| Arden P. Andrews - Recollections / Then and Now |
| I was the only medic who retrained into H312X4C, Ballistic Missile
Analyst Technician, to my knowledge. I was an E-4 when SAC asked
for volunteers to retrain. Was accepted and went to Amarillo AFB
for basic electronics. From there it was to Sheppard for the BMAT
course. In June 1962 I was assigned to the 567th in maintenance,
operating the MAPCHE van. Anyone remember those?
In September I went to Vandenberg for combat crew training, along with A2C Bob Hemsel and A2C Owen Tutt, both of whom were MMTs. Along came October and the Cuban Missile Crisis and all of us were sent back to our bases. Since I had not finished ORT I was assigned to the Air Police squadron as an augmentee and pulled duty at Deep Creek guarding the munitions bunkers and then to Fairchild to be a point guard on the B-52s. Man, was that flightline cold! When the crisis was over the three of us plus SSgt Myrick went back to Vandenberg to finish ORT. When we returned to Fairchild I was assigned to Captain Hi Turner's crew, R-36, for OJT. A1C Ted Bleech was the EPPT, SSgt Duane Fowler the MMT, MSgt Bob O'Dell the BMAT, 1Lt Sindora the DMCCC. At some point Bleech and O'Dell left the crew, Russ Beaver joined as EPPT, Fowler also left at some point to be replaced by SSgt Dave Hutson, and Lt Sindora was replaced by Captain Merrill Walters. We were designated a Select Crew after that and also an instructor crew. After Captain Turner became squadron safety officer, I moved to Captain Don Holmes' crew. At some point I made Staff Sergeant. I was on Captain Holmes' crew when we disbanded. |
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