Depression Sets In

I had arrived on Okinawa during the last week of June in 1970. Previous to that point in time, I had made it through the Army’s basic training and then their Photographic Laboratory Technician School with high enough class work grades, plus excellent Conduct and Efficiency Ratings, to earn me the rank of Specialist Fourth Class with only ten months of military service to my name — three months inactive prior to entering basic and seven active. That is a very quick rise from the rank of E-1 to E-4.

Then, beginning in the late summer of 1970, I began to suffer from severe depression and some troubling anxiety. It screwed up my sleep patterns something fierce; I couldn’t get to sleep till near daybreak, my dreams became so intense that they exhausted me, and I had trouble waking up in the morning. I never would have made it through basic and photo training if I had been like that previously. I was now suffering from an acquired sleep disorder.

My depression and problems getting to sleep had something to do with the anxiety which I experienced because of my reasonable concerns about that damned photo lab negating the intended use of the decontamination chamber during a possible nuclear attack on Okinawa. I did not possess unreasonable fears of immediate nuclear war, but the 30th Arty was part of the chain of defense against nuclear war - a chain is only as strong as it's weakest link - and the photo lab in that decontamination chamber rendered the 30th Arty into a very weak link, indeed.

I may have some kind of an anxiety disorder, but it has always helped me to be a safer person, it has never kept me from doing dangerous things that were either necessary or just for the thrilling fun and/or accomplishment of it. I just pay more attention to safety than most other people do when doing daring things.

Several times, when I was a kid setting on a beach watching all of the other beach goers playing and swimming around in the water, I was struck by deep, wrenching concerns for their safety out there. I wondered what I would do if any of them needed my help in the event that any of them had begun drowning. The consequence of those wrenching concerns was that I took Red Cross Swimming Lessons as soon as I was old enough to and finished up four swimming seasons later with a Red Cross Junior Life Saving Certificate, at the age of fourteen.

You had to be sixteen to take the Senior Life Saving Course, but I never got to take the Senior Life Saving Course because the beach down the street from my house - where I had to take my swimming lessons - was closed because of water pollution when I was fifteen years old. But the only difference in Junior and Senior Life Saving was the number of laps swum during training and the distance we had to swim during our final exam, when we had to "save" a lifeguard who was pretending to drown.

The point is here that although I may have an anxiety disorder, any extra anxiety which I may possess has usually served me well during my life, because it spurs me to be a safer minded and acting person.

Unfortunately, I was apparently the only soldier in the 30th Artillery Brigade who felt anxious about the photo lab being illegally and immorally set up in the underground communication bunker's decontamination chamber.

I sure as hell was the victim of too much unprecedented anxiety when I lay awake, tossing and turning, in my bunk at night in the 30th Arty Brigade Headquarters barracks while trying to figure out how my had life become so insane, how could I be the only soldier in the brigade not allowed to get a promotion, why do I have to buy camera gear and sometimes film to do army work, and if the Communists attack will my photo lab being in the decontamination chamber cause tens of millions of deaths in America?

Now hold on there, that tens of millions of deaths fear truly does sound nuts. Doesn’t it? It does to the Veterans Administration.

The decontamination chamber had to be there for a military reason. Right?

If the 30th Arty Brigade Headquarters Battery did not get instantly nuked to crispy cinders by an airborne Communist nuclear attack on the island, then we might get an indirect hit from a nuclear war head. In that case, the chamber was there so that any brigade personnel who were pertinent to the operation of the Mole Hole’s equipment, but who were not in the Mole Hole at the time of the attack, could wash any nuclear snow off of themselves, and then go underground for two weeks to complete their assigned mission of coordinating defensive strikes with other U.S Army units, and the other branches of the United States Armed Forces. The 30th Arty Bgde Mole Hole was part of a chain of defense that was designed to stop the Commie Rats who had nuked Okinawa from flying their bombers all the way across the Pacific Ocean and nukin’ the freakin’ United States and killing tens of millions of Americans.

Well, anyway, that’s sort of the way that Swigget explained it to me on my first day in the 30th Arty Bgde photo lab — the facts are from him, but the flavor of it is mine.

Hey! Think about this: if you were alive when that photo lab was in the decontamination chamber, then that tens of millions of deaths number could have included you.

Too many people feel that because the nuclear war didn’t happen, it could not have happened; consequently, to their way of thinking, my problems with the lab being in that decontamination chamber are simply bullcrap. Which also means that - to their way of thinking - America's entire nuclear defense system is unnecessary and worthless.

If the war had happened, and the decontamination chamber had been needed, but the photo lab had negated the use of it, then most likely everyone in the 30th Arty Bgde would have died. So the individuals who were responsible for allowing that photo lab to be there had nothing to worry about.

The degree of probability of the decontamination chamber being needed in a nuclear emergency does not matter. What matters is that I believed that because the 30th Arty put the decontamination chamber there, it needed be maintained so that it was ready to do what the rest of the United States Armed Forces expected it to do. To me, it was a weak link in our chain of defense; and a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Therefore, I still say that I was right, that it was healthy thinking, when I became deeply disturbed, shocked and depressed that the entire command staff and cadre of non-commissioned officers of the 30th Artillery Brigade allowed the photo lab to function in the nuclear fallout emergency decontamination chamber. I can not make it any plainer than that.

It seems that nobody but me, back then or today, was or is shocked about learning that the photo lab was set up in the nuclear fallout emergency decontamination chamber.

For many 30th Brigade personnel, it may be because by 1970-71 many of the soldiers serving in the 30th knew that at least one of the missile systems we manned was obsolete. We had medium sized, single stage Hawk, and larger, two stage Nike-Hercules Missiles.

I was not privy to any information about our missiles being obsolete, until after I had spent over six, long, frustrating, angry, demoralizing, depressing months worrying about the potential consequences of my photo lab being in that damned decontamination chamber.

The way that one of my 30th Arty comrades, and a few other guys who were relaxing with us in our barracks after work one day, explained it to me was that our Hawk and our nuclear war head armed Nike-Hercules missile systems couldn’t react fast enough to raise, aim, and fire any missiles before one of Communist China’s or Russia’s Air Forces’ newest, swiftest nuclear bombers could fly in on Okinawa, and do more damage to the island - in a few flashing moments - than the horrific World War Two Battle of Okinawa did in a month. Then the aircraft could head straight for the United States of America, where our families lived and were incorrectly, but proudly, believing that our military jobs were supporting and helping to maintain an around the clock - alert and ready - defensive position that was an important part of America’s chain of defense against Communist world domination, during the Cold War.

[I just searched the Internet for a web page to link to which explained that the missiles were obsolete. According to the web sites I saw, it was the development of intercontinental ballistics missiles that made the Nike-Hercules obsolete, not enemy Air Force bombers. The Nikes could not shoot down other missiles very well. I am leaving in what I was told by the guys who were part of our 30th Arty Bgde Nike-Hercules system, because that was all I had to go on back then. There still must have been at least some chance of enemy bombers coming at us at any time. Either way, in 1970-71, many of the soldiers of the 30th Arty knew that our missiles were obsolete.

However, the strategic landscape was changing and by the mid-1960s it was clear that massed Soviet bombers were no longer a credible threat while Intercontinental Ballistics Missiles (ICBMs) were. The U.S. defense posture shifted to deterrence and the Nike became obsolete. Most Nike sites were closed by the end of 1974, with the exception of batteries in Alaska and Florida that stayed active until the late 1970s. The last U.S. Army Nike Hercules sites continued on duty in West Germany and South Korea until 1984.

If our 30th Artillery Brigade air defense missiles were obsolete, when I was in that unit, it appears that we weren’t a reliable part of any defense. We may have been able to provide some help in thwarting a nuclear attack though; some 30th Arty Bgde missile sites may have gotten off a shot or two at incoming enemy aircraft; we may have had some chance of completing the part of our brigade’s mission that the Mole Hole was there for, even if we did not get to shoot down any attacking aircraft.

The problem was, the soldiers who had set up that photo lab and then the ones who had kept functioning, where it was in the decontamination chamber, may have figured that the fact that our missiles were obsolete meant that the photo lab wasn’t ever going to cause any deaths at all.

Was I a fool to at first believe that the 30th Arty Bgde was an integral part of the free world’s chain of defense against Communist military aggression, and was I a fool for fully believing that having the photo lab in the decontamination chamber jeopardized tens of millions of lives?

Maybe I was.

But, I didn’t hear that stunning tid-bit about our obsolete missiles till I was already real angry, deeply depressed and thoroughly stressed out to the max about my whole 30th Arty Bgde situation.

It bothers me that I may have had it wrong as to exactly why the Nikes were obsolete, and it will bother certain other veterans more. The Hawks may not have been obsolete, but they were upgraded in 1971 to keep up with our enemies developments in aircraft. What those guys told me in the barracks that day was all I had to go on, though, up till today. It was barracks scuttlebutt, but we all felt like we had been crapped on when we were talking about it. My buddies were correct about the Nike-Hercs being obsolete, that is what matters most.

Today, September 6, 2006, (I am adding this to my blog posting today) I found out, during more searching for historical facts about Nike-Hercs, that they were obsolete when the 30th Arty Bgde set up that photo lab in their Mole Hole’s nuclear fallout emergency decontamination chamber.

What I found just now on the Internet, during my second search for obsolete Nike-Herc and Hawk info, is the following:

After 1955, Hanford’s air defensive installations began the transition to Nike Ajax missiles; later replaced by Nike Hercules missiles. By the late 1950’s, the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles had rendered Nike missiles obsolete.

The Nike Hercules replaced the Ajax missiles in the late 1950’s. By 1960, however, the development of the intercontinental ballistic missiles had rendered Nike missiles obsolete, and the Nike sites were abandoned when Camp Hanford was deactivated in 1960 and closed in 1961.

Basic HAWK was developed in the 1950s and initially fielded in 1960. The system has been upgraded through a series of product improvements beginning with the Improved HAWK in 1970.

I have not been able to find info on the Internet to support a claim that the 30th Arty Bgde’s Hawk Missiles were obsolete in 1970-71, but there is historical info that the Hawk system was improved during 1970-71. On December 21, 1971, over a month after my discharge from the Army, the improved Hawk system was type classified Standard A. It appears that this means the improved Hawk was given a stamp of approval by the U.S. Military. Then, in May 1972, improved Hawk support items were first deployed to Germany. This historical info may mean that the improvements were made because the Hawks were more or less obsolete in early 1971, when my buddies first told me about any of our missiles being obsolete.

The 30th Arty’s photo lab was set up in their Mole Hole around 1968, so it probably never endangered anyone’s life. It is doubtful that the Mole Hole was ever going to be used in any nuclear confrontation during the time in which the lab was set up in there, because the missiles were not going to be used, because, after 1960 any Communist airborne attack would have most likely been by intercontinental ballistic missiles, not bombers.

This historical information just might exonerate Jim Whitcomb, and all the others responsible for that photo lab being where it was, from being considered negligent in their U.S. Army roles as defenders of the free world.

These newly discovered, to me, historical facts sure as flyin’ f### don’t help me to deal with what happened during my U.S. Army tour of duty in the 30th Arty though. It makes me feel worse to think that certain U.S Army and Government leaders knew these facts for ten g**damn years previous to my assignment to work in a Nike-Herc brigade.

I don’t know what to think. One Internet source claims that our Nike-Hercs known to be obsolete by 1960, others say it was in the mid 1960s. Either way, they were obsolete before I was ever assigned to the 30th Arty Bgde.

Now knowing that serving my country in the 30th Arty Bgde had been known to be a possible waste of everyone’s time, and tax payer’s money, for several years before my military service began, angers me even more than I have ever been.