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Colorful Characters


wukong
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One thing that combat operations permits is the freer expressions of personality that peace time drudgery tamps down.

Perhaps the 4 most discussed personalities of CCK between 72 and the closure in 74 was Capt Applebaum (21TAS), 1Lt John Grillo (345TAS) and the Marosla twins (Dewey and Donnie). Muff and I have already mentioned John Grillo in other posts.

Does any one know (venture to guess) which of the twins smuggled BB onto the Base in the trunk of his car? This incident to my knowledge made it all the way to the Embassy in Taipei.

Edited by wukong
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Well the Mrosla Brothers, DJ and Dewy, DJ is completely retired, and Dewy is flying

Corporate. I think they are classmates of Bob Daly. I flew alot with DJ in the 50th,

I think Glenn Durger is the one who finally married BB, but anyway, I saw her several

times in my apartment complex, in Taichung. We also have another character living

around here. Arne. He came to CCK in 1969.

Rg Glenn

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Both the Mroslas were classmates of mine. They both also retired from SWA. DJ also retired from the USAF and lives near Glen near Travis. Dewy retired from the WY ANG and is flying corporate. He lives in CO. Ted Applebaum gave me an in country check in 72. Had a great time but have not seen or heard of him since 1973.

Bob

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I have to give credit to Ted Applebaum for many hours of entertainment at the O-Club bar at NKP from his running commentary of his symbiotic relationship with Lt Col Richardson (21TAS CC). Evidently Ted had no career aspirations and a personal goal of draining the club systems in Thailand of ethyl alcohol. Richardson was well known for his philosophy of showing up for flight with a "belly full of bacon and eggs." I suspect that neither of the two shared Christmas card lists.

The "Ted" show is as memorial as the NKP "go-go" dancer with square tits.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Unless he has moved, Ted Applebaum lives in Clear Lake, Texas.

If you really want to talk about a character, there are none that even come close to the late Major Howard (nmi) Seaboldt. All of the rest are imitations. He was never at CCK - he was at Clark from 1968-1972 - but he finished up his flying career with Bird Air out of U Tapao. He went to Pope from Clark but retired after only a few months and went back to the P.I. and then was hired by Bird Air. I saw Howie in October before he passed away of kidney failure the following Easter. He was down to about a six-pack a day by that time on doctor's orders. His normal daily rate was a case. By chance, I had a trip to Sun Valley the weekend after Howie passed away and I drove over to Boise and spent the night with Chick and Brenda Anderson and we spent the evening talking about Howie. Chick had talked to one of his daughters and found out that he had learned he had kidney failure and refused dialysis. Chick said he figured that when Howie found out he couldn't drink anymore beer he might as well cash it in. Chick told me that night about one time when Howie was getting a check ride and the SEFE pilot was ticked off because he wasn't carrying any pubs. Howie pointed back at Chick's books and said "I've got his." The SEFE was still upset so Howie said ask me a question. He answered everything the guy asked him by quoting page and paragraph from memory. Then they went into somewhere where Howie had a buddy and he got the SEFE pilot to fly the next two legs while he got off the airplane. One time at a wing dining-in he and Steve Finch put on a skit about our wing commander, Col. Charlie Wolfe, who no one ever saw in person, comparing him to Major Major Major in Catch 22. One of the highlights of my life was being a part of Howie's crew in 69-70.

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I first met Howie in 1966. He was a Capt at Barksdale flying B-52's.

He used to open up the stag bar by the swimming pool every morning he was not flying or on alert.

One day during an ORI he authenticated a bombing mission order in Russian. Pissed everone off big time and he was sent to SEA flying an electronic Gooney Bird. After that he volunteered for Herks and ended up at Clark. After that I saw him twice, once at Clark and the last time on TV. He was sent from Pope to someplace in Africa on a famine relief deal as mission commander. Must have been about 1973. He was interviewed on TV and his answers were pure Howie. He was in deep doo doo for it when he got back to Pope and retired not long after that. The stories about his antics were legends. His purple heart, the motorcycles and so many more.

Bob

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I first met Howie in 1966. He was a Capt at Barksdale flying B-52's.

He used to open up the stag bar by the swimming pool every morning he was not flying or on alert.

One day during an ORI he authenticated a bombing mission order in Russian. Pissed everone off big time and he was sent to SEA flying an electronic Gooney Bird. After that he volunteered for Herks and ended up at Clark. After that I saw him twice, once at Clark and the last time on TV. He was sent from Pope to someplace in Africa on a famine relief deal as mission commander. Must have been about 1973. He was interviewed on TV and his answers were pure Howie. He was in deep doo doo for it when he got back to Pope and retired not long after that. The stories about his antics were legends. His purple heart, the motorcycles and so many more.

Bob

I don't know about the electronic gooney bird story; this is the first time I've heard that. Howie told me that he got to Clark in early '68 at the height of the Khe Sanh thing and he thought that was what it was like all the time. Our D/O, Col. Bill Coleman, who was the 29th squadron commander when I first got there, was Howie's buddy from Barksdale. Howie and his crew at Barksdale all had skate boards and used them to get back and forth to the flight line from the alert shack. Howie fell off of his and broke his leg. I think Coleman was his squadron commander. He visited Howie in the hospital and broke his skate board over his leg. After Herky Hill opened up at first there was a single all-ranks club. Sometime in late 1969 they started building a seperate officers club and Howie was put in charge of the project. At that time Clark and CCK were rotating to Cam Ranh. I remember him taking me over to show me how the project was coming along. When it was about finished he decided to top it off with a velvet painting to hang over the bar. He got one of his Filipino friends to paint one and then we hauled it down to Cam Ranh. It was a huge painting and Howie threatened my life if it was damaged. After we got there he hung it over the bar and then came over and got me to come over and see it. I heard that it ended up at Dyess.

Howie remained in the Philippines after Vietnam. For several years he lived at Baguio - he had always said that he was going to go up there and open an ice house - and was the editor of the base paper at John Hay until it closed. His wife Lettie got involved with some kind of religious organization and was giving them a lot of money so they seperated and he moved back to Angelese City. He would come back to the States every year to check on property he had inherited from his mother next to KMIA airport. We were out of contact for several years but got in touch via Email through Tom Utts, who wrote a book about Clark. After that we were in contact until he died. I was working for Marathon Oil at the time and was fortunate to have a trip to West Palm one time while Howie was in the US. I drove down and spent the afternoon with him. He was the same old Howie, but was showing his age. After I retired from Marathon and moved back to Houston he would call me up every time he was in the States, which was every year about October. In 2003 I went out on a contract trip for Stanford Financial (yep, THE Stanford Financial). They sent us to KMIA on Wednesday to stay until Friday. I called Howie up and we spent the next day together. He had sold his property and was packing everything up. He gave me a bunch of stuff, including the photographs from the first M-121 drops in-country that Bob Archer had sent him. We were making plans for a reunion with all of the people he had flown with the following year (2004). He was going to come to Houston to go to the VA and then we were going to get everybody together somewhere. Then in April I got an Email from John Kays that word had been sent out from the Clark Legion or VFW or something that he had passed away.

Speaking of Ted Applebaum, he was after my time in Herks but I had heard about him, plus he's mentioned in Tactical Airlift. In early 2008 we had a TCTAA board/organizational meeting at the Hilton in Clear Lake across from NASA. Hector Leyva came over from San Antonio - the first time I had met him. Hector and/or Ralph Bemis had got in touch with Ted and he popped in for awhile. It was around lunch and he had already had a few.

If you want to talk about characters, I can't think of any enlisted characters who can top the Terrible Trio of Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone and W.T. Chisum. They were all at Dyess and went to CCK with the 345th. AIRMAN magazine had an article about all of the famous names in the 345th. In addition to them, there was a Willy Mays and a pilot named Gene Autry. Crockett was from Jamestown, Tennessee, Boone was from somewhere in Kentucky and Chisum was from Texas and I believe they were all related to their famous namesakes. They all three went back to the States then got back together again at Clark in the 774th. Boone wasn't as wild as the other two but Crockett and Chisum hit it hard. Davy had probably crossed the line into alcholism. I can't remember who his AC was but for some reason I went in-country to fly with their crew because their loadmaster had been sent back to the States on emergency leave. I was crewed with Steve Finch at the time and we were supposed to come in a few days later to replace them - both crews were COMMANDO VAULT. One night before a bomb mission the next day Davy and I stayed in the Herky Hill Club until it closed at about 2:00 AM. When we got to the flight line the next morning (it was at about 0500) we were still drunk as skunks but we went on out and made the drop.

It hadn't occured to me until just now but that was when my crew got busted. Jim Farrar told everybody about how his crew was busted for making a low pass after a bomb drop with a general onboard but he "slightly" exaggerated the facts. It was actually my crew. On our previous shuttle we had flown a bomb drop with General Herring on board. He had just taken command of 834th AD and came down to CRB observe a bomb drop. We lost an engine while the other loadmaster and I were rigging for the second drop. (It might have been Farrar but he claimed he never flew with another bomb crew so it was probably Fuller from Det 2, 834th.) We made the drop on three engines then after the drop Steve dropped down and made a pass so the general could get a better look at the cleared area. I went in to fly with Crockett's crew before our next shuttle and was supposed to join my crew when they came in. I was up on Herky Hill standing on the balcony watching for our engineer but they never showed up. Finally someone came up from Ops and told me that they had been turned around and sent back home because they had landed at the wrong airport. It turned out that there had been a wing officer's party at the club the night before and the next morning they stood around with the briefing officer and never realized that instead of going from Clark to Cubi to Chu Lai, they were supposed to go from Cubi to Da Nang with a special load of Marine cargo. The loadmaster (Don Holcombe) who went in with them never looked at the manifest to see where the load was destined for and they went to Chu Lai just like every Clark shuttle input had been doing for years. The aerial port expeditor looked at the manifest and said "you're supposed to be at Da Nang." ALCE called HILDA and it got all the way up to Gen. Herring who called up Charlie Wolfe and told him "I don't want that crew flying for me." They were sent back home. I'm not sure what happened with me. The 774th crew may have stayed in-country and me with them. I know I was without a crew until Seaboldt asked me to join his. During the conflab the three-engine drop and subsequent "low" pass came up. I'm not sure if Gen. Herring complained or his aide, who was a prissy little captain who was only qualified on C-123s. Somebody - I think it was the aide - complained that the general's "life had been endangered." The whole crew was busted and had to go back through the upgrade process, all but me since I wasn't with them. Oddly enough, I got a DFC for that mission.

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I called Chick Anderson today and asked him if he had ever heard anything about Seaboldt flying Goons in SEA. He said no, that Howie came to Clark from Barksdale where he had been a B-52 AC. He got to Clark in early '68 - February I think - after going through C-130 school and RTU at Sewart, which means he would have left Barksdale around the middle of 1967. He went in-country with Bob Archer's crew - Chick was Bob's engineer at the time - for an in-country AC checkout. Howie took over Archer's crew later on when he went to Stan/Eval.

By the way, Howie is the only C-130 pilot I know who is featured in a movie. He is in the USAF film about the 463rd in SEA called "Anything, Anywhere." (I think that's right.) It was made in late 1971 about the same time TAC made the movie that was shot with CCK people. The 463rd film has better footage of Herks in action though.

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He was down to about a six-pack a day by that time on doctor's orders. His normal daily rate was a case.

Holy crap, Sam! A case a day? That's four 6-packs or 2.25 gallons -- and that was probably San Magoo, right?

I'm a compulsive counter -- I count everything as I do it and the most I've ever put away in one sitting was 12 beers with a friend from Lynden Air Cargo. I couldn't function very well for at least a week after that.

A couple of other colorful engineers that I've met during my career were Kenny Emmons and "Lightning" Boldt. There are more names in my head, but the above-mentioned beers have taken their toll.

Don R.

Edited by DC10FE
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Holy crap, Sam! A case a day? That's four 6-packs or 2.25 gallons -- and that was probably San Magoo, right?

I'm a compulsive counter -- I count everything as I do it and the most I've ever put away in one sitting was 12 beers with a friend from Lynden Air Cargo. I couldn't function very well for at least a week after that.

A couple of other colorful engineers that I've met during my career were Kenny Emmons and "Lightning" Boldt. There are more names in my head, but the above-mentioned beers have taken their toll.

Don R.

You got it Don! When I talked to Chick yesterday he commented that they didn't have to embalm Howie when he died because he already had so much formaldahyde in him.

Yep, Kenny Emmons is another one. He was also at Clark in the 773rd when I was in the 29th. He had a Martin guitar and we'd sit around together and pick sometimes. On New Years Eve 1969 a bunch of got together in somebody's trailer and made music. We actually continued through New Years Day. Somebody made a tape of it. Mine got messed up years ago. I think Dan Chandler might still have a copy. Kenny's wife was Filipina. When he came in from drinking she'd make him get in the tub to see if his balls would float.

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Last I heard Kenny died. I was TDY with him doing flare drops at Williams, seems like we had 2 or 3 birds, anyway we were tossing down some cold ones and a bar maid came up and sniffed his neck and said,

"what do you have on that smells so good?" Kenny leaned back and said, "A hardon but I didn't think you could smell it". He was a fairly decent guitar picker or was I drunk when he played.

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Last I heard Kenny died. I was TDY with him doing flare drops at Williams, seems like we had 2 or 3 birds, anyway we were tossing down some cold ones and a bar maid came up and sniffed his neck and said,

"what do you have on that smells so good?" Kenny leaned back and said, "A hardon but I didn't think you could smell it". He was a fairly decent guitar picker or was I drunk when he played.

Kenny was pretty darn good, and he had a really good guitar. His was the first Martin I ever played and I've coveted them ever since. They were about $800 then. I settled for a Gibson after I got back to Clark. I couldn't believe it when I heard about the float test. Those Filipinas did not trust their men one bit! His name came up on one of the Email groups years ago and somebody said he had passed away. We've lost too darn many, and we're losing more every day.

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I'll tell you someone else who was a character, but not because he was a partyer, and that is Chick Anderson. I was crewed with him for about a year in F Troop. The crew chiefs hated to see him coming because if there was a discrepancy on their airplane, Chick would find it. One guy got so mad at him one day that he picked up his flight bag and threw it off of the airplane! I think his number one role was keeping Seaboldt out of trouble.

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