Excerpts from Letters to Mom in italics.
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Fehr arrived at McGuire AFB in New Jersey on Thursday, 21 July 1965, from Meldenhall, England. Steve attended his LHS Class of 1960 reunion and was awarded a serendipitous prize for coming the furthest. MC Carole Keefer Howard inquired as he returned from the hotel bathroom, "Steve, where did you come from?" The reply, "Why? The bathroom." He felt a bit guilty accepting the honor since it was more fate that placed him in Lebanon at that window of time rather than conscious effort.
AG2 Fehr departed home on Tuesday, 10 August 1965, and reported aboard the U.S. Naval Station, San Francisco at Treasure Island. Fehr had some opportunity to see the town before catching a Greyhound Bus for the long trip to Travis AFB.
August 23, 1965
Waited at Treasure Island fm the 10th til 16th. Got to see San Francisco. My flt at Travis AFB was overbooked, so I only got out on the 20th. We refueled here at Wake and got bumped for higher priority traffic headed for Viet Nam. Whenever a part gets here to repair the other aircraft I'll get underway. It's really hot here. Am only sleeping, eating, swimming (drinking too) and beachcombing. Like a vacation!
Wake Island is an atoll of three coral islands, remnants of an underwater volcano. The largest island is V-shaped with an airfield and a few ancillary buildings. It is the middle of the legendary nowhere. Yet a guy could lose his masculinity trying to think of sufficient adjectives to describe the exquisite beauty of the Pacific views, awe-inspiring panoramas from barely inches above sea level. Sunsets were magnificent; like chocolate lovers say, worth dying for. Not really. Still a lifetime treat for a kid from central Pennsylvania.
Wake lies beyond the International Date Line and was just a refueling stop and emergency landing airfield enroute from Hawaii to the Philippines. There is no indigenous population and everything including food and fuel must be imported. It lies roughly 500 miles north of Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The latter was ground zero, along with neighboring Enewetok Atoll, for early US atomic bomb testing following World War II. The next stop on the road to the PI and/or Vietnam was roughly 1,500 miles west at Guam in the Mariana Islands, which served as another island hopping refueling station.
AG2 Fehr was billeted in a concrete block structure built to provide some protection from an occasional typhoon and relief from the hot, unrelenting tropical sun. About 50 yards from the block quarters was a quaint palm thatched beach bar standing on the strand near waters-edge. The brilliant blue water was so inviting but the coral was so sharp -- razor sharp. Fehr after suffering a few cuts contented himself sipping cold ones in the morning on the beach till it got too hot even under the shade of the thatched hut. Next stop was the concrete block bowling alley, which featured air conditioning and, yes, more cold beer.
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Fehr's plane at Wake Island was appropriated by the US Army's 1rst AirMobile Cavalry Division deploying to Vietnam following LBJ's fateful decision to escalate the war. Drinking beer and doing nothing gets old when your young and anxious to see the world and have orders for a great duty station.
Steve finally bummed a ride on a Navy patrol squadron plane headed to that short runway on Sangley Point jutting into Manila Bay, and the site of Commodore Dewey's victory over the Spanish fleet on May 1,1898. The patrol plane made at least two stops or hops in the Philippines, including the Naval Air Station at Cubi Point at Subic Bay.
The rest of the odyssey lies in too misty memory. However, AG2 Fehr, courtesy of his top-secret crypto security clearance, was eagerly shanghaied by waiting naval authorities and pressed into temporary courier duty for the flight to Taipei. He had to earn that last leg of the trip north to Taiwan. With one idiot stick sewn on his left sleeve, he began to feel like he belonged and was readily issued a duty belt, a .45 sidearm and a locked courier pouch. Aye, aye, sir! A novel experience for the no-longer novice naval airman. Fehr, unlike General Douglas MacArthur, did not promise he would return to the Philippines, but he would.