Biographical Notes reCharles A. (Chuck) StonePage 6 of 6 Pages, of Chapter 9,“MOVING ON” |
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| At the same time, with increasing numbers of Air Force personnel being airlifted over there on both military and civilian contract flights, there were gun-oriented officers and enlisted personnel who were taking a side arm of their own choice with them. It became an increasing problem with finding ammunition, and other factors that you might imagine. The directive soon came down from on high — No more unauthorized personal fire arms could be taken to Viet Nam. The order bounced off the walls in a number of Directorates with each one declaring it wasn’t there job to promulgate a policy like that. When it finally landed in our office the task was handed to me for action. It wasn’t our job either, but I quickly prepared the message and began the extensive, Headquarters-wide, coordination process. When I took it through our own Directorate, the word was always “Why are WE doing this?” I would give them an explanation, get their signature on the coordination sheet and move on to my next victim. By the time I finally got back to our own office, the cover page of the document looked ragged with hand prints, coffee and donut stains all over it. Our Secretary, Fran Clarke, said, “Chuck, let me retype the cover page to clean up the package and we will send it in for transmission”. Appreciating her industrious act to make us look more respectable, I told her to do so. When she gave the packet back to me, I passed it too quickly, on into the system for transmission to all Commands. When the package went across my boss's boss's desk, right across the hall, he let out a scream that could be heard for a block and a half. We rushed in to give him CPR and he was sitting there with our message in his hand, turning purple. He asked me to look at the message. I did so and read it through, realizing that Fran had, inadvertently, changed the words “privately owned weapons” to “privately owned vehicles” on the top copy. We got that squared away and the message went on its way. Rather than sit down and cry, we all had a good laugh and went on with our day. In the meantime, our home owner was suddenly returned to the US by the State Department, one year early. He needed his house back. Nell and I went into a panic search for a replacement home and were lucky enough to find another government worker headed overseas. The home was in the same housing area and school district, so it was a good deal for us. We rented his house, on the spot. Before we could move in we had to clean and repaint the entire inside, to make it habitable. We were glad to have a home and did so very willingly. My day-to-day life at the Pentagon moved on in its own rough and tumble manner. Work continued to smooth out and resolve our physical fitness issues as they arose. I felt like a fool to be so physically disabled and still be steering the program designed to physically shape up our growing numbers of active duty personnel. By the way, one interesting issue came up, relating to mandatory participation in physical fitness training. The question was posed: If you are in the National Guard or Reserves, and you are actively involved in doing your 5 or 10-BX Program, at home, and have a heart attack or injure yourself in any other way, is the US Government responsible for you, or not? After putting a few miles around the great halls, the legal opinion was “NO”. That really pulled the teeth out of that program for Guard and Reserve forces. Our pellet simulator program was moving forward in small, deliberate steps, but our not having gained the opportunity to have General LeMay sign that original announcement letter really gave us a muddy road to travel. My neighbor and good friend, Bill Gimble, had moved to Randolph AFB, Texas to reestablish the USAF Officer Personnel Management Program from that base. They were converting to computers and there were lots of problems and frustrations. I can recall a quote he gave me from one of his meetings designed to clear the air. This supervisor was heard to say — “We’re going to save money with this system, no matter what it costs.” I have repeated that quote as a joke, many times since. Early spring was just around the corner and my office phone rang. Bill was on the other end. He was very familiar with my efforts to hang in there on active duty. He said, “Chuck, your card for transfer will come out of the system before long, where would you like to go on your next assignment.?” He rattled off a number of bases in the USAF system and when he said Naples, Italy, something inside me yelled out “YES.” So he set me up to transfer to the Southern Region Headquarters of NATO, Naples, Italy. A gift of great value to my family at a most auspicious time. Back on the home front, my durable mate, Nell, had been increasingly under the weather. Our civilian doctor had been striving to pin down the reason behind it all. I took leave time to care for her and one morning, after I had prepared a poached egg for her, she became remarkably ill. I called the doctor, he came to the house, called an ambulance and had her installed in the Fairfax County Hospital in short order. In recent days she had become severely diabetic. They had to stabilize her system, before they could perform the exploratory surgery. When they were ready, they really zipped her open to do an exploration. The surgeon told me later that when he got looking around, he almost sewed her up as a terminal cancer case. He decided to dig further and discovered she had suffered for a lifetime with a diseased gall bladder and it had infected all of her internal organs and caused her pancreas to tie itself in a knot. He unglued her and untied her and did a thorough mucking out before putting her back together. She was weeks recovering, but began to thrive with the help of a bit of oral insulin to help her along. As my family made preparations to transfer to Naples, Italy, the momentum we had developed for the Pellet Gun Shooting Training Program began to take hold. If there are those of you who are sufficiently interested in reviewing some news stories, taken from Air Force and Army Times and the Lackland-Gateway Newspaper, I have made them available as attachments to this chapter. You may access them and make a quick return to this chapter by checking out the following URLs: Air Force Times Story, dated 6/ 29/66 Lackland-Gateway Newspaper story, dated 8/1/66 Army Times story dated 9/26/66
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| When June came, we packed up our personal gear to go three directions. Our most needed, by air to Naples. The less critical, by ship. The rest, into storage in the Washington D.C. area. We had developed some fond friendships in our neighborhood and through office contacts, but, I must say, seeing the Pentagon disappear in the car’s rearview mirror, driving away, was a longed-for sight. Nell was getting stronger every day and I was thankful for the special care she was given by our family doctor and his friend and neighbor, the surgeon. My four years at the Pentagon were a remarkable educational experience, a growing experience, a frustrating experience. I was glad to have it behind me, but also glad to have had an opportunity to work and serve at the USAF Headquarters level. As my mind turned to visions of Naples, Italy, and our imagined life there, I felt some degree of peace and satisfaction that had not surfaced in a long time. |
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End of Page 6 of 6 Pages, Chapter 9 — Go to Chapter 10 Click below to select a destination Go to Page 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6, this Chapter Chapters 1 — 2 — 3 — 4 — 5 — 6 — 7 — 8 — 9 — 10 |
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