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From Magic City Morning Star D. R. Crews This is my second installment, to be published here on Magic City News, of the manuscript to a book that I am writing about the time that I was in the U.S. Army and was illegally assigned as a photographer to a nuclear missile unit on Okinawa. My first installment is about my childhood memories of the origins of my lifelong fears of nuclear war and my solid beliefs in defending my country. Here now are the details of how I found out about the illegalities and immoralities of my assignment to the 30th Artillery Brigade, on Okinawa. When I enlisted in the Army, in 1969, I signed up for three years, one year over the military draft’s requirement of two years of service. I voluntarily enlisted for a third year, so that I could go to the U.S. Army’s Photographic Laboratory Technician School at Ft. Monmuoth, NJ.. After graduating from photo lab tech school, and attaining the rank of E-4 Specialist Fourth Class (after only ten months of military service, three inactive and seven active), I was sent to Okinawa. My assignment to Okinawa was great news to me. Besides being trained in a set of professional skills, that I had an interest in, and natural talent at making good use of, the one thing that I wanted most, to get to do, while serving my country in the military, was to be sent as far away from the East Coast of the United States as possible. I had had nineteen years of that. It was time for a change, and I wanted to travel, and see some of the rest of world. Plus, during the time that I was in Army basic training and studying at Photo Lab Tech School in Ft. Monmouth, not one soldier, whom I ever knew of, wanted to be sent to Vietnam. Neither did I. On Okinawa, the Army assigned me to Headquarters Battery 30th Artillery Brigade as ‘Official’ Brigade Photographer. The 30th Arty Bge was a missile unit. We had great big Nike Hercules Nuclear Missiles on some of my unit’s thirteen missile sites! And, we had smaller Hawk Missiles on some of our missile sites too. Our brigade motto was, “Always On Target.” The Island of Okinawa sets way out from Communist China’s coast line, at just exactly the right spot for an alert, fully prepared missile brigade to be able to steadfastly maintain a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year defense shield. The 30th Artillery Air Defense Brigade was assigned to be there, on Okinawa, to help defend the free world from Communist Chinese nuclear attack. The man whom I was replacing, as brigade photographer, was Spec. 5 Swigget (I’m not sure of the spelling). Swigget told me that his mother owned the franchises to three Pepsi Cola bottling plants somewhere in the Mid-West States, and that she used to send him a check every month that equaled half his Army pay, so that she could declare him as a deduction on her income tax. On my second or third day at the 30th Arty Bgde, Swigget informed me that I could not advance in rank while I was there. I was assigned to that unit for eighteen months, and, at that time, in the U.S. Army, anyone who was posted overseas for a year or more usually got a promotion in rank if they did just a half decent job at their MOS (Manner Of Service--official job). So I asked him why I could never advance in rank at the 30th Arty. He told me that his MOS was not photography, but that he was being paid, by the Army, to work as a clerk in the 30th Arty Bge’s headquarters office building. Then it sure enough shocked me, when the next thing that he informed me of was the hard, cold fact that there was no slot for a photographer anywhere in the 30th Arty Bge. Consequently, when promotion opportunities came down from above, I could not apply for one. The Army told each unit on Okinawa when they could give out promotions in rank and how many to promote in each rank; then we soldiers had to apply for and compete for each separate promotion. Then Swiggett informed me that I could neither order any photo equipment nor any kinds of supplies to do my Army photo assignments. I had to find some way to scrounge them up somehow. That really took me aback. He also told me that the brigade photo lab only had one old, untrustworthy camera in there that I could use for Army assignments. He bragged that he had more new, top of the line, Nikon camera equipment than he needed to use at any one time, but that I could not borrow any of it, because he had invested in it, with the money from his mother’s monthly checks, to take the gear back to the states and sell most of it at a profit. In those days, both photo and stereo equipment that was sold on Okinawa cost no more than 40% of its state side prices. Naturally, at those low prices on Okinawa, I intended to buy myself some top notch professional camera equipment anyway, so I ended up using my personal camera gear, and sometimes my money for film, to do all of my Army photo assignments. When Swiggett gave me my inaugural tour of our photo lab, I was stunned by the real crotch kicker in this historic narrative - the Brigade Photo Lab was not only illegal, it was set up in the nuclear fallout decontamination chamber for an underground nuclear fallout shelter communications bunker, called “The Mole Hole.” That secretive bunker was hidden in a hillside next to the 30th Artillery Brigade’s main headquarters office building. Holy cow chips Batman! That photo lab compromised our stated military mission! The Mole Hole was snuggled into that hillside right next to headquarters, because if America got into a nuclear boxing match with Communist China, the 30th Arty would need a safe, secure nuclear fallout chamber full of radio gear, and other equipment, that we would need to be able to coordinate defensive strikes with our missiles, along with those of state side military units, U.S. Navy Submarines and U.S. Air Force jet planes, against Chinese aircraft with nuclear bombs passing overhead of us on their way to obliterate my family’s homes in America. If the area immediately around brigade headquarters was not obliterated with a direct hit by a Chinese nuclear war head, it might be contaminated with nuclear fallout snow from war heads that had dropped on other parts of the island. In the case of that scenario, certain, pertinent 30th Arty technicians and command personnel, who were authorized and trained to use secret codes and all that stuff, had to be in the bunker. They had to be able to verify who they were when they contacted outside military commands to inform them of what condition the Okinawan U.S. Military’s Bases were in and any info that they had on enemy movements, casualty figures and all that jazz. If any of those pertinent personnel were not in the bunker at the time of the nuclear attack, they would have to high tail it over to the bunker; but before they could be allowed into the bunker, they would have had to of been decontaminated of any nuclear snow that may have fallen on them. The main door that we used to enter the Mole Hole, to go to work everyday, was a large, thick, steel, bank vault style door that was to be closed, locked and guarded if a nuke attack occurred. About thirty feet from the vault door, there was a regular sized steel door that was the entrance to the decontamination chamber. That second door was never used and was always padlocked inside and out. In the case of a nuclear attack, there would have been armed guards at that door too, after the padlocks were removed. When the high tailing technicians and command personnel made it to the Mole Hole, they were to identify themselves to the guards, then step through the regular sized door and into an outer chamber, disrobe, step into a shower to wash off the nuclear snow, so that they did not contaminate the other soldiers who were already in the Mole Hole, then into an inner chamber to receive some of the clothing which was kept in the bunker along with other supplies necessary for a two week stay underground. The lab’s photo enlarger and print developing trays were on a tall, heavy metal table that blocked the padlocked door which gave access to the outer room of the decontamination chamber. There was also a refrigerator in that space for keeping film and photo paper in. Black curtains were hung across both open sides of the decontamination shower, so that we could keep white light out of the enlarging area of the darkroom. Then, in the inner chamber, where the decontaminated soldiers were to be given clean clothes, was where our print washing and drying equipment was located. There was also shelving in there for photo supply storage. There is no doubt that all of that negated any possibility of a quick, efficient use of the emergency nuclear decontamination aspect of the chamber. Had that decontamination chamber ever been needed in an emergency, it would have been quite a frantic mess when the Mole Hole guys would have had to try and chuck all of that photo lab stuff out of their way while dealing with freaked out semi-nuked soldiers who were trying to get past armed guards and into the relative safety of the underground bunker. Of course, there would have been all kindsa’ unauthorized personnel trying to bust their way in with their wives and kids and all. When a person is in the military, they are government property. If I had taken any kind of legal military action against the 30th Arty for stealing me, in order to make me their personal photographer, or if I had contacted my Congressman about it, or had done anything like that back then, it would have meant the probability of retaliation from the personnel at 30th Arty who were guilty of stealing me as government property. I knew that if they could finagle the paperwork to get me there when it was against Army Rules and Regulations, then they would most likely pull a fast one and send me to the worst duty station possible, or something, before I could do anything about it. All in all, it felt like I had been shot at and missed but shat at and hit. David Robert Crews Related Article: Nuclear War Fears © Copyright 2002-2006 by Magic City Morning Star |