In 1961, I graduated from Aviation Electronics School in Millington Tennessee, approximately 20 miles NNE of Memphis. We were in our class room awaiting hear our next duty station, when an officer came in and asked for volunteers for duty in Hawaii. I almost dislocated my arm when I raised it. I flew home for a short leave and then off to San Francisco, and Treasure Island. I then boarded the USS J.C Brekinridge, a troop transport. We weighed anchor and headed to Hawaii.

There were 2,000 Boy Scouts onboard going to a scouting jamboree in Japan. There were also 2800, military family members onboard. There were marine and army going to Hawaii as well. There were 12 of us swabees, who were not part of the crew, headed to Barbers Point and the AEWBARRONPC Squadron. Because we were navy, they gave us duty on the ship during the week-long trip. No other non-crew personnel had any duties to perform. Once we 12 arrived we were placed on a navy bus and driven to our new duty station.

AEWBARRONPAC, Air Early Warning Barrier Squadron Pacific, was a squadron that flew out of Midway Island to the Aleutian Islands and back, non-stop. It was approximately a 15-hour flight. It was our duty to check for any unfriendly aircraft flying across the pacific towards the US. We flew every other day for two weeks, them back to Oahu. The flights were scheduled so that your last flight had you landing in the early am, a short sleep, and when you woke up you boarded an R7V, a military.

My crew was already on Midway. They assigned me to a crew that was going to be just getting in from a flight. When I got to Midway and the barracks, the crew had already been to the EM club. The 1st and 2nd engineers were already hammered and the 1st engineer was giving the 2nd flight engineer a haircut… he'd already shaved him… he had little pieces of toilet paper on his face from cuts. The haircut was going bad as well. I asked him, the 1st FE, if he thought maybe he should let the 2nd go to the base barbershop. His reply, "The only difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut… two days".