In October 1975, I was serving as an AC&W radar repairman (303x2) in the transmitter section of the search tower at Gibbsboro AFS, N.J. One day I got a call to report to the First Sergeant`s office and strolled over to see what he wanted. Bad news. I had received orders to report to Cape Romanzof AFS, Alaska in April 1976. All of the ground radar veterans were sympathetic to what lay ahead of me. A tech sergeant who had served a tour in Alaska explained the situation at Cape Romanzof.

``Romanzof is literally in the middle of nowhere. There`s little to do but sit and wait to go home. You won`t see a woman for a year,`` he said, adding, ``The runway is built on an incline so the C-130 pilot circles the runway and looks at the windsock. If the wind is not blowing in the right direction, he wags his wings and goes on to the next stop, leaving you standing there with your baggage.``

This was not encouraging and did nothing to improve relations with my wife who insisted I had volunteered for a remote tour in Alaska to get away from her. I was astounded that she would come up with such a weird idea. I was even more astounded that I hadn`t thought of that myself. More on her later.

Time passed and with about one month left before departing New Jersey, I was called back to the First Shirt`s office to be told that my orders had been changed. Now I was slated to go to Kotzebue AFS, AK. I just shrugged since one ice hell was pretty much the same as another.

When I told the tech sergeant I was going to Kotzebue, his jaw dropped and he shook his head in amazement. ``You are the luckiest SOB I`ve ever met. Kotzebue is located just four miles from the second largest Eskimo village in Alaska. There`s daily jet service and best of all, there`s women.``

So, on April 10, I got on a plane in New Orleans, La., (an omen? Stevie Wonder`s limousine was ahead of us in the queue at the airport and he got out with a drop-dead gorgeous woman hanging all over him). After a stop at Sea-Tac, I continued on to Anchorage and was bused to Elemendorf Air Force Base where I was to spend two weeks learning how to maintain the radar scopes I would use. I also learned how to maintain and load the T2-B, a radar simulator that used 120mm film to simulate hostile targets. Unfortunately, I also learned not to play poker in a BAQ, a lesson that cost me about $100.

On April 24, 1976, a Sunday, I rode a Wein Air Alaska 707 jet to Kotzebue. I knew right away that I was about to enter a strange new world. The passenger compartment was in the very back of the plane, sealed off from the front by a wall. I suppose the rest of the plane was dedicated to cargo. Another tip-off was an Eskimo man who boarded with a .30-30 Winchester strapped to the outside of his baggage. I stepped off the plane into a biting wind which encouraged me to seek shelter inside the small terminal building which was hot, stuffy and crowded with unfriendly Eskimos. I called the site on a phone marked townline and waited for my ride.

My ride showed up about 30 minutes later, a dual-cab blue pickup driven by the site medic and filled with less-than-sober airmen who were going back to the site after a hard night of partying in one of the two drinking establishments downtown. One of the guys on board was Jim Billingsley, a fellow Texan whom I had met at Elmendorf. He was assigned to the radio detachment which did something secret in a part of the site the rest of us were barred from.

I made friends quickly at the Kotz as we called it. One of the first things I did was go to a showing of ``Jaws`` in the site`s small theater. I was to see it several more times before it moved on to the next site and to this day can`t stand to swim in salt water. I also met the sergeant I was replacing. He was totally wired about his impending DEROS and even hugged me. Later in my tour I was able to diagnose what we called ``Shorttimer`s Fever,`` a malady affecting everyone to some degree as they became short.

I was assigned to Ancillary maintenance, a section responsible for maintaining the radar scopes. One of the first things that happened when I was introduced into the section was my name was added to a shorttimer`s calendar, which was a rectangular paper with everyone`s name and days remaining on each person`s tour of duty marked off as each day passed. The first thing everyone did each morning was to mark off that day`s date. I started out with ``349 and a wake-up`` since the two weeks at Elmendorf counted. A person`s status was tied to his shortness and was a frequent topic of conversation. ``I`m so short, I`d have to climb up on a dime to kick an ant`s butt!`` was an example of the religious noting of the passage of time.

One of the surprises I had when I arrived at the site was the fact that six women were stationed at the site. I was to become good friends with one of the ladies, though she did surprise me one day as I returned from the shower room by trying to remove my towel and telling me, ``you`re good looking for a white boy.``

There was far too little to do on the site and most of my off duty time was spent hoisting Olympia beers. After I had been in Alaska for about a month, I realized I had gone to sleep drunk every night and resolved to slow down on the alcohol. So I stopped drinking so much during the week and saved the partying for the weekends...mostly.

I became very close with two guys at the site. Paul Benton, who now lives in Florida, and John Copeland from Indiana. We shared a lot of laughs and spent a lot of time down on the bluff overlooking the Kotzebue Sound. We`d build a fire in an old 55-gallon drum and while away the hours trying to outBS each other. One of our favorite pastimes during the summer was to watch the busloads of tourists who would visit a homesite on the beach where a family of Eskimos lived during the summer months. The mostly elderly tourists would watch the antics of the Eskimos and some would get to ride on a dog sled which had been fitted with wheels. It was hilarious to watch from our bluff.

After the ice melted from the Sound and tundra, a new menace arrived in the form of the most ferocious mosquitoes I have ever encountered. Walking across the tundra in the summer is an ordeal because it`s like walking on a two-foot thick sponge. Very hard on the ankles and with each step, dozens of mosquitoes would rise to attack so after a few yards, the walker is surrounded by a cloud of the little monsters.

During the summer months, I got a job with the City of Kotzebue which was laying insulated sewer pipe, but after about two days working with an outdoor crew, I was assigned to work with a plumber because I knew how to use tools. Apparently the average Eskimo lacked even rudimentary skills with tools. Evidence of this was the fact that if something broke, it was discarded for something new.

My job as a plumber`s helper was infinitely better than one other airman got. Because of the primitive state of the city`s sewage handling capabilities, most homes were fitted with a horror called a ``honey bucket.`` A honey bucket was a five-gallon bucket lined with a garbage bag. When full, the bag would be lifted out and set outside to freeze during the winter. During the summer months, the bags would thaw and have to be collected by a crew called the Honey Bucket Brigade. Few airman lasted long in this job, because the bags were known to break and splatter their contents on the hapless person swinging them up to the back of a large truck. I felt lucky because I made the same amount in my easy job as they did, $6.25 an hour, a lot of money for a buck sergeant in 1976.

One of my fondest memories of my time in Kotzebue was the hours I would spend outside watching the Northern Lights. On more than one occasion, I saw at least four ribbons of color stretched across the sky, dancing through the night. The Eskimos believed that a person could make the lights dance by whistling.

Hail and farewell parties were elaborate affairs usually presided over by the site commander and usually resulted in howls of laughter as liaisons with Eskimo women were recalled in detail by the gathering.

One of the hardest things I had to endure was when my friends left to go home before me, first Paul Benton, then John Copeland. I became somewhat withdrawn and started developing a strong case of shorttimer`s fever. The Christmas of 1976 was a miserable time for me and I spent a part of it hugging a white porcelain bowl and regretting blackberry brandy.

I applied for an early DEROS which was granted and got to leave about 30 days early. It was just in the nick of time because I had developed a tic and was about to go nuts. Though not as crazy as one WAF who crawled into bed with a Captain and begged him to send her home early. She got her wish.

I left the Kotz in March 1977. Oddly enough, I can`t remember the exact date. I went home resolved to patch things up with my wife. On the day I got home, she informed me that she was filing for a divorce. Although it seemed like the end of my world then - it was for the best. I have been married to my second wife for almost 17 years and couldn`t wish for a better life.

The time I spent in Kotzebue profoundly affected me and had a lot to do with my decision to get out of the Air Force the following August when an early out was offered for 303x2s. But despite the time I spent there wishing I were back in the lower 48, I`ll never forget the adventures I had there.

Phil Smith
``Townline Smitty`` (haha....that`s another story)