I left Glasgow, Montana in March of 1961 headed for Torrejon Air Base, close to Madrid, Spain. (Courtesy of The United States Air Force) I did not have enough rank to get travel for my new wife so I had to leave her behind with 3 small children (one of them mine). I was not very long in Spain before I received a letter stating that she had petitioned for a divorce. She only asked for $35 a month for child support. I had already been testing the waters in Madrid for female companionship and it was there that I found Carmen Martos (my third wife to be). We had to leave Spain to get married as she was not allowed to marry a non-catholic person in Spain. Gibraltar was the alternative. So we were married in the city of Gibraltar (Rock of Gibraltar) on 22 November 1963. Our first child, Maria Teresa was born April 14, 1964 at the base hospital (Torrejon Air Base) just outside of Madrid, Spain. I had to take an elementary course in Spanish (Air Force requirement) shortly after arrival in Spain and I subsequently learned the language fairly rapidly through necessity. After being in Spain for almost four years, the Air Force decided to send me to Walker Air Force Base at Roswell, New Mexico. Our second child (Antonio Ramon Ricardo) was born at the base hospital at Walker AFB in Roswell, New Mexico on 11 March 1966. (I always heard that you were supposed to keep your wife barefoot and pregnant!) One year later (March 67), I received orders to go to Vietnam and I wound up at an Air Base just outside of Saigon. (Tan Son Knut). I used to know how to spell the name, now after so many years, I am not sure. I had an interesting experience during the so called Tet Offensive. The enemy landed (I think it was called a 100 millimeter) a couple of rockets very close to where I had parked my bicycle about 30 minutes previously. One detonated and the other one did not. We slept in two story Quonset Huts and we had some protection of sandbags around the outside area. My bunk was on a lower floor and I was on the bottom bunk of a double bunk setup. One guy in a Quonset Hut next to ours (second floor level) was killed by the blast. Another day there was rifle and or pistol fire in an area where I was trying to return to my sleeping quarters and that was a bit exciting. One night when I got off work (12 hour shifts the whole year) they would not let us leave the building where we worked because of infiltrators on the base. I climbed the outside stairwell of the building and watched a helicopter gunship firing tracer bullets down towards a compound area where the infiltrators were. They were flying around in circles and firing a long time. It was a beautiful sight from a distance but I would not want to have been on the ground under that barrage!
I left Vietnam in March of 68, reassigned to Davis-Monthan AFB, Tucson, AZ. Carmen and the children had stayed at Roswell, New Mexico during my years absence. We rented an apartment close to the base in Tucson and stayed there for two years. They then sent me (us) to MacDill AFB, Tampa, Florida. (the military paid for moving my family from Spain and throughout the rest of my 20 years) After approximately 2 years at Tampa (I drove taxi as a part time job for one year in Tampa) we were reassigned to Sondrestrom Air Base, close to Kaiserslaughtern, Germany. From Germany, we were able to spend some vacations in Spain during our four year stay there. Leaving Germany I was assigned to Luke AFB, Arizona for retirement processing. We tried finding work at Bagdad Copper Mines (over close to Prescott) and stayed there for a few weeks. Giving up on job hunting there, we moved to Tucson where we bought a home. Our household goods from Germany arrived a few weeks later and I caught a military plane going out of Davis-Monthan AFB to (I think it was Travis AFB, CA) and from there I hitched a ride in a military vehicle going to San Francisco where I had to go to pick up our car... After jump starting the car (the battery on the vehicles does not stay charged on the long boat trip from Germany), I drove it back to Tucson. I had previously worked part time for the NCO Clubs in Germany (dishwasher, barback, and bartender) and Base Bowling Alley (night-weekend manager) so I found a job at the bowling alley on Davis Monthan. I finally gave that up and started working as an attendant at self serve gas stations. I finally got hired on by Kaman Bearing and Supply Corporation and was with them for 7 years until the mines started slowing down and they did not need me any more. Carmen divorced me right after I lost that job. Our former home was sold and I packed up and moved to the Rock House Trailer park on Salt River on the Globe-Young highway. My Dad was living there at the time. A short time after moving up there, I met Martha Fesler who offered to share her mobile home with me if I would move it from Globe to the Rock House Trailer Park. Since I was renting, I thought it would be a good idea since I was renting a trailer and the only thing I had for company was a black cat that I had brought from Tucson. We finally got married and I spent a couple of years there until my Dad died in 1990. Shortly after that I found a job with Miami Recycling in Miami, AZ and I contracted to buy a home in Miami. (to be continued) Have a good day, Virgil Baker (the can man)
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