallis, it was September on 1971. I thought on the way over to the recruiting center maybe the military was not for me. The concern I had, the draft was going on for Vietnam War. If I volunteer, I get my military branch of choice. I would be less likely to have to fight in Vietnam. If I was drafted, the odds were I would be Vietnam bound. I should have gone with the bad feeling I had about joining the military, and should not have enlisted. I did enlist of course or they would have been no story.

   The Army, Navy, Marine recruiters were in the hallway, trying to talk me into joining their branches of service. I felt like a piece of raw meat thrown to the wolves. I had already made up my mind to join the United States Air Force. It turned out to be very wrong decision in the future. I was filling out the paper work