Red Flags

In the spring of 1976, I was assigned to Nellis AFB in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was a 316 Missile Maintenance Mechanic. I had joined the Air Force in hopes of learning electronics and getting a civilian job in the field once I left the service. The issue was that missile electronics were being phased out at the base level, and we no longer did repairs on the guidance systems, my specialty. I was looking at transferring to the Loadmaster program when the Missile Shop Supervisor asked if I would be interested in transferring to the bomb dump for a new program that was just getting underway. The position was to be a shift commander in the Munitions Control Room. I would be responsible for coordinating deliveries of munitions to the flight line and returning the empty trailers back to the Bomb Dump for new loads.

I thought it would be a welcome change of pace from the boring task of testing missile components and shipping them to Depot for repairs. I agreed to the change and would start next Monday. The name of the special exercise was Red Flag. The Air Force had seen a noticeable decrease in the performance of fighter pilots during the Viet Nam and brought their best pilots and trainers to the desert to address the issue. The mission was to enable pilots to experience real time engagements against the best pilots available. In addition to the USAF, there were pilots and crews from the other military services, and from our NATO allies. The exercises were carried out at the Nellis Range, which measures sixty by one-hundred nauticahl miles.

On Monday afternoon I walked into the Munitions Control Room and was not prepared for the array of communications and lit up boards showing the location e very piece of munitions, trailers, trucks, and equipment needed to carry out the two-week mission ahead of us. I had about three weeks to get acclimated to the different communications and the protocols associated with them. At any given minute hI would be on the landline phone, a radio, and a line of people in front of me, waiting to hand over requests for delivery or pick-up of trailers headed to the flight line or returning to the Bomb Dump. The training was intense, but by the time came for the real thing, I was ready.

The three weeks were a blur of activity. At the end of my eight-hour shift I would be drenched in sweat, my voice would be gone, and at night I would recreate the good and the bad from the day and toss and turn until sleep came. I transferred back to the Missile Shop after Red Flag, and I was proud to have been a party pos of the inaugural mission of a program that has become a prominent part of our nation's ongoing mission to protect and defend our country.

On November 21, 1980, I left home to go to my job as a surveillance operator at the Dunes Hotel and Casino. I had ended my Air Force career and had decided to stay in Las Vegas. I was fortunate to get my position in the Surveillance Room and had just started working the day shift after a couple of years working the four to midnight shift. We had just welcomed our second child in July and the dayshift worked better for us. It was not as busy, but it allowed me to be home at night and give my wife a break. I clocked in right before eight o'clock and was just settling in by checking camera positions and looking at the games in progress, not much was going on.

Suddenly the blare of sirens sounded on the Strip and seemed to get louder with each passing minute. A call from the Pit informed us of a fire happening at the MGM Grand, which was across the street from us. There was a window that led to the roof so a couple of us went out to see what was going on. You could smell the smoke as soon as the window opened, and we could hear more emergency vehicles racing to the scene. Unable to get to the front of the building, we went back inside to get the news. The radio was describing the scene and it was pure chaos. People were leaning out of their windows on the upper floors of the resort and the reporter said he saw a few people jump or fall from the windows. I remembered the outdoor cameras we had and pulled up the frnt camera. I was able to see the south side of the casino and there were indeed people on the ledges. They were waving bed sheets at the rescuers to show them their location. The fire trucks could not reach the higher floors and people were heading to the roof to escape the smoke. I watched as a group of helicopters came into the picture and watched in surprise when I saw the symbol on the aircraft, they were from the Red Flag squadron at Nellis AFB, called into action by the local officials. They performed eighty trips to the rooftop, rescuing hotel guests and tired firefighters. I boasted to the guys in the room about my prior service with them and took my Red Flag patch back the next day to prove it.

In 1989, I moved to Roswell, New Mexico. The Walker AFB had closed years before and the land had been given yo the city. The old base housing was sold to investors, and we eventually bought a house on Billy Mitchell Street. That summer a convoy of trains unloaded a large number of tanks and other armored vehicles at the base. That night I was driving around the base when a military jeep full of MP's stopped me and told me to return home. The insignia on the uniforms said Red Flag, they were an army unit from Fort Bliss and I was able to see the final component of what the exercise had become. The circle was now complete.