I was a Security Policeman stationed at RAF Lakenheath, England 1968-1971. Tough boring duty, but necessary. To all the sky cops out there past and present, thank you for your service. You are the best at what must be done to protect AF assets and crews. Go bless

I was terribly upset when I was originally assigned to fly the B-52 out of pilot training in 1980 (I wanted to fly transports), although fate being as it may, it didn’t take me long to realize how fortunate I was to had been assigned to fly the B-52. I have so many fond memories as a co-pilot, aircraft commander, and instructor pilot in the B-52. It was (and is) an amazing aircraft.

As a marine grunt in Vietnam operating along the DMZ I saw the B-52s in action a number of times. Not that I ever actually saw the planes, we would just suddenly see these enormous dust clouds of explosions in the distance across the DMZ. We would see the explosions first, then there would be the sound of the falling bombs (not a whistling sound more like a sort of rushing sound, hard to describe). Even saw one of the strikes at night and the light of the explosions was almost blinding.

When I was a kid in the sixties, radio stations had deejays. I was listening one day and the deejay announced that aB52 was about to take off from the local airport and listed a few cities along its flight path and gave approximate time when it would fly over. My friend and I went outside and got to see it. What a sight! It wasn’t that high up yet so we could clearly see and hear what it was. It was cool to see!