After Italy, I received a tour of duty to Utapao, Thailand as an EOD officer. During this time Jo remained stateside with our son who was then 3 months old. I was on a SAC base again and worked with B-52s and U-2 spyplanes. I was kept busy as EOD and got to explode a lot of ordnance and had several adventures while there. One was during a sapper attack on our base. We were called out in the middle of the night to inspect ordnance the enemy had dropped or placed that did not explode. We were to do our job and safely remove it or make it safe. One item was a grenade. My Sgt. and I, upon very quick inspection, decided was dud fired and we carried it over to the side of a revetment for late recovery. Later we discovered it was hung fired and could have gone off on any jolt that would have released the firing pin...luck was with us. Also we were asked to check the body of an enemy that had been shot, to insure he was dead and he was not boobytrapped. My Sgt. and I crawled out to him, placed a rope around him (to turn him over in case any explosives were on or under him). He was being lit up by a large portable light used when working on planes at night. Seeing he had a pistol in one hand and something in his other hand, but partially covered by his fatigue shirt flap, I requested he be shot again before we crawled out to him. Someone (an officer) suggested he might explode if any munitions were hit. I counter suggested, rather vocally, that they shoot him in the head and if he exploded he was a better sapper than I had ever seen. My Sgt. said he looked safe enough to crawl out to and I used his judgment to crawl out with him. The rope we had placed on the man apparently slipped some while turning him over and left a mark on his neck. Believe it or not, there was suggestions that my Sgt. and I should be charged with strangling him to death (this to a man with a pistol in one hand, and a home made grenade in the other...like he would allow us to strangle him to death.) Charges were never filed and the suggestion placed where it belonged, in the trash can. The next morning we took all recovered munitions out to the range to explode them. I decided to 'safe' a grenade by removing the fuse and setting the fuse off manually, i.e. pulling the pinand throwing the fuse away from me. Immediately upon pulling the pin, there was a loud bang and I could feel a stinging in my right arm, a numbness where my hand should be and feel an oozing sensation. I figured I had blown my hand off. Turned out the grenade fuse had either been booby trapped or set up for immediate explosion if used as a trip wire grenade. the stinging/numbness was from the explosion and the oozing was from grease used to waterproof the fuse; but it had been melted and sprayed by the explosion. So I still have two hands as of today. I melted the explosives out of the Chicom grenade body, got another similar fuse and still have it sitting somewhere in the garage.
I had some clothes from the current styles made for Jo and sent them to her. She made a movie of her modeling them and this show can be seen either on our 8mm movie collection or on one the DVD I tried to make from our old movies.
I came home on leave from Thailand, only to run smack into the middle of a hurricane and subsequent flood. Mom has covered this in her biography. I still think one of my favorite early pictures of me and Frank is where I am sitting on the floor in a flight suit and Frank is sitting beside me. Picture is from in back of us and you can see we are watching one of Frank's favorite TV shows together. So it would probably be Speed Racer or Scooby Doo.
Upon my return from Thailand, in Sep 72, I was assigned as an instructor at Indian Head MD, at the EOD school, a rather uneventful assignment. However, our daughter, Ami, was born while we were assigned there. During this time, we had a big gas shortage and I was in my motorcycle phase. I used to take Frank and Ami for rides on it.
This tour of duty was followed by an assignment to Mt Home AFB in Idaho. I was munitions officer for the 366 th munitions maintenance group and served also as administrative officer for the squadron commander. This involved my working with the military judicial system particularly the Manual of Uniform Code of Military Justice, particularly the article 15 disciplinary cases and trials. Mom explains about our Great Dane fascination and the try to becoming dog show handlers. We did OK in local shows, but could not achieve success in the professional ring. This tour of duty was our camper period. We had an 18 or 22 foot camper and used to go camping in the Sawtooth mountains (where I participated in my only deer hunting trip, and shared in two deer kills; without even firing a shot), since the base was in the middle of a scrub desert and not on a mountain as the name suggests. This area proved good for camping, fishing, shooting my guns and not good for having lived through a skunk stink attack on our Great Dane (call name: WAR, registered name: Golden Warrior of Shendai). This was my tattoo period. I designed two tattoos I wanted o my upper arms; where they would not show, even in a regular short sleeved shirt. My father had had 3 tattoos, so I had no qualms about getting my two. My dad had a horse's head, a stalking panther, and a double heart with a dagger through them. Mine were: on my right arm, a griffen, proported to be the first mythological beast of good and on my left arm a shield with a Christian crusader cross, on top of which was lying a dagger or short sword, and all surrounded by an ivy follage victory crown.
I finished my military career by being returned to Indian Head, MD, as an instructor at the EOD school. I retired from military service in April, 1984. I had the distinction, at least for an air force person, of being piped over the side (a navy tradition) and being presented with my bosun pipe, the one which was utilized when I had been piped over the side.)
This is my Tattoo Period, celebrating with brother Sonny (Frank Gerber, Jr.)
During our stint in the military, we met some really nice folks and to this day are still in contact with some ofthem. Bill Penn ( a marine) and his wife Jan, Uncle Marcus, Uncle Gil ( Gildas Jones) a true wielder of status, Scott and Marilyn Smith. Chris Luna, my roommate during my assignment in Calif. in 1964. Chris is a mextex, and made general officer rank; however he had the misfortune of losing his son during a robbery and has gone blind. For some reason he always called me Big Ron and not Gerb as so many have during my life.
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