NAME: Robert M. "Mike" Thompson
AFSC: 42370 Aircraft Electrical Systems Technician
AKA: Sparky
Moniker: "Wizard"

First PCS assignment (1966) was at Travis with the 60th CEMS, working on
C-141s, C-133's, C-131's, C-124's and C-97's. Flew several Travis to Yokota
missions, (also spent 6 months TDY at Yokota) taking "hardware" to Yokota
enroute to SEA, and then either bodies or wounded on the return flight. BTW,
the bodies were ALL in pressure sealed, aluminum caskets. That's when I
discovered the war was a real thing. That's when I decided to see it up
close and personal. Two weeks after volunteering for SEA, I arrived at
Eglin AFB and joined the 33rd TFW, 25th TFS and 22 brand spankin' new F-4D's
with 'Towel Rack LORAN". We trained on the birds for 6 months, then left
for Ubon on 22 May, 1968.

Once at Ubon I worked on the launch team...sitting at the launch end of the
runway waiting for an airplane to break and then having to actually fix it
while it was running and waiting to join its flight--no pressure there!
Also worked on PAVE SPIKE and PAVE KNIFE Laser designator systems.

When the first AC-130s arrived at Ubon in November of 1968, I spent a while
working on their birds since I had other cargo aircraft experience and all
of their technicians had not arrived in country yet. Got to fly with one
shot up bird to Kadena for some much needed repair work in December of 1968.

I remember the illuminator's were always a source of entertainment. One of
them was taken into the repair shop for some kind of problem...don't
remember what. The techs got it fixed and decided to "smoke test" it. They
turned on the multi-million candlepowered beast and turned it so it faced a
plywood wall so as not to blind anyone. When they came back from lunch, the
wall was on fire and burning rapidly.

The same technicians installed another illuminator on one of the gunships,
forgetting to put the stop-pins in the floor railing. When they rolled it
out onto the ramp at about 6,000 feet, it kept on going--off the end of the
ramp, stopping only when it hit the trees and jungle. Had it exploded, I
guess they could have counted it as a bombing mission at least. They logged
that one as an "impact test".

Some of my best memories are the 100 mission parties, the Aussies always
dicking with us and the Jaguar Club downtown. I'll also always remember
being bombed by a Marine Corp F-4, being sniped at on the flight line,
watching several of our F-4s belly in on foam, an explosion in our bomb pit,
and the U.S. Navy flying in and stealing our beer. We worked hard and
played hard. But those are other stories.

Mike.