JL Johnson, TD3 - Military Timeline

Service Status USN Veteran	Last Rank Petty Officer Third Class
Service Years 1964 - 1968	Last NEC TDV-0000-Tradevman (Repairman) (Aviation)

Service to 1968

Fleet Airborne Electronics Training Unit, Pacific (FAETUPAC)

Fleet Airborne Electronics Training Unit, Pacific (FAETUPAC)
Rank Petty Officer Third Class	Location North Island, Coronado California - United States
NEC TDV-0000-Tradevman (Repairman) (Aviation)
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1967 - 1967

Detachment 3, Fleet Airborne Electronics Training Unit, Pacific (FAETUPAC)

Detachment 3, Fleet Airborne Electronics Training Unit, Pacific (FAETUPAC)
Rank Petty Officer Third Class	Location Barber's Point Hawaii - United States
NEC TDV-0000-Tradevman (Repairman) (Aviation)
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Best Friends
Leon Ramsey, Kerry Coker, Danny Lawson, Jack Hauck, Gary Hoffert, Walter Day and Robert Pohl.

Best Moment
Every moment was wonderful. A great duty station, a great job, and great shipmates!! Sun and surf all year around. Of course, "sewing on the crow" was an accomplishment and great moment too. While there I worked on the R6D sim, but we soon got a sim for the new P-3 Orion ASW plane and we were checked out on it by the manufactuer's tech rep and were trained in all the equipment and techniques used in hunting enemy subs using this aricraft. This required that we all have a secret clearance and it wasn't until I went home on leave that I learned how serious the Navy took this. It seems that everyone I knew, from teachers to relatives, to friends, to employers; essentially everyone in my little home town, had been interviewed as to my character and political views (I had none at the time). It was the talk of the town, apparently, and the investigators left no stone unturned. Since I was not exactly a scrubbed angel in high school, I am still somewhat amazed that the clearance was granted.

Worst Moment
Not exactly the worst moment, but a memorable one for sure. We began to notice things going missing in our barracks, usually on either Friday or Saturday night in the early morning hours. Pocket change, lighters, belts, radios, etc., just disappeared. We were a tight group and knew that the problem had to be coming from an outsider, but no one ever got a glimpse of the thief until one Saturday morning about 0300 when the guy in the compartment across from mine turned on his light and yelled, "what are you doing in here?" The guy bolted from Gustofson's room and ran down the hall and out the door, down the stairs and into the night, but Gus got a good look at him so we decided to get an early start the next day on looking for him. About 0600 four of us made a quick sweep of all the floors in our barracks, looking into all the compartments but our guy wasn't there. We went across the parking lot to the barracks where the VP squadrons were and started our search again. When we looked in about the fourth compartment, Gus said,"That's him right there," and pointed to the somewhat frightened man who was still in bed. While three of the guys made sure he didn't try to escape, I went to the duty shack and called base security. When I explained the situation I was asked how many flights of stairs he had fallen down so far! In a few minutes security came and took him into custody, after opening his locker and finding it filled to the brim with stolen items, including watches and rings that had the owner's names engraved on them. I only saw the guy once after that, being marched to the galley by a burly Marine with his shotgun at port arms. Apparently he had been in trouble a number of times and had run out of excuses. He was court martialed and received six months at the Portsmouth Naval Prison and a dishonorable discharge.

Chain of Command
Lt. Cmdr E. G. Hope, Jr. was the CO when I arrived. He was replaced by a Captain, whose name escapes me, who was a WWII Ace and whose call sign was "Doggie Daddy." He made it clear on his first day that this was his last duty station before retirement and he intended to play a lot of golf. If everyone did their jobs and didn't create any problems that interfered with his plans, all would be well; but if not, woe betide that poor sailor who got in his way. He was a great commander who called you by your first name and, unless there were others around, was fine with being addressed by his call sign.

Other Memories
NAS Barber's Point had a nice outdoor movie theatre that ran great movies for the low, low, admission price of only ten cents. I remember seeing the Hank Williams Story, Your Cheatin' Heart, there as well as my first Bond movie---Goldfinger---which resulted in a packed house. We were all enjoying it immensely, but then there came that point where Bond asked Honor Blackmon her name. Her response caused the place to go absolutely crazy with whistles, laughs and assorted commentary for about five minutes, during which time all dialogue in the movie was lost in the din.

One night the night check crew for the R6D, Leon Ramsey, Jack Hauck, Gary Hoffert and I, were doing routine maintenance while listening to music from the local radio station, when the DJ broke in and said that there was a panty raid going on at the wave's barracks at NAS Barber's point. Well, now, that's something you don't see every day, so we all piled into the official Navy pick up and headed up there to take a look see. When we got there, a huge crowd had gathered around the barracks and it had all the appearances of something about to get out of control so we headed right back to FAETUPAC. Even though we listened to the same station for the rest of our shift, there wasn't another mention of the event. The next day we were all called to the unit and told that the thing had gotten completely out of control and it took the marine detachment and a fire truck with suicide nossels to break up the crowd. The EO of the base had been called and had ordered everyone to disperse, but was shouted down. Several people were grabbed and arrested that evening, including some petty officers who should have known better, and the base was soon crawling with investigators who were determined to find out what happened. It seems there had been a power failure for that part of the base and some guys were just goofing off and acting like they were going to stage a panty raid, but the barracks that housed the newbies was close by and they thought it was for real. Once they spilled out into the area the crowd just kept growing until serious measures were required to break it up. Suffice it to say that the laid back brown shoe attitude that had existed was replaced with a black shoe regular Navy one for quite some time!

When I first arrived at BP, there was a squadron of "Willie Victors," the Super Constellation with a radar dome used for flying the DEW line still functioning. Within a few weeks, though, they were gone so I never had any experience with the sim for that particular aircraft, but I do remember once when they had every plane in the squadron turn up their engines at the same time what a wonderful roar those engines made. I'm sure it must have registered on the nearest richter scale! Interestingly enough, I have an acquaintance who uses the same walking track in the little park in our neighborhood who was a WV pilot back in the day.

1965 - 1967

National Defense Service Medal (2001-2022)

Criteria
The National Defense Service Medal is awarded for honorable active service as a member of the Armed Forces during the Korean War, Vietnam War, the war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf, and for service... More

Description
Description Pending

1967

NATTC (Staff) Millington, TN, Naval Air Technical Training Command (Staff)

NATTC (Staff) Millington, TN, Naval Air Technical Training Command (Staff)
Rank Airman	Location Millington, Tennessee - United States
NEC TDV-0000-Tradevman (Repairman) (Aviation)
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Best Friends
Leon Ramsey, Ernie Gerrard, my Oklahoma Hombres, and an aviation marine named Kenworthy. He was a great guy, but the most un-squared away marine I ever met. He wore the same fatigues for a week at a time, spit polished his boots once a month and then sprayed them with pledge until he had to polish them again. He also had a notebook of his own creation that had an eight-ball instead of the globe, a fish hook instead of the anchor, and a buzzard instead of an eagle. Below his artwork he had written the slightly altered marine corps slogan, "Simply Forgot Us." I told him that although most discharge certificates said, "after four years of faithful service" his would have the words "faithful" and "service" scratched out and would just say "after four years."

Best Moment
Finding out that I had been accepted for TD school after completing basic electronics school was a great moment, and graduating was even better. When we began TD school, we were told that, upon graduation, the top student would get first choice of duty stations, the second place student would get second choice, and so on. Leon Ramsey finished in first place and I finished right behind him. He put in for Pensacola, since he was from Panama Beach, and I put in for Corpus Christi. We both got orders to Barber's Point, Hawaii. I remember Leon saying that he told the Navy he wanted to go east and they sent him so far west that he was almost east. After a little while in Hawaii, however, we both decided that the Navy knew best---at least this time.

Worst Moment
Since Memphis was fairly close to Oklahoma, four of us who were all from there used to drive home on weekends when we all had liberty. Of course, this meant that we were seriously out of bounds since the limit away from our duty station was 150 miles. The only way this could be a problem was if we got caught somehow, so we ignored that possibility in order to go back home and see family, friends, and girls! Now and then someone else from Oklahoma would pay a nominal fee to ride with us, which helped defray costs like car payments, gasoline, etc., and one particular guy rode with us quite often. The rules were very strict, in that we knew how much time it took to get back from Oklahoma City to Memphis and we all had to meet at the designated place at the designated time on Sunday morning in order to not be AWOL. On one such trip we had all gathered as planned, except that our friend, who shall remain nameless, wasn't there. We waited as long as we could and then headed back, thinking he was just delayed and would catch a plane back. On the following Monday, however, I was called out of class by a CPO who worked with base security. It seems our friend was nowhere to be found and he wanted to know if I knew anything about it. I gave him all the details, since he obviously had alread done a bit of investigating on his own, and when my interview was finished he talked with the others in our group. We all though that something nefarious had happened to him, but,as it turned out, he just didn't want to have to say good-bye to his sweetie and was AWOL for several weeks before he came to his senses and flew back to Memphis and turned himself in. Of course, he lost his school slot and was sent to the fleet after about six months of bad time in the local Marine Corps Hotel.

Other Memories
Marching to school every morning. Our route took us past the "mech" barracks and we serenaded them as we went by with ditties like, "Mech, oh mech, oh don't be blue. Frankenstein was ugly too!" "If the mechs could fly around, all the birds would stay on the ground." "Mech, oh, mech, oh ain't it strange? Having 30 weight for brains!" Since they never marched past our barracks, they had no way to get even for all the insults. Also the Dilbert Dunker and the one-way ladder to the platform high above the indoor swimming pool where we were strapped into a parachute harness, swung out over the pool and cut loose at the optimal moment, depending on whether you were well liked or not. If you were well liked, you would drop straight down and hit the water feet first; if not, you would be cut loose when you were parallel to the pool and only use about an inch of water when you landed on your back! Those individuals would come out of the pool as red as a lobster, except for where the harness covered their skin.

1964 - 1965

HQ, RTC (Cadre/Faculty Staff) San Diego, CA

HQ, RTC (Cadre/Faculty Staff) San Diego, CA
Rank Airman Recruit	Location San Diego - United States
NEC 00E-Unknown NEC/Rate
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1964 - 1964

Recruit Training (San Diego, CA), 074
School Recruit Training (San Diego, CA)
Company 074
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Best Friends
Leonard Hobbs, Ron Florell, John Pulliam, W K Fallis, Tim Maher, Larry Thomsen and J R Woolsey

Best Moment
Graduation and passing in review. Unfortunately, when I changed from black shoe to brown shoe on 3-5 day, it confused personnel and I had no orders when boot camp ended. I got to spend a few extra weeks in San Diego doing whatever dirty job the Navy could find for me, until I ran into Chief Crenshaw who was going back into the fleet and he had me assigned to him. Life got a lot better, and I gained a new respect for my old boot camp commander.

Worst Moment
When someone didn't remove their mask in the gas chamber and we had to find him and forceably remove it before we could get away from the tear gas!

Instructors
CM Crenshaw, ENC, Company Commander, LT(jg) R.R. Spencer, Battalion Commander, and D.H. Chapman, Recruit Chief Petty Officer.

Other Memories
We arrived in San Diego about 0200 on a cold and rainy night. When that old Battleship gray school bus took us through the gate at RTC, the driver said, "Take a good look, boys, and say goodbye to your freedom." We were then dropped off at the pavillion near the sign that said, "Welcome Aboard. You are now men of the United States Navy. The tradition of the service demands your utmost effort. Give it cheerfully and willingly." I remember thinking that I wasn't a man of the United States Navy yet, but no matter what, I would be soon.

The company picture was taken between two barracks, one of which was the "bad boys" barracks at the time, Barracks 4013. While waiting for the picture to be taken, we watched them getting their tails worked off in a number of different ways. A very good place to avoid. It was windy when the picture was taken, and my jumper is standing at attention (4th row, 2nd from the right.)

1964

Service from 1964