Guam revisited

Dear Lt. Natasha,

Thank you for your two recent letters from the tropical Isle of Guam. We are happy to get your new address.

Your first duty assignment, finance officer at Andersen AFB will eventually become a cherished memory. For sure this has been an exciting year for you: graduation from the Air Force Academy, driving your family back home to Fullerton, Calif., and touring Europe by yourself. That I call stepping out for a twenty-something year-old-young woman! You make me proud.

Your description of your new home the beautiful Island of Guam intrigues me. My own memories are less rosy. The inscription over the entryway to Base Ops back forty years ago which read "Guam is Good, but Hell is Better" summed up how I felt about the place! Glad to hear that there have been improvements.

You see, I spent portions of the summers of 1967, 1968, and 1969 on temporary duty at your new home. I was a tanker crew dog flying KC-135s and Andersen AFB was totally a bomber base. I remember counting 99 of the Big Ugly Fellows, all B-52Ds, sitting parked on the ramp getting repaired, refueled and bombed up for unending trips to Vietnam. Bomber crews and staff weren't exactly enamored with tankers and we felt like they treated us like dirt.

Then, too, the magic line that we had to cross to be eligible for combat pay, an extra $100 a month I think it was, lay west of Guam. We were assigned the boring duty of sitting in our aircraft whenever the bombers were scheduled to return from bombing missions over Vietnam.

The plan was to be ready to launch and provide emergency refueling if a Buff was short on fuel returning home from their 12-hour missions. Never happened while I was there. I just remember hours of boredom punctuated by watching B-52 pilots trying to solve the problem of landing on the downhill portion of the runway before it hit the lowest elevation and started back up again. Some of those bounces were simply amazing!

SAC was careful to schedule us to sit on Guam until after the new month rolled around before we deployed west into the combat (remember higher pay) zone. On our trip back home they launched us early to again avoid another month of coveted combat pay.

Our Guam was punctuated by hot tropical sun and a dank-smelling atmosphere unless a nice sea breeze wafted across the island. A few poverty stricken villages existed near the base. The only agriculture evident was small gardens that the natives maintained. The capital, Agana, was in the center of the island and the big Navy bases were located clear on the other side. Definitely not a tourist destination at that time.

For flight crews about the only recreation available was out the back gate down a steep hill to Tarague Beach. Before descending from high ground we would pause to look across the ocean to catch a glimpse of the World War II sister base on Saipan. It was appropriate, too, to breathe a prayer in memory of the American lives sacrificed to take this hallowed ground hastening the end of World War II.

Tarague was beautiful place. The blue ocean background framed a brilliant white sand beach fringed by tall coconut palms. In from the shore about one hundred yards one came to abrupt limestone cliffs about 500 feet high. Where the cliff wasn't covered with jungle vegetation we could see caves leading back into the soft stone.

Tarague was one of the sites where our military forces landed on July 14, 1944, battling to wrest control back from the Japanese. Those caves were then populated by Japanese machine gun nests. Those not knocked out by artillery had to be taken one by one with flame thrower-equipped combat teams. It was a brutal fight and thousands on both sides died during the invasion. We didn't explore, but "the word" was that bones and equipment could still be found in some of the caves. In fact, after we had passed through, one of the last holdout Japanese Army survivors was finally captured near Andersen AFB.

I carried my snorkeling gear with me and found the ocean floor just beyond the beach littered with battle debris, cartridge cases, many unfired, wire and steel cable of all description strewn about. Most objects there had been overgrown by coral yet the terrible evidence of that huge battle was everywhere evident. While I swam, the waters were mute, populated only with brilliant coral fish and about 21 varieties of sea snakes.

Pandanis palms intrigued me. I assumed that the pineapple-looking fruit of the pandanis just had to be the bread-fruit of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. Not true; different plant. Bread-fruit, though, does grow on Guam, along with huge snails and coconut crabs by the thousands.

I understand that your modern-day Guam is very different from my 40-year old memories. Several typhoons have come and gone, destroying many of the buildings that I knew. Those were replaced with newer and better. I also understand that Asian people, mostly from Japan, have developed Guam into a tourist destination, complete with myriad high rise resort hotels. After all, Guam is their closest U.S. territory and economical to reach for a western-style vacation. Possibly, you can frequent some of those posh places and find Korean people to keep your language skills proficient. As an Air Force officer, I always found those types of establishments welcoming and you may as well.

I had the advantage of flying over the island coming and going on missions and attained a bird's eye view of the terrain. I'd recommend that you trundle down to the helicopter squadron, get acquainted and suggest that they take you, an attractive lady who works in finance, for a tour of the area. Most likely these crews are bored and would welcome the excuse to fly. Then, too, if you "hang out" around base ops you may well see aircrew friends from the Zoo coming and going to other exotic destinations.

As you know, Guam is a territory of the United States, one of our few. The Chamorro natives, just like our "Native Americans," have been condemned with welfare payments. That never-ending money seems to have killed all incentive for the natives to better their lives through any kind of industry -- spelled "work." On my first trip to the island in 1958, we ate cabbage toss-salads because lettuce wasn't available. All food came by slow freight and lettuce didn't keep well, so cabbage it was. Now an enterprising native could have grown all the lettuce needed at the base in a few acres of garden but there was no need, they received enough welfare to scrape by.

In fact, our domestic help on the base was contract labor from the Philippines as Guamanians wouldn't work. Hopefully that state of affairs has changed!

Thanks again for memories. I've been blessed with a wonderfully exciting professional life. It will be satisfying to watch you as yours unfurls and blooms into a truly wonderful career.

That is the way I saw it.