Hup! Twoop! Three! Four! - Part 4

  The next stop in my military career was assignment to TUSLOG Det 16 at Incirlik AFB, Turkey, August, 1970.  On my way from Frankfurt, Germany, I made a connection on Turkish Airlines in Istanbul, Turkey to fly to Adana.  It was an old prop plane and I think they added an extra row of seats because there were three on one side of the very narrow aisle and two on the other side. I wasn't real keen with the on-board refreshments that were comprised of crackers and warm goat milk so I passed on that opportunity.

  Upon arrival to Incirlik, it was dark and quite late.  I checked into the transit barracks for the night and would find quarters the next day.  When I woke up, the sun was beating into the room and I thought that I must have slept until noon.  After putting myself together, I went outside where I found the temperature to be something close to a hundred degrees.  It was a short walk to the snack bar for lunch.  Upon entering, I found the patrons eating breakfast and noticed the clock on the wall.  It was 7 AM and I quickly gained a full understanding of the climate in Turkey!
  Soon I was settled into my permanent barracks.  There were two to a room.  The guys in the comm. squadron were all housed together and they were a pretty good bunch.  We all had nick names that stuck:  Fastidious Strauss, Rookie Ryan, Severe Scott, and Pop Matthews to name a few.  Me?  I was Crazy.
  If we weren't hanging out at the barracks, there were five primary activities that we engaged in:
1.  Work
2.  Chow Hall
3.  BX (The base department store)
4.  Movie Theater
5.  Audio Club (A place that sells stereo equipment)

A local merchant

  The more adventurous might go off base and mingle in the local culture.  I did that once with a few others and it was interesting.  There were a lot of myths that went around about the area.  Never knew if they were true or not.  One was; never get busted for drugs because they don't feed you in Turkish prisons.  You rely on the Red Cross for that.  Another was; you could buy black market stuff from the street vendors.  They were called 'Bush-Bush' because that is what they called out as they pushed their carts.  Probably was Turkish for 'You want it, we got it!'  Common black market items were over-the-counter pharmaceuticals like aspirin, and, of course, cigarettes. 

  It was rumoured that Gary Powers, a famous U2 pilot that was shot down over Russia, flew in and out of Incirlik from a hidden hanger.  Never saw any evidence of it.  Though I did see a lot of activity from the British Vulcans.

Adana Tropo Remote Site

  My duty section was, as before, Tech Control.  It seemed the farther I was from the U.S., the more antiquated was the equipment I had to work with.  I enjoyed the work, nevertheless.  During my year in Turkey, I was sent TDY (Temporary DutY) to TUSLOG Det 187, a remote site south of our base outside of Adana.  It was a 28 man outpost that was a Tropospheric Scatter radio repeater station.  As I had mentioned in Part 3 of this series, Turkey was the eastern end of the DOD's (Department Of Defense) Southern Tropo System that went westward to England.

  In March of 1971, I received marching orders to the World.  A term we used to refer to going back to the States.  A couple things about exiting Turkey; during the time that I was flying out, there had been some GI's kidnapped and there was a lot of security around Istanbul airport, which was a little distracting.  The other thing; everyone was required to pay a tax to leave Turkey, which I thought was curious, but happy to do so.