by Beentheredonethat » Mon Nov 17, 2008 2:59 am
Hi pupil88,
BTDT here,
Yes, I was working that night. Yes I got my fill of exercises, but I was not a Auggie Doggie as we called them. Those G.I.s assigned Augmentee duties were not directly tied to the mission of Arm, Launch, Fly, Fuel, Recover, Fix, Aircraft people who were being exercised. In my early days as an airman I was assigned to report to the Tank Farm to build external drop tanks. This was the additional duty I was assigned, as part of our mission during exercises. Latter, I was trained and assigned to a team who repaired Aircraft Battle Damage or A.B.D.R. My specialty back then was Structural Repair but in the A.B.D.R. concept I would help with what ever specialty was needed, hydraulics, fuel, or electrical repairs. The wing would have Auggie Doggie's assigned to report to the S.P.s at the onset of an exercise. They were S.P. Augmentees. I was used as mission essential, and was busy preparing aircraft to be readied for an immediate launch. The wing would time our progress and post the amount of aircraft ready for launch at say plus 1 hour, 2 hours etc.. No. I don't remember seeing flares when I passed thru the area. Nor I did not see any flashing lights on my ride thru the area, the vehicles I saw were all parked. Although, the light-alls were already in place and running, projecting light in your face. The night I was evacuated from my duties was to the best of my knowledge the 27th at 0130-0200 when I drove thru the area. I do not remember if there were any aircraft flying or what if any of the 67th AARS were flying. You have to understand when you work out in that environment every night, for years, you don't hear the background noise any more. It all runs together cause you are so used to hearing it. But, no I don't rember hearing anything in particular that night. We were busy in the Tad Vee working. If you ever had the wonderful opportunity to work in one of those hardened shelters or HASs' you would experiance echoes, echoes, echoes, and it's cold and damp. Confusion of the dates yea, hell it was how many years ago? A lot of us have not talked of this for 20 or so years for fear of ridicule. Yea, I'm not sure if on my night since it crossed from 2400 -0100 to what date do I remember it being "exactly". The best I can do is ascertain the first night of the incident with the night of my shift and when we were evacuated. Remember, in my line of business we often heard many things about test and research vehicles and assignments and knew people who knew. Area 51's existance per (wikipedia), please, remember they are printing what they know when they know it and it's verified. We were sneaking F-117's over and into Sacramento, the capitol of California at night to bring them in for depot level maintenance and modifications at McClellan AFB in the 1983-85 time frame as I remember because I was assigned with the 2951st CLSS there and that was one of our weapon systems to maintain. No one knew for years that this was going on. The F-117 was developed, tested, mission ready before that, at guess where. I used the deer eyes example that night as an example of spookyness sorry if I misled you. The exact number of base exercises or responces to this incident, RFI, I'm not exactly shure and you should ask the experts, JB Etc. My experiance was on that one night. I hope this helps you.
Sincerely,
BTDT