The three Directors of Maintenance at Nouasseur (Morocco),
Chatereaux (France) and Burtonwood (UK) would assemble personnel
committed to the Program, and using the previously authorized priorities
request Base Commanders for opportune airlift to move skills, tools,
supplies, tech data, etc., to the Program's initial assembly point in a
specified hangar at Wheelus Field, Libya.
At Wheelus, the program manager (a Nouasseur Air Depot military
officer and staff) would shuffle and combine the physically present
skills, tools, etc., so that teams and their kits were formed, organized,
equipped, and ready to move according to requirements and priorities to
where they would be needed. Get the teams to their assigned stations by
air, sea or land transport, each Civil Service employee equipped with
personal gear adequate for survival under the anticipated conditions.
That, generally, was how it was supposed to work, but we knew better.
The reality we saw was that as soon as the nuclear threshold was
crossed, which was highly probable, a US/NATO-USSR general war
wouldn't last much more than a couple of days.
---
Several weeks after I coordinated the draft plan, my supervisor at
Nousseur sent the final version to Hqs SAC. They replied that it was the
best that could be expected under the circumstances. Not long afterward,
I transferred back to the States where I got a job at McClellan AFB near
Sacramento.
The plan was one of several that I drafted while at Nouasseur and at
other places in those early days of the Cold War. Many personal
anecdotes, from the deeply sad and poignant to the trivial and absurd,
have been written about WW2, Korea, Viet Nam, and the other
confrontations between the U S and the Soviets. The Cold War, in as
many of its facets as possible, needs to be written about, including
memoirs such as this, and they should be entered into the nation's lore so
that students may view their many perspectives.
I spent almost two years in researching and drafting the details of this
SAC support plan. Would it have worked if and when the need arose?
Were there plans for other options? I don't know. Forward area
emergency maintenance (Rapid Area Maintenance - RAM) teams, much
more advanced in concept and application, were used in Viet Nam.
Memoir: Suicide Prevention, The Viet Nam War, McClellan Air Force
Base, California, 1969-1973
Preface: There is a general viewpoint among experts in suicide and
suicide prevention that official statistics on the number of suicides and
suicide attempts in any identified population are like the tips of icebergs.
They do not reveal to a casual reader the reality of how many individuals
in that population killed themselves intentionally and, separately, how
many tried to kill themselves, failed, and might try again. Authoritative
estimates occasionally appear in both professional and popular media
that there are about eight suicides in fact for each that is certified as a
suicide for the official record, and about fifteen unsuccessful attempts at
suicide for each that is classified as such, again for the official count.
According to figures compiled by the Centers of Disease Control
(CDC), suicide rates are rising steadily for teenagers while declining or
holding steady in other age groups. Between 1980 and 1993, the suicide
rate rose 120 percent for 10 to 14-year olds, and almost 30 percent for
15 to 19-year olds. In part, this rise can be attributed to the increasing
availability of firearms, but, in addition, (according to the American
Association of Suicidology) 'there are more depressed kids.' And while
the actual number of suicides remain quite small - in 1993 there were
315 students in the age group 10 to 14-year old and 1,884 students in
the age group 15 to 19-year old who committed suicide. A 1993 study
of 16,000 high school students conducted by the CDC found that an
astonishing 1 in 12 said that he or she had attempted suicide the previous
year.
Camouflage is not unusual: suicide preparations may be arranged so that
the act will appear as an accident. An ailing individual might suddenly
stop taking life-saving medication; or family members, friends, or
'significant others' might goad or exert harsh psychological pressures on
an emotionally distraught person so that suicide becomes the only
escape. Ironically, 'suicide statistics' do not examine the impact of a
suicide on the victim's family and friends, nor do they note the traumatic
and often permanent effects of the failed attempt on the victim. Further,
they ignore the financial burden of subsequent home or institutional and
health care for both victim and family as well as paying for precautions
against further attempts.