Farmer's Son, Military Career

By Clarence "Kip" Vold

Growing up on the plains of South Dakota, completing grade school in a one-room school, surviving blizzards. Success in Air Force the culmination of a career in achieving the highest enlisted grade in the Air Force. A full life after the Air Force with writing and painting. Graduating from college with a degree in Economics 39 years after gradua

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Nov 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781643674469

Clarence "Kip" Vold

Born in Mitchell, SD, the only one of my siblings born in a hospital. Raised on a farm by a father that encouraged his children to follow their dreams. He planned on me taking his place on our farm, but I saw a different future that did not include farming. My boom operator experience included 43 combat missions over Thailand and the Gulf of Tonkin. This included one mission very frightening in retrospect - in a KC-135 following a flight of F-4s towards Hanoi during Linebacker II and at one point about two miles ahead of a B-52 bomb strike. I was at Headquarters 5th Air Force and involved in the KAL 007 recovery operations.

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Farmer’s Son, Military Career

Copyright © 2019 by Clarence Kip Vold. All rights reserved.

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Published in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-64367-447-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64367-446-9 (Digital)

02.05.19

CONTENTS

Forward

Chapter 1: Farmer’s Son

Chapter 2: Enlisting in Air Force

Chapter 3: Married Life

Chapter 4: Boom Operator KC/EC-135

Chapter 5: Military Training Instructor Duty

Chapter 6: Return to Flight Status

Chapter 7: Assignment Japan

Chapter 8: Completing a career

Chapter 9: Post-Military life

Conclusion

FORWARD

This is the story of my life as best I can remember. These are my recollections and others may remember these occasions differently. I have not tried to include everything that has happened in my life, but have chosen those items that either I remember best, or seem the most interesting to me.

Obviously, I have been shaped by my parents and grandparents and their generations. My paternal grandparents, Asbjorn and Bertha, immigrated from Norway in 1883 with two sons, Abraham (Jan22, 1881) and Ole (Sep 20, 1882) born in Norway and the rest of their children, John, Lawrence, Alfred, Alfred, Sam, Alice, Bertine, and George born in the United States. Ole died as a teenager and the first Alfred and Bertine died as infants.

The picture below is of Asbjorn and Bertha’s sons and was taken at the time of Asbjorn’s funeral in 1921. Left to right it is George Bryan, Alfred, John, Lauritz, later Lawrence, Sam and Abraham. Alice is missing from the picture.

In Norway they apparently lived close to the ocean and in comments made from various people, it seems that their destination was the Seattle area because of the proximity of the ocean. According to this legend they got as far as Dunlap, South Dakota to visit friends, but ran out of money. They were also on land open to homesteading and a mile or so away there was a nice size lake for fishing at least. Torrey Lake is a couple of square miles in area, but they probably didn’t know without exploring that the lake was probably no more than ten feet deep at its deepest point. They faced a bleak situation, settled in Torrey Lake Township, Dunlap, South Dakota and Asbjorn with his sons started farming. Of their six sons, only Alfred and Sam spent their lives as my father called it, dirt farmers. George and Lawrence attended colleges, earned PHDs and were recognized in Who’s Who In America in their fields, Criminology for George and Law for Lawrence. Abe worked in power and heat production and dabbled in and was very knowledgeable of amateur astronomy. John worked as a mechanic and had his own shop in at least two towns.

My mother’s family also originated in Norway and they settled in Wisconsin and were in the dairy industry. Christ and Julia raised eight children, Carl, Lena, Annette, Clara, Cora, Signe, Selma and Harold. The sons worked farms, Wisconsin for Carl and South Dakota for Harold. The daughters all married farmers and Selma was also a registered nurse. In the end as many of these children lived in South Dakota as remained in Wisconsin.

In the early twentieth century, it seems unlikely that people from South Dakota and Wisconsin would get together unless there was a relationship between people of the two states. Transportation of that time would have been a formidable obstacle. A relationship did develop, but it started in Minnesota, and is essentially a tale of three uncles and how the first relationship between a Vold boy and a Thompson girl began. Uncle Abe worked in power and heat production on the St Olaf’s campus and Uncle Sam worked with him. Grandfather Christ’s brother Jergan was a professor at St Olaf’s and got jobs there for his nieces. Uncle Sam and Aunt Clara became acquainted and loved bloomed and they married. Cora and Alfred met because of this marriage and they married a year later. Aunt Signe visited them in South Dakota and met and married Elling Ellingson. Then Harold followed his sisters to South Dakota and married Helen Kolbrek.

The Vold cousins living in South Dakota felt that the majority of our character traits come from the Vold parents and uncles, but those who had contact with the Wisconsin families noted many of the same traits and obviously I share many of those traits. Big brother Roy in a moment of displeasure with me said that I was, as stubborn as John, as arrogant as Lawrence, and with the memory of Abe. He didn’t like little brother proving him wrong on the cost of long distance telephone systems.

I have not tried to remember or include every person that has been stationed or worked with me, but have included only those that are most relevant to my story. As I wrote, I kept thinking about more items and there certainly are more that I could add. At some point, I had to stop or else I would never complete this history from the date of my birth to some arbitrary milestone in my life. I have used aliases in my stories because there are so many former associates that I cannot locate to get the proper clearance to use their names. The point of each story is still valid and these stories and situations are told from my point of view.

I have included many pictures in this story that are a mixture of scenery and family pictures during that chapter in my life. The exception to that is when a single picture applies directly to a particular paragraph. There are periods in my story when there are no pictures available. There were few pictures taken of me on a regular basis until I was about six years old. By then, Roy had taken up photography as a hobby, including developing his own pictures and these are two examples of his efforts. Mom would take pictures with her camera – a wedding gift to her – send the exposed film to Roy and he would develop and print the pictures and return them to Mom. Consequently, there are more pictures of me growing up than of my siblings. The economy is the biggest reason for this lack of pictures. Photographs were a luxury then and one of the first items cut out to help make ends meet. In my first years in the Air Force, I did not have a camera and there are only two pictures of me in those periods. I have very few pictures of my years as a boom operator or as an MTI. The picture of me on the cover is from 1970 to the best of my recollection taken for some kind of identification or security badge and they gave me an extra copy of the picture.

The motivation for writing this personal history is my late brother Robert. He knew he was dying, yet his spirits were high, he stayed focused to the end and I never heard him complain or ask Why me? He planned his own final service by telling his oldest son Doug what he wanted done and said, and what to write in his obituary. After Robert died, Mary suggested I write down some thoughts about my life, especially because the biggest single part of my life is my Air Force service and no one really knows that story except me. Too many people would tell that part of the story about me in about eight words, He served thirty years in the Air Force, and my story is far more detailed than that.

I started from that perspective and tried to write a story around the pictures I do have of me growing up and throughout my life. That did not work out the way I wanted, although it gave a good outline of my life story. From that starting point, I essentially started from scratch telling my story and then added pictures that seemed appropriate. Writing this has been interesting experience for me that brought back many happy memories and a few that certainly were not pleasant at the time, although for many of those I remember the event happening, but not necessarily the event. For example, when I was stationed in Japan I remember being in severe pain for several weeks because of a herniated disc, but I don’t remember the pain. My cousin Judi related a similar situation when she told about an interview by a student.

After answering questions about health situations including broken bones, when asked how she viewed the quality of her life, Judi said great. I believe we share a common attribute in that we remember the events that happened, but in the vast majority of events with few exceptions, especially for the sad or painful, we remember the event but we do not vividly remember the pain or sadness.

The upper left picture is L-R, Uncle John, Grandfather Asbjorn, father Alfred, Uncle Abe in the rear, Uncle Lauritz, Uncle Ole, and Grandmother Bertha. The upper right picture is L-R, Uncle George, Aunt Alice, Grandmother Bertha and Grandfather Asbjorn Vold

This picture is the Thompson family minus Uncle Carl. It is L- R standing, Uncle Harold, mother Cora, Aunt Netty, Aunt Signe, Aunt Clara, Aunt Lena, and Aunt Selma. Seated are Grandfather Christ and Grandmother Julia Thompson.

Chapter 1

Farmer’s Son

Military forces were on the move in 1940 and the sounds of war echoed across Europe and through China. The world was headed for a global conflict that would far surpass the Great War however it would not directly involve the United States until almost two years later. Financially, the United States was recovering from the Great Depression although that recovery was sporadic and some areas of the country, especially rural American, lagged far behind other areas. The dust bowl was in the past, but signs of that disaster still existed and in areas were still visible on our farm in 1959. A memory for my late sister Edna was that the skies were never blue in those years. It seems strange to me that something I take for granted, blue skies, was an alien concept to my sister as a child and young girl. Military preparation of the United States lagged behind virtually every other industrialized nation in spite of the tremendous potential industrial capacity of the United States. President Roosevelt and his senior military leaders recognized that the United States was ill-prepared to face the pending threat. The president, leaders and others did their best to warn the country and rebuild the military capability to defend the United States, but the majority of Americans and Congress simply did not see a significant threat until they were jarred into reality on December 7, 1941.

That is the world that I entered on February 19, 1940 at the Methodist Hospital in Mitchell, South Dakota, according to my mother on a Monday at about 9:00 PM, and a world that was completely unknown to me in my little world on the plains of South Dakota. I am the youngest child of Alfred and Cora Vold and often refer to myself as Alfred and Cora’s baby boy Clarence. I am their only child still living and their only child born in a hospital. My older siblings are Roy Gordon - April 29, 1918 to Jul 18, 1994, Edna Margaret - July 12, 1921 to Feb 10, 2008, and Robert Dale - March 13, 1930 to Apr 23, 2007. I came along late in my parent’s life; Pop was 51 and Mom 41 when I was born. To me, Alfred and Cora were Pop and Mom and they raised a close and loving family. There is no doubt in my mind that we were all close in spite of age differences and occasional geographical separations. I do not remember physical affection between Mom and Pop but there was no doubt in my mind of the love they had for each other. I also do not remember receiving much physical affection from Mom except when I returned home after an absence, and I have no memory of ever being hugged by Pop. The reality is that I did not need that physical affection to know that this home was filled with love.

This is the first picture taken of Edna, Robert and me. The snow in the background indicates this picture was taken sometime during the winter and probably about the time of my 1st birthday. It would be interesting to know what all three of us found so humorous, but since I am the only survivor, I can only speculate – did I fart? This picture is a clear indication of the age difference in Alfred and Cora’s children. The appearance of the picture indicates that I am about a year old. That makes Edna about twenty, Robert eleven and Roy, not pictured was twenty- three.

On a genealogy chart I am in one generation while in age I am in the next generation. Oscar, the first of the next generation, and I were born the in same year and Oscar’s mother Mable, my first cousin, and my brother Roy were born about one year apart. Uncle Lawrence’s first son Robert Donald and I are in the same generation, yet he was born about eight years before Roy and is about thirty years older than me, while Robert Donald’s oldest daughter Mary Lou is less than a year younger than me. If their medical conditions had permitted, Roy and Marian might have had a child in mid-1938. In that case, I would have been an uncle the instant I was born with a nephew or niece almost two years older than me. In general, my contemporary’s parents were the contemporaries of my oldest brother and sister, and my parents contemporaries were the contemporaries of my friend’s grandparents. As a young child and as an adult, the age difference between my parents and me didn’t matter but as a teenager I was very conscious of that age difference. Many years later, Knute Olsen said after I was born he asked my dad if he could have another son, and that my father’s reply was you never know.

I grew up on the eastern plains of South Dakota about one-hundred miles west of Sioux Falls and fifty miles north of the Nebraska border. My home as a child and until I joined the Air Force was a small three-room house, eighteen feet by twenty-four feet. The main room was half the size of the house itself, twelve feet by eighteen feet with the other half divided into two equal size rooms, nine feet by twelve feet. Kerosene lamps provided light; heat came from a coal burning stove, and my mother cooked with a coal cook-stove. Controlling the temperature while baking was an art and Mom was an expert. Her skill was proven on a regular basis, especially with her biscuits lightly browned on the outside with the inside cooked to perfection and so delicious fresh from the oven with generous portions of melted butter. There was no indoor plumbing and we along with about every home in the township had a two-hole outhouse. The lack of indoor plumbing meant that baths were not a daily event. Still, it was a home with love and attention plus food and shelter. It was a tiny house by modern standards (emphasized by the comparison in this picture) that in retrospect for me did not seem cramped, even with six adults, six children and one teenager in the house, almost like a camping adventure. That one large room made it a home bigger than its limited dimensions. Mom was also able to fit the entire Alfred Vold family including children with spouses and grandchildren in the house without hanging anyone from the rafters. There were two beds in the attic and at various times I slept in the attic as Robert did when he was still living at home. The last night I spent in this house was after Pop’s funeral early in March 1963. After his funeral, we as a family sold our farm to a neighbor. That was home for me. In my heart even decades and twenty-seven residences later, that little house on the prairie is still home. We live in a nice house now and have lived in several nice apartments, but all of those lack the emotional connection of that 3-room house.

I have many fond memories of that little home and most involve visits with friends and family. A special memory for me is the sound of a gentle rain when I slept in the attic – one of the most soothing sounds I have heard. The sound of distant thunder had soothing qualities but not close strikes, especially when the lightning hits a tree about 200 feet from the house as happened one night during a thunderstorm when the clap of thunder and the flash of lightning came at virtually the same instant. Although it was very short in duration that was about the loudest sound I have ever heard.

My fifth birthday was celebrated the same day that Iwo Jima was invaded, although actually with the time difference that battle was in its second day and Marines taking heavy casualties while I blew out the five candles on my birthday cake. A few months later the war in Europe ended with Adolph Hitler dead and Germany with much of Europe devastated by the destruction of a war started with Hitler’s dream of the world led by the Third Reich. The History Channel has broadcast a program called the Third Reich, the Fall. In the last few minutes of program after the fighting in Germany is over a young boy dressed very much like me in this picture is seen walking away from the camera. He is also carrying a large back pack with likely his entire possession. He faced a hard life; I faced a life of relative plenty and I am certain that he would have gladly eaten any food that I would not eat and if such an exchange were possible, I would have been happy to let him have my food.

I vaguely remember the remnants of a telephone system based on hand cranked telephones. Apparently that company went out of business and left the lines in place and telephones in a few homes. These families agreed on the number and length of rings to call each family. This service existed only within the immediate community and there was no connection outside of that community. Without proper maintenance the system deteriorated rather quickly and there were several years without any telephone service. The first reliable telephone service that I remember started in 1948. To place a call it was necessary to call the operator and they would place your call for you – sister-in-law Norma was one of the operators. In 1954, a direct dial system replaced the operator-based system, a quantum leap in telephone technology, but still a party line for us – our number was Dewey7-3734 that later became 337- 3734. Private lines were available at additional cost.

Commercial power companies did not believe that the profit potential in rural areas warranted the expense of building the infrastructure to provide electric power. We did not have electricity until it was provided by the Rural Electrification Authority, REA, in 1950. Even with the REA, the farmers that wanted electricity had to provide much of the infrastructure by buying the poles for the power lines. Of course once the infrastructure was in place and the profit potential proven, many of these same companies wanted to replace the REA.

Battery powered radios provided the majority of our entertainment. I remember listening to programs like the Green Hornet, the Lone Ranger with William Conrad as the ranger, great on radio but not credible on television, and The Shadow – Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows. Fibber McGee and Mollie was a popular program and there were two things certain to happen in every program. Fibber McGee would open a closet door and things would noisily fall all over the floor. Another was one character that I do not remember his name, when asked what he was doing always said, Just donatin my time. Jack Benny was another favorite on the radio and he did successfully move to television. However, his trips to his vault were better on radio than television in my opinion. Television could not duplicate the visions in my mind of his underground journey to that vault, over the moat, and past the creatures guarding the vault. One part of the Jack Benny Show that did well on radio and television was the singing of Dennis Day. PBS in their pledge week sometime features Irish singers, including Dennis Day. His character on the show was a young carefree lad with little common sense, but the man was a great singer with one of the most beautiful tenor voices I have ever heard. On Saturdays, there was a program with a theme song about staying out of the woods because it was the day for the teddy-bears picnic. On Saturday’s an adventure program, the name escapes me, would end with the hero or heroes in a situation with no way to escape, for example on a raft ten feet from going over a waterfall several hundred feet high. The announcer would say, "Tune in next week to find out how so- and-so get out of this situation. The following week the predicament of the preceding week was never mentioned and was a story in a different situation that ended virtually the same way – with the hero’s in another unsolvable situation and another promise of a solution that never came. While I was stationed in Japan from 1982 to 1985, Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, AFRTS, played old radio programs once a week and that was a favorite time for me.

There were other forms of entertainment locally and in Platte. Locally the basement of the Center School was the location of much of that entertainment. Grade school plays, Bible School performances, local youth putting on athletic exhibitions and teenagers singing for the entertainment of the community. Amateur baseball played in Platte was an interest of mine, even more than professional baseball, to the point that I was not aware there were professional baseball teams other than the New York Yankees or Brooklyn Dodgers. Saturday nights featured a concert by members, past and current, of the Platte High School band. It was so nice to wander up and down Main Street and hear the band playing, and even more fun to play in the concerts as I did while in high school.

Pop was my Rock of Gibraltar. He was always there for me and always answered any question I asked, regardless of the subject. He was a father that believed his children should follow their own dreams. He was always willing to give advice and encouragement, and then expected us to make our own decisions. Robert saw college as the path to a brighter future than farming or, as he said years later, as a clerk in a hardware store. Robert’s plan to attend college after his discharge from the Army was criticized by virtually everyone. He was far too old at twenty-four and crazy to start college at such an advanced age according to the enlightened people of the community. What would those same people say about me graduating from college thirty-nine years after graduating from high school? Would they recommend that I should be committed to a mental institution? Pop was the only person that did not criticize Robert and encouraged him to make his own decision. He said that if Robert wanted to start college he should go and not to worry about what other people thought or said. Pop was a dirt farmer at heart (his words) and he did not desire to attend college as two of his brothers did although he certainly had the ability and intelligence to succeed in higher education. Highly educated people are intelligent, but that intelligence is not necessarily based on their level of education. Pop is an excellent example of that point. He told me that he had completed eight years of school, while Roy’s opinion is that he completed six years of school. Regardless of whether it was six or eight, his score on quizzes in the Reader’s Digest were consistently higher than mine as a high school graduate and in intelligence did not take a back seat to his PHD brothers. Roy once said that Pop, as a young man, was the only man in Torrey Lake Township that knew how to compute the tonnage of hay in a stack. I remember seeing the formula used and it was not simple.

At physical maturity I was taller and heavier that Pop was at the same age, although I doubt I could have matched him in strength. I know I could never match his feat of lifting about several lengths of one and a quarter inch steel pipe with all except the top 8 feet filled with water and weighing about 450 pounds. Artesian wells have to be cleaned periodically and a tack and pulley system is normally used. One time, for whatever reason, he could not get the needed equipment and lifted the pipe with his legs and arms a couple of feet at a time and tightened a vise around the pipe to keep it from sliding back down when he disconnected each length of pipe. He was also a very patient man that rarely lost his temper. His oldest brother Abe could be very bossy and I am sure gave little brother Alfred advice on farming – advice that Pop considered and then did what he thought was the best course of action. My maternal grandmother Julia Thompson had a reputation of altering their home and sometimes her children’s homes. Pop is said to have told her she was welcome in his house but leave her hammer and saw at the door. Pop was proud of his children and grandchildren and when Doug, Robert’s oldest son was born, I remember him telling Robert, If you think you are proud to be a father, just wait until you are a grandfather. Robert later said he finally understood what Pop meant when Doug’s daughter was born.

Pop reacted to situations logically while Mom often reacted emotionally. My early memories of her, and confirmed by pictures, are of a rather hefty person but she was Mom and had a heart of gold. She was an excellent cook no matter what kind of stove she used, whether a coal cook-stove or a gas range. She had a sense of humor, even at her own expense – sometime deliberately at her own expense. Uncle Abe once drove Mom and Aunt Clara to Wisconsin in his Model T. When they ate in restaurants he had a unique way of asking for more water – essentially he put his glass up in the air rather rapidly. One time he did this there was more water in the glass than he expected. When he raised it the laws of physics took effect and consequently when the glass stopped moving the water kept rising until gravity took effect followed by water all over the table. Mom demonstrated this to Robert and one of his friends with a glass that had more milk than she expected and the same laws of physics took effect and the result was milk all over the table – accidentally she insisted. A few years later she demonstrated her demonstration and spilled the milk again. She claimed this too was accidental, but I strongly believe it was intentional perhaps both times, but certainly the second time.

To the best of my knowledge, Pop’s health was good until his strokes in 1956 and 1963. Mom’s health was rarely talked about in my presence, but from hints here and there I became aware that her health was not good before I was born and perhaps included a mental breakdown. From my perspective it seems that her health care cost was a major factor in Pop losing farms because of debt. I only remember one hospitalization for her but no other significant problems until the last two years of her life. Farm life through the Great Depression did take a toll on my parents, especially for Mom’s health. Roy once quoted Pop’s youngest brother George as saying said that keeping our mother on a farm was like locking up a beautiful bird that wanted to fly. I never heard him complain, but it seemed to me that farming was just exhausting for Pop.

I believe that Robert and I saw our parents as different people than Roy and Edna. When Roy and Edna were small Mom and Pop were young and newly married parents facing an optimistic future, this is their wedding picture from July 1917. When Robert and I came on the scene reality had set in and they had endured health and financial situations that dampened that youthful enthusiasm. I believe that Robert was of the same opinion. He and I probably only discussed the subject once or twice, but these conversations as well as conversations with Roy and Edna and listening to conversations among them help confirm this opinion. We all loved them dearly, but Robert and I were not blinded by our love to their faults. Pictures of Mom and Pop with their children seem to point to the same idea with Robert and I sitting or standing together and Roy and Edna sitting or standing together. Pop may have lost farms and rented other farms for years, but he stuck to it and bought another farm – where I grew up. If he had lived one more year, the loan for this farm would have been paid in full.

In this picture, which was undoubtedly developed by Roy with Pop, Mom, Robert and I headed to Sunday service with me wearing my feelings on my face. I’m not sure why I look like such a spoiled brat, maybe the cap and suspenders. Pop farmed with both horses and tractors. His tractors were used and old, but they got the job done. The first tractor I remember was a Regular Model Farmall that was produced from 1932 to about 1938. That tractor was used for several years and when I got old enough to start doing field work was still being used. The next, and last, tractor was an H Model Farmall. It had a little more power than the Regular Model and was much more flexible. An updated Super H model became available with increased horsepower, but Farmall made a power pack available through its dealers that essentially updated the H Model to the same power and so Pop souped up the tractor with that installation. I drove the tractor to Platte for an installation that took most of one day to be completed and then drove the tractor back home after dark. I only remember the last team of horses that Pop owned and with a tractor doing the heavy work, the horses were used for lighter work, most often by Robert as I remember. When Robert did his chores, he still used the horses to move racks of hay to feed the cattle. When Robert started high school, my father quit using the horses for work but he kept the horses and let them roam the pastures freely.

I was too young for Robert to teach me to use the horses when he stayed in Platte to attend high school and he had moved away from home by the time I