Chapter 16: Rewind

Kennedy established the Peace Corps. A ton of college students signed up to start after graduation.

Then came the 'Stupid Move of the Year, ' maybe of the century. The Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. That allowed residents of Washington, D.C. to vote in presidential elections. Who lives in D.C.? Government employees. Who do they vote for? Their bosses. You figure it out.

Friday, the 14th of April, 1961, found me standing in the NEW Dean of Men's office ... by my request.

"Sir, I need to take a week off from classes and the Professors all say if I can convince you they'll go along with it."

"Convince me, Mr. Austin," said the Dean

"You're Air National Guard ... I know you want more time buzzing cows and taking telephoto pictures of naked ladies at NorthHaven Resort." North Haven is a Naturist Colony.

"What makes you think so?"

"They've been complaining to the FAA about getting buzzed by some maniac flying upside down shooting photos through the top hatch."

"What makes you think that might be me?"

"Well, since I am the owner of record of all four B25's with those registration numbers, all I had to do was call the Guard and ask who had the plane checked ... Yes Sir, just a week, with my wife, Wendy ... and Rachael Simmons, and Kimberly Conn."

"You really do know how to negotiate, Mr. Austin."

"Thank you, sir ... it's a gift. My dad is a lawyer."

"Are you in Political Science?" he asked.

"No, sir. Engineering."

"No? You're missing your calling. Would I be out of line asking what you're doing with your time off?"

"No, Sir. We're going back to Key West to practice Gunnery and Evasion Tactics with the Marines and then we're flying four more B25's back to Lansing for the Guard."

"Who do you know in the Marines?"

"Oh, no, Sir. Kennedy requested it."

"What is going on down there?"

"I can't say."

"You don't know?"

"I can't say."

"Just a week? You don't need more?"

"No, Sir."

On the 17th, The Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba began; it failed by the 19th. During the afternoon of the19th the executions began.

On the 20th, Castro announced that the Bay of Pigs invasion was defeated.

"Ben, you've never seen a worse fuckup in your life," I said. "Not only did they know we were coming, they knew enough in advance to have AntiAircraft guns dug in and sighted in on our designated flight tracks. Charlie Arthur is right, our bullets get down really fast and theirs look like they're crawling coming up ... they sure do whistle going by though."

"Jesus, Dave. How did you four get talked into this in the first place?" he asked.

"We hadn't a clue we were going in as support.

"The Marines let us practice gunnery Saturday morning ... Evasion Tactics Saturday afternoon, Saturday night ... they introduced us to 'figure eight' flying.

"They installed two lights, one in the nose and one in the tail, The lights shine on the water, when the two lights touch like the number 8, you're 50 feet off the water. If they make one round ball of light you're in the water at nearly 300knots ... Gawd damn! that was fun. Sunday, more gunnery and evasion ... nap of the earth is lots of fun.

"Sunday ... no Monday, really early, we loaded up and found we had some Spanish speaking ride alongs with parachutes. They wore green uniforms. The Jarhead high command gave us our headings and we flew them. We were going out for gunnery practice ... they said. The shit hit the fan!

"We made one pass on the beach, half way in the beach started shooting back. Sonofabeach! One ride along pulled a gun and ordered me to fly straight inland. They all jumped, we flew back to Key West.

"The CIA wanted to know what happened. We told them they had a rat in the woodwork. We fueled up at government expense, took off and flew here nap of the earth."

Ben stood there with his chin down around his knees. "You all made it back, though. I can fix the holes. Let's get these planes undercover before someone wants to know where you've been."

"Holes? You mean to tell me they HIT us?"