The Remarkable Surprise and Shock of Arrival!

 

Memoirs of a Geezer

  

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:  The Remarkable surprise and shock of arrival!

Sometime in 1961, it was, a crowd of young military chaps boarded an aircraft in Brindisi, Italy bound for Yesilkoy (now Ataturk International) Airport outside Istanbul, Turkey. 

The airplane flew noisily, as if it had been  recently refurbished by a plumber. It seemed "rickety" and as un-"air"worthy as something pictured in medieval, pre-aviation drawings. Many of the GI's aboard clung to seat rests, knuckles white with terror.

I'm not particularly brave, but I was fascinated, fear having been supplanted by

excitement, as I scanned each rapidly appearing and then disappearing plot of earth below from a window side perch.

The flight seemed to endure for hours, if not days...  It lasted perhaps six or seven hours, as I recall, the bounce and turbulence and the dips and drops making it seem like a week and a half in an air balloon or a dirigible during a cyclone!    

We landed safely, as many sighs of relief like yellow, deflating balloons wafted through the cabin replacing panic.  We quickly disembarked and were almost immediately greeted by a wormy little Turkish chap who wasted no time in asking our ultimate posting destination.

I stumbled up to him and answered, "We'll be based at Karamursel Air Station, west of Yalova, I think." The base is perched on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, not far from Golchuk!  

"You will love the 'fa-cil-ee-tees,'" the wormy little man announced, a smile revealing all of the yellow teeth he had in his rather large, sort of cavernous mouth. It seemed he had as many teeth as there are keys on a piano!

Several of the lads, stating mainly soto voce, they wanted to slap him silly! Those several

clearly didn't want to be anywhere near the Country of Turkey. 

"Can I go home now?" one of them whined.    

The Turkish man meant "facilities," of course.  I found his pronunciation intriguing and amusing, wondering if every Turk we'd meet would elongate words and syllables comically. Couldn't wait to find out. 

I thanked him for his rosy prediction and his "wild" enthusiasm about our destination.  Many of my military companions complained, wishing they could get back on the aircraft and go home, frightening as the flight had been, as well as the scary prospect of some two years in wildly exotic Turkey.

As a means of easing us into the next two years or so, the length of our upcoming assignment at Karamursel Air Base, we were billeted for an overnight stay at the fabulous Cinar Hotel outside Istanbul, (pronounced si-nar, an accent cedilla placed like a goatee under the "C," creating a soft sound like an "S.")

The U.S. Military probably financed our stay and the delicious feast we were served.  But the servers, all male, kept emptying our ashtrays the moment an ash was dumped from each of the preponderance of cigarettes every GI was smoking as if it were the last awaiting a firing squad. Coming from modest or underprivileged backgrounds, the hovering waiters made all of us a bit uncomfortable.

Cinar's rooms were lavish, a kind of ridiculous (planned... or unplanned?) ploy as if presaging with a kind of evil sneer our accommodations at the air base.

Karamursel's accommodations were anything but lavish.  We discovered that fact the following day. At least the rooms were clean, and we were ordered of course to keep them clean throughout our tour of duty.  A military, disciplinary mandate!  

"A quarter should bounce off of the top blanket of your properly-made beds," a nasty sergeant had announced during basic training.  That bounce never happened in my experience...

Finally arriving at Karamursel, after a bumpy and lumpy bus ride, uh we stared in some dismay at the stark and sterile look of flat-topped

barracks and quonset huts and dull grey buildings that dotted and populated the base.  It also sported huge antennas and a so-called "flight line," but no possibility an aircraft could land there. 

One guessed that every air base in captivity must have a flight line for visible or invisible aircraft. Strange!

Soon we were installed in barracks rooms, each with three added occupants.  Then off to our assignments via a dark blue school-like bus, along the so-called flight line, past rows of towering antennas, to our work places.  

A few of use, including myself, were asked if we'd prefer to be assigned to "Research and Development (R&D)" vs. the utterly tedious and boring duty of monitoring printers and their endless output of correspondence from "the enemy."

It was an excellent choice, R&D, that is. Our duty was to learn known electronic systems by sound, about 90 of them, and then search for new electronic systems, using huge and

expensive radio / monitors.  Finding something, we'd explore, via "space-age" equipment and brain power, decipher the coded, musically-warbling information they were transmitting.  Great fun!

We had success!  Even hear of the Poet, Pushkin?  

I write this sort of ancient memoir given the timing...  I began my military service on June 12th, was discharged honorably on June 11th, four years later.  

Readers are welcome to share their own memories and adventures in military service. Don't hesitate; space is limited!  Thank You!

Humbly Submitted, June 12th...  Joel K.