On the return trip from Osan Air Base our flight again stopped at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii. My brother Larry met the aircraft when we landed. No he didn't fly in from Travis AFB to greet me. While I was protecting America over in the Far East he had been reassigned to Hickam. This time I stayed sober.(Probably should have gotten plowedconsidering I was returning to get married).Besides that the stopover only lasted a couple of hours.

Luke was my first tour of duty as a family man. During the final months of my Korean tour my bride-to-be had made all the arrangements for the wedding on September 21st 1963. On September 19th I was still in Korea experiencing transportation foul-ups. I finally arrived back in the United States of America the day before the wedding and was met at Tweed New Haven airport by a very anxious woman 20 hours before the actual ceremony. We were married in Stony Creek, Connecticut on the arranged date.

The honeymoon at a remote cabin on a small lake in Connecticut was spectacular. The fact that the rowboat filled with water after about an hour prevented the exploration of the lake and we were forced to spend many hours at indoor activities.

The cross-country driving expedition to Phoenix wasn't quite what we had hoped. The sight-seeing sidetrips were outstanding but the driving experience was a disaster. Our mode of transportation when we departed Branford, Connecticut was a Volkswagon beetle (1955 model I believe) towing a small U-Haul trailer with our possessions. We did great until we reached the Rocky Mountains. The small hills were just too much for that poor little cars engine and it gave out in Fort Morgan, Colorado. Our arrival in Arizona was delayed for several days while we hit up relatives for emergency funds to purchase new means of transportation. We decided on a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon and loaded everything we had into the back and terminated our rental with the U-Haul company.

At Luke I was assigned to the 4510th Combat Support Group of the 56th Tactical Fighter Wing. The entire four years I was stationed at Luke I worked in Base Operations as an aircraft dispatcher. I got to meet dignitaries such as Barry Goldwater, Mercury astronauts; Grissom, Sheppard and White to name a few. Twice while stationed there we attended concerts in Phoenix by Elvis Presley. One was an Easter Sunday show and was the most fabulous concert I ever attended.

The first of our three children was born during this tour of duty at Luke. Douglas was born at St. Joseph's Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona on June 3rd, 1965 at 9:46 a.m. He didn't wish to come out into this crazy world so the doctors were forced to deliver him caesarian section. I contributed to the wealth of Ma Bell that day with a lot of long distance phone calls to relatives and friends.

My two sisters, Kathy and Evie came out from Ohio to visit shortly after Doug's birth. We traveled extensively while they were there. We went to DisneyLand and then headed up to Las Vegas and Hoover Dam. Eventually some of those pictures will find there way to this page.

I can also recall Cathy Mauro, a friend of my wife's came for a visit while we were living in the Twilight Zone; actually an apartment complex called Twilight Manor. One evening she splashed some water and it turned into a full fledge water fight. There was so much water in the apartment we were forced to leave the doors and windows open for a week to dry out. Liz almost got us evicted because of her friend. As usual I had nothing to do with it. My sister Kathy has corrected my CRS memory. The BIG water fight where we actually ran a hose into the apartment for a water WAR was when Kathy and my other sister Evie were here for their visit. That's the one that almost resulted in the eviction. I don't think I was even home but do remember seeing it in the police logs.