Tributes to B-66ers

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12 July 03

Clearwater, FL

Dear Col. Colburn,

Hello, Hello from the land of sunshine and lots of rain. Ha Ha. Helen and I were out yesterday afternoon. She picked me up from my Friday IV treatment and not ten minutes later the sky opened with 3-5 inches of rain in a half hour.

Sure glad we have a van as the streets started to flood and you had to just crawl. Thought it would never stop. When we got home, it let up some and we were able to get into the house.

There is a golf course just across the street, and in no time we had a big lake form. Darned sea gulls flew in looking for worms etc to come to the surface. Sure a thing to see, and Helen has to tell me about it more than I can really see.

The laser surgery went well and no more planned, except to remove cataracts in both eyes. Everything has a gray cloud to it when I try to look at things.

I have a lens from an old B-66 radar scope and use it to read and write. It works pretty well for me. Ha Ha.

Still under hospice care, but at home now with Helen and family. Go twice a week for IV drip that takes 6 to 6-1/2 hours. It goes in my arm and each hour I have to drain fluids out of you know where. By the end of the day, I may drop 2-3 pounds of fluid. I go Tuesday & Friday and my son rides me down at 7 AM [Helen doesn’t not do mornings. Ha Ha]. Helen picks me up at 2 to 2:15 for the ride home.

The medication in the IV pulls the fluid from around my heart and body, and has let me stay out of the hospital since 14 April.

How long I have left is up to the Good Lord. My heart is only pumping 20% and hard for kidneys to pull the fluid out. Without the IV drip, I do not think I would have lasted this long.

Helen and I just take one day as it comes. I thank God for it in the AM and at bedtime.

Col. Ned, I had my son make up three B-66 association license plates for me – 1 for General Autery [he was my admin officer in the old 9th squadron as a Captain. He keeps in touch with me as do you, and Jim Milam]. You will never know how much your prayers and especially your friendship to me has meant. Helen and I want to say thanks.

Hope you like the B-66 photo and only need to frame it your den. I have a 15” x 20” shot of a B-66 landing. Col Allen “Spider” Webb gave it to me when I left Shaw. He and I went back many years, and my daughter went to high school with his daughter back at Shaw.

We have stayed in touch by phone or E-Mail for years. Yesterday, his daughter answered a letter I sent when I could not reach her dad at the assisted living home he was in in North Carolina. I found out the Col. Had passed away 19 Dec 02. He was laid to rest alongside his wife in Panama City, FL.

I learned so much about life from Col Webb. He was my mentor, and in all the years I was around him, I never heard him say a cuss word. If he got made, you would see his glasses drop to the tip of his nose. You just left him alone and the matter was taken care of. You never knew what had happened or how he solved things, but he did.

When he took over the 440th CCRG at Shaw, there was to be a Major assigned. The Major got delayed in his move to Shaw, and I was appointed Group Sergeant Major. It was not long until Col. Webb had me doing the work that the Major was to do. He put that much trust in me and would explain every detail of things I was to do.

My last APR was delivered by Col. Webb, and he had the DO of Wing Ops, the DCS [Col Light] and the Wing CO [Col. Vic Cabas] all endorse that APR.

That APR is what got me promoted and a Legion of Merit from 9th AF CO.

Those officers that endorsed my APR, Col Light [I used to fly with him in Japan as a Captain or Major], Col Earl Butts was my Squadron CO of 12th TRS in Japan, and Col Cabas had used me on special TDYs. Now what more could a guy ask for? Ha Ha

Well, Ned, time to close.

Again my many thanks for your get well wishes, and especially your friendship. Keep Helen and I in your prayers.

Warmest Regards!

John Madrishin Sr

PS: Helen checks my E-Mails. I cannot see the screen.

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Dear John,

Just received the photo and beautiful B-66 Association car license plate tag -- and want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thanks so much for the time and effort you went to in writing such a beautiful letter, with tribute to those who meant so much to you throughout your Air Force career, and now in your lingering and still vivid recollection of times long since past.

Let me tell you this, my dear friend, that the Colonels and Generals valued and cherished the workers in the AF like you who made things happen and whose loyalty extended not only to those above you, but equally to those under you.

Nowhere else in life have I experienced such a bond of fellowship, loyalty and concern with people truly putting the welfare of others above their own interests.

Such simply doesn't exist elsewhere -- and certainly not in Fortune 500 companies where I have first-hand experience and comparison of the differences between military and civilian life in working for General Motors and Northrop, and in Saudi Arabian Airlines where we had pilots and flight engineers from 75 different countries, with most of them defining "competition" as a twisted knife in the back, rather than what most Americans consider as healthy competition such as found in the Air Force.

Without question, there isn't an officer or enlisted man who wouldn't stand at attention and salute you for the Old Soldier Airman that you are. While it bothers me to have politicians and the news media refer to Sailors and Marines as Soldiers, for some reason we AF types like to speak of ourselves as Old Soldiers. What's this quirk called -- an oxymoron?

John, your letter and gifts brought tears to my eyes -- and helplessness in wishing I could somehow help bear your burdens, relieve some of your suffering, or otherwise do something to make life better for you.

All I can do is let you know of my concern and affection for you – and to increase my prayer petitions to God Almighty to be with you, to place His Healing Hand upon you, and to meet all your needs.

Best wishes to Helen [wives were the True Backbone of the Air Force], to your son and all your other family members who love you so much.

What does your son do? How does he make all these neat things? I’d like to know more about him and what he does, since it may fit into areas of what we do as Conquest Alliance Group. The B-66 Association needs to place an order with him for the car tags.

As I look at the picture on the wall of EB-66C 459, I imagine you sitting in the Gunner’s Seat for over 6 months of your life that was spent in the air, not on the ground. How do you truthfully state your real age in year’s on earth, when so much of it wasn’t on terra firma at all? You gotta be honest in your answer -- and deduct 6 months from how old you claim you are!

I tried but failed to adequately convey to my wife, what it is like to be strapped in an ejection seat for hours on end [literally on your suffering rear end], helmet and oxygen mask on, circulation cut-off, body parts aching and places yearning to be scratched that you couldn’t reach, the sweat-soaked hair under your arms being twisted and pulled from your arm pits every time you reached here and there for this and that, having to eat a candy bar or cookie instead of a Full Fledged Flight Lunch, at the most getting a sip of water – and then the dilemma of how to rid your bladder of the pressure and contents therein with only a Plastic Pee Bottle to hopefully vent so the yellow stuff didn’t get all over you and the cockpit – or the relief tubes on the backs of the ejection seats in the ECM compartment where even a well-endowed EWO came up about 5 feet short of being able to access such creature comfort.

Such air-to-air hook-ups were impossible when strapped in your ejection seat -- and I believe I can safely say that when the B-66s were scrapped and turned into Budweiser beer cans that each and every relief tube in the ECM compartment was in "As New Condition" from never having been used. I'd like to get my hands around the throat of the hermaphrodite that came up with that nonsense -- but there I go again in typical form, being politically incorrect and insensitive. I say hemaphrodite because it had to be somebody who got short-changed somewhere to take their revenge in such fashion.

Back to your plight in the Gunner’s Seat that wasn’t adjustable fore and aft – where you spent over 6 months of your life enduring the misery thereof. Sort of makes Attraction/Repulsion meaningful. Fortunately, the love of flying was more attractive than the repulsion of what it is really like to fly in a tactical aircraft with ejection seats.

For sure, you will remember the old adage that "My fear of flying is only exceeded by my greed for money". That extra $50 Hazardous Duty Pay wasn't the real reason guys like you, Bob Foster and Dave Rilling endured the B-66 -- and put up with the likes of people like me!

I mentioned literally physically bumping into Bob Foster outside the west gate at Shaw when I was TDY from Sewart AFB for a flight check in the B-66 and Bob was TDY from somewhere in SAC where he went as a B-52 gunner after the guns were removed from the B-66. Bob told me the 15-20 foot oscillations and turbulence in the tail of the B-52 had split open 2 hard hat helmets -- and he never got air sick!

Bob and I went into the nearest beer joint alongside the perimeter fence and had a beer -- or 2 or 3 -- or who knows how many in reality and true Air Force tradition?

Who would ever have known Bob would be killed in Vietnam in hand to hand combat after his gunship was shot down? I'd like to buy him a whole case or keg of beer right now, but can't. We need to take advantage of opportunities when they are there, instead of later regretting that we didn't.

Anyway, I just want you to know that you brought tears to my eyes, that you are in my continued thoughts and prayers – and how much I appreciate the gifts you sent me.

How can I reciprocate in like manner since I have no idea what your material needs are that are unfulfilled?

The only thing I can do is pray that your physical, spiritual and eternal needs be met by God Almighty who created you for a purpose, who loves you as dearly as His Only Begotten Son and who has a crown of righteousness and reward waiting for you in heaven, that will make your Legion of Merit insignificant by comparison.

With Best Wishes & Prayers for God’s Blessings,

Ned