Rockville, Iceland
Entering the 932nd Aircraft Control & Warning Squadron Facility, Rockville, Iceland
Shortly after arriving in Iceland, I was told my assignment had been changed and I was going to Rockville. I was not prepared. The main base at Keflavik had been Nordic sparse but it was not too different than a base you might find in the U.S. Rockville, on the other hand, was right out of a movie. In fact, when I was coming through the gate next to the sign in the image above, I almost laughed out loud. I was reminded of the M.A.S.H. set…gravel and dirt roads, no tents but metal quonset huts, rocks painted white to mark the boundaries of the few streets on base since the streets looked just like the “lawns.” This was to be my home for a year.
Rockville Barracks
I don’t remember how many people were there, about a hundred I think. The white domes were the radar antennae, one for azimuth, one for altitude. The buildings were mostly barracks. There was a chow hall that was outstanding, an all ranks club, and a building just for the officers called the RORO (Reserve Officers Recreation Organization). There was one barracks for officers, the rest for enlisted. There was an admin building for the boss and his staff, an operations building between the two domes, a gymnasium and various warehouses for storing crap. All the sidewalks had roped stakes along the sides for use in blizzards.
The barracks were cold in the winter. Very cold. The wind would blow through them because they weren’t sealed where the wall met the concrete base of the building. As the snow fell and melted at the base of the wall, it iced over and became the barrier required to keep us warm. Actually, that’s kind of funny, iced over to stay warm.
Operations in Rockville
No such thing as a computer in Rockville. The board you see is clear plexi with the center on Rockville, an outline of the island and mileage bands. When we had any traffic, a tech would plot the target FROM BEHIND the plexiglass with grease pencil. They had to know how to write backwards. We had three tiers of “scopes,” surveillance, weapons, and command (Weapons Assignment Officer-WAO). In those days, the Soviet TU-95 bombers would take off from Murmansk and head for either Cuba or a base in Africa. They had to fly through the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap. We would get notified by the Norwegians we had “Bears” (TU-95s) on the way. The USAF didn’t have E-3A AWACS then, they had a modified EC-121, or ADOLA. The EC-121 was an old, old airplane but was the first to have airborne surveillance radar. But it was SLOW. ADOLA would fly up northeast of Iceland and wait for the Soviets to show up. When they did, they’d notify us and we’d scramble the F-4Cs that were on alert at Keflavik.
WAO scope and command desk, Ops in Rockville
The Ops center was operational 24x7 every day of the year. There were three crews and we worked three shifts. I don’t remember the exact hours but it seemed fair for people on “remote” tour. I think they were 12 hour shifts on some sort of 4-3-3 rotation. Too long ago. We had enough time to drink and be merry, that’s for sure. For a while, I went to the gym most nights with my buddy Rocky. I discovered dating again and met women from Iceland and the U.S. Many evenings, the officers would go to the RORO and watch a movie. Movie releases came to us on 16mm film and we had a projector that would play the sound as well as project. None of them were current releases but they were fun to watch. I can remember when someone new came and asked if we’d ever seen “Star Wars.” We were clueless.
Softball Field, Rockville, Iceland
The image above is from just outside the left field fence of the softball field. I don’t recall that anyone played when I was there. The field was not very level…lots of holes and rocks. The grass was not thick and the pain of falling would have been significant if you were running. The gym is in the background.
The main sport of Rockville was drinking. The all ranks club drinks were fifty cents, maybe a quarter. They used to have a sign behind the bar that said, “YCHJCYAQFTJ.” People would ask the bartender (another GI) what it meant and he replied, “Your curiosity has just cost you a quarter for the jukebox.” And we’d pay.
The sport of drinking can lead to all sorts of stupid activities. I remember one night my buddy Rocky was telling folks about his time as a paratrooper. He convinced them that for heights of less than twenty feet or so, you really didn’t need a parachute…it was all about how you landed! The PLF, parachute landing fall. After liquid encouragement, he took several of them to one of the barracks where they practiced PLFs from the bed to the floor. And then from a table to the floor. Then he got a ladder and they were headed to the roof of the barracks. I said, “Whooaaa, big fella!” And he went home to bed.
Life there was crazy and I admit that perhaps a little out of control at times. They didn’t have a barber on base…the commander arranged for a bus to the main base each Saturday so people could get haircuts. I refused. I had a car. But I have always hated haircuts. The commander just shook his head. Towards the end of my tour, the fighter squadron commander told me that if I didn’t get my haircut, I couldn’t fly anymore. I told him, “Cool, I won’t fly.”
My year long tour wasn’t actually a year long. I was selected to be in the William Tell Competition in Florida and was gone for a month. I went with my buddy Rock to Kitzbuhel, Austria for two weeks to learn how to ski. I went to the U.S. for two weeks for a date. I went to Minneapolis at the end of the date to see my dad who was in the University hospital. And since I could leave anytime in July, I found a flight that left 10 minutes after midnight on 1 July and got on that flight back to the U.S.
The irony. I enjoyed my time in Iceland. I asked the USAF if I could stay another year. They giggled and made me a Forward Air Controller in Austin, TX. Hah.