Interview with L. Reid Ivins

Loraine Reid Ivins and his wife, Ana Marie "Nani" Pertierra Ivins, were interviewed on April 9th and 16th, 2019 by Randall J. Bunn at the Southern Utah Veterans Home in Ivins, Washington County, Utah. He related his military experiences.

RB:I asked a few questions before we got started and I wondered if you could kinda tell me a little bit more. When were you born?

LI:I was born July 15, 1930.

RB:And where was that?

LI:In Ely, Nevada.

RB:Okay. And your parents were whom?

LI:My parents were Loraine Redd Ivins and Mildred Reid.

RB:And you were one of three children. Is that right?

LI:That's right.

RB:So, tell me about your growing up experience.

LI:Well, it was pretty good. My dad was a school teacher and he was principal of 00:01:00a high school in Lund, Nevada, and then he took a job with a high school in Moapa Valley [Nevada] and he was a principal there for a couple of years. But he didn't like that. He coached all the ball games and he also ran the Future Farmers of America [for] all the high school farmers up there who could, [which was a] big part of school.

RB:Alright. Let me shut the door real quick so you can focus here. Tell me, what 00:02:00did he teach in high school?

LI:He taught virtually everything.

RB:Oh.

LI:He taught athletics, physical education. I took a class of mathematics from him, so he did that as well. But, really, he could teach just about anything. Mainly he did the shop. He made a little tractor in the shop there. We went around and called it our jeep.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:We could go over the hills and places with that jeep that he made in the shop. He coached all the athletic things, basketball, football, track, and one 00:03:00year we even had a baseball team.

RB:Is that right? So, did you do sports in high school?

LI:Oh, yeah.

RB:What did you do?

LI:I did a little bit of all [of them]. I played all, we had so few students. We had a program of six-man football.

RB:Six-man football? Yep. [Laughter.]

LI:And five-man basketball.

RB:[Laughter.] Alright.

LI:My dad, one year, won the state championship in both football and basketball, of the teams.

RB:Wow!

LI:And from his start ─

RB:I am doing an interview of Mr. Ivins, here.

[INTERRUPTION. END OF RECORDING ONE.]

RB:I was going to ask you some of those things about ─ In 1938 they built 00:04:00Boulder Dam [Nevada] and they made Lake Mead [Nevada], and the little town of St. Thomas [Nevada] was out there.

LI:It got gobbled up by ─

RB:Yeah, became an underwater town. Do you remember that at all?

LI:I absolutely do.

RB:Yeah.

LI:My dad was quite a golfer. He built a golf course right next to St. Thomas.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And his golf course got wiped out by the lake too.

RB:Yeah. I've seen some pictures and I actually went down, since the drought over the years the town had uncovered again.

LI:You can see a little bit of the streets.

RB:A little bit of the streets and the foundations and, I think, the steps to the schoolhouse and some things are available to see now.

LI:One thing my dad─ [he] bought the playground equipment, they had a slide [gesturing to show a play slide] ─

RB:Right.

LI:and swings and things, rings, and I could get that Wonder Bread waxed [paper] and you'd fly between those.

RB:Really? [Laughter.] You mean he bought the playground equipment from St. Thomas before they even flooded it?

LI:Yes, he set it up in our backyard.

RB:Wow! That's great! [Laughter.] So you have a little bit of history in your backyard. I was curious about that.

Tell me about, maybe, the early memories you have. What's the earliest memory you have?

LI:Well, I have some, the earliest, really, memory that I have, I think, was my third birthdate.

RB:Right.

LI:In 1933, I had a birthday at my Grandmother [Della Sarah Lancaster Redd] Ivins' lawn. My sister [Nancy Ivins Shelton] and cousin came with London Bridges.

RB:Oh, yeah? [Laughter.]

LI:"Ring-Around-The-Roses," they sang. I have an older cousin named Sheldon Reid who said, "Okay. Now we are going to play some grown-up games, Cowboys and 00:07:00Indians on the lawn."

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:Because she had gardens and lawns and things. And the rule was, if you got shot you had to either─ my Grandmother Ivins had great big sun flowers.

RB:Right.

LI:Giant sun flowers. You had to eat a sunflower seed then you could go back into battle with the Indians.

RB:[Laughter.] That's great! So that was in Ely. Right?

LI:No, that was in Lund.

RB:Oh, in Lund. That's where your grandparents on the Reid side were?

LI:Actually, both of them were. That's where they were sent out by Brigham Young to pioneer. The reason they did, The Church [of Jesus Christ of Latter-day 00:08:00Saints], when they lost everything to the Federal Government ─

RB:Right.

LI:they got a few things back. One of them was a big ranch out in White River Valley in Nevada, south of Ely.

RB:Oh, I see. Okay.

LI:So that's how they got out there. They all had quite a bit of land that they could ─

RB:Did they use it for ranching, mainly? Or what?

LI:Ranching and a lot of cattle and dairy farms. They cleared a lot of alfalfa and grains.

RB:Right.

LI:Anyhow, I remember that third birthday.

RB:Okay. Well, let me ask you this: you were born in 1930 and the stock market crash happened in 1929. So we were in the middle of The Great Depression.

LI:Well, that's true, but I think because of growing up in the Depression, our class was the largest class in every school I went into, because they were relatively wealthy coming in 1929 and lots of children.

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:So we always had bigger classes than any of the others in the school. I remember my dad and my granddad [William Howard Ivins]. My dad had bought a─ a 00:10:00trip he took the boys back East to [have their] stock judged.

RB:Right.

LI:Went up to Detroit [Michigan] and got a new Pontiac and brought it back.

RB:[Laughter.] Drove it back! Wow!

LI:He also had a two-door Model-A Ford.

RB:Okay.

LI:And one of the things I really remember about my grandfather and dad, we were going out to get pine nuts. Around that area there were a lot of great pine nut harvesting. So anyway, we were going out to get pine nuts and I was in the back and my dad and granddad were in the front. And the right rear wheel came off. [gesturing how the wheel came off.]

RB:Oh, no!

LI:Just went out through the brush. Dad went out there and got it and brought 00:11:00her back and put it back on the thing, and we went [on our way]. It was August. In July, we moved from Lund to [Moapa] Valley and it was too early for the things to be ripe, so we got there and we got green pine nut [cones].

RB:Oh, right.

LI:Then we brought them back, and dad and grandad made a big bonfire and we put those around, and they could get warm and hot, and they split open.

RB:Oh.

LI:And the pine nuts were really so good. Even in August, when the harvest 00:12:00probably wouldn't be until September or November.

RB:Oh, I see. Did he get them out?

So your father was a schoolteacher when you were born?

LI:[Yes.]

RB:So he probably then had a regular salary where a lot of people didn't have that coming in.

LI:Yeah.

RB:When you were living in Ely and then later on in ─

LI:Not Ely, it was Lund.

RB: Lund, I'm sorry.

LI:Thirty-five miles from [Ely].

RB:And then, later in Overton [Nevada], did your parents have a garden, or did they grow food and stuff?

LI:Oh, yeah, in fact Dad always had another career besides teaching.

RB:Oh?

LI:We had about a 300-acre farm over in Moapa Valley. That took a lot of work to run that thing. We had cows. At first, he had, I think, three teams of horses 00:13:00that he bought to do the plowing and things on the farm. One summer they all died of what they called brain fever.

RB:Oh, really?

LI:Lost all the horses to brain fever. They said that was the horse flies, deer flies ─

[INTERRUPTION.]

RB:So, the horses died, that you were using to pull the equipment ─

LI:To run the farm.

RB:Yeah. 'Cause you had to grow hay for the cattle.

LI:Yes, the cattle.

RB:To harvest that, didn't you have some sort of a machine that the horses pulled? Before tractors, anyway, to cut the ─

LI:Yeah,

RB:What did they call that? A, there's a name for that kind of a machine.

LI:Mower, mowing machine.

RB:Yeah.

LI:And a rake to rake it in piles.

RB:Right.

LI:Then they'd go along and throw those piles on a wagon. And the wagon came and, Dad had a big derrick, u-shaped derrick, that ─

RB:Yeah.

LI:There usually would be two catches on a wagon that would lift it up, the hay 00:15:00would be taken up onto the haystack. They'd have guys up there sorted it out, made sure that it was solid.

RB:Right, didn't blow away or fall off. Did you store, did you bale it, also?

LI:Yeah, later, we did bale it. But earlier it was ─

RB:Yeah.

LI:loose.

RB:Yeah, right.

LI:In fact, [my dad] he built a thing that sat on the side of the wagon that picked up the bales and run it up the thing. The guy was stacking it up there on the wagon. One year, I think it was a project of his farmers, his student 00:16:00farmers, he had about 1,000 turkeys.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:And he had them in the pen where the hay stack was, and they just milled around. One time, Dad and I went up and slept overnight on top of a hay stack because they were thinking that either people or coyotes or something were stealing some of their turkeys.

RB:Oh, right. [Laughter.]

LI:But anyway, ─

[INTERRUPTION. END OF RECORDING TWO.]

RB:So, you were telling me about the 1,000 turkeys that your father had.

LI:He had all the boys there. The Future Farmers─ he taught how to kill them. They put something down their throat, cut their, something they did anyway.

RB:Like their spinal cord or somethin'?

LI:And then they would hang them all up and get them ready. They got them done. They gut them. They, they prepare them for market. And then they go to Las Vegas 00:18:00[Nevada] and sell their turkeys. The Future Farmers had a little pile of money they could use for their trips.

RB:Right, for competition.

LI:They won state a number of times, but the one real one was the national championship.

RB:Oh, for the stock, you said. In Kansas City [Kansas].

LI:It took money to get there.

RB:That's right. That's great! Did you ever get involved in Future Farmers [of America]?

LI:I did to a certain extent, but not to a great deal.

RB:Yeah.

LI:I was more of a 4-H guy, and she, and [Boy] Scouts.

RB:What was 4-H about?

LI:It was kind of a junior FFA [Future Farmers of America]. Kids that would 00:19:00learn to raise a cow or something, take it to ─

RB:The county fair or something?

LI:the fair and have the stock judged.

RB:Right.

LI:If you had a really good one, they'd pay top price for it.

RB:Yeah. Were Future Farmers of America, that was the next step up?

LI:Yeah.

RB:I see. And you were in [the] Boy Scouts [of America], you said?

LI:Yep.

RB:What was the highest rank that you achieved in scouting?

LI:Life Scout.

RB:Life Scout.

LI:I needed three merit-badges for Eagle [rank]─ cooking, camping, and civics.

RB:Ah! [Laughter.]

LI:But we moved to Salt Lake [City, Salt Lake County, Utah] and I never did get to go to scouts anymore.

RB:I see.

LIAfter we moved to Salt Lake [City].

RB:So, you had gone to three high schools, you said, Moapa [High School], and 00:20:00then Grant [High School]. So, was Moapa a four-year high school?

LI:It was, but in order to be a Class A high school, you had to have seventy-five students ─

RB:Right.

LI:or more. And they were just Class B.

RB:Oh.

LI:That's why they had to play six-man football some years.

RB:Right. [Laughter.] So you moved to Salt Lake [City] and you went to Granite High [School]?

LI:[Yes.]

RB:What year was that? Do you remember?

LI:Yeah, it was 1945.

RB:1945, so what grade were you in?

LI:I was a sophomore.

RB:A sophomore, okay. So, that was a big change coming from southern Nevada.

LI:That was a real shocker.

RB:Small town into the big city, at that point in the 1940s.

Do you remember much about World War Two? In that period?

LI:I don't remember much. My dad had his military training, so I was especially 00:21:00interested in all the news.

RB:'Cause your father served in World War One? Is that right?

LI:Yep.

RB:In France?

LI:In France.

RB:So, he followed the news. Did you keep up on it too?

LI:Pretty much, yeah.

RB:Yeah. So by the time you moved, the war had ended, I guess.

LI:It ended in 1945.

RB:Right.

LI:Let's see, we moved in Thanksgiving in 1945.

RB:Okay.

LI:I think there were still some things going on.

RB:Sure, kinda transitioning. So what was that then, like living in Salt Lake City compared to growing up in Overton.

LI:It was just cultural shock.

RB:Yeah. Why did your father move?

LI:He had a job, like I say, he always had two things. One, he was a insurance executive for Pacific Mutual.

RB:Okay.

LI:And the general agent moved to Salt Lake [City].

RB:I see. So, did he teach school again up Salt Lake [City]?

LI:He did later. He found out that the insurance thing was not doing too good. In fact, he worked teaching and coaching at Granite High School.

RB:Okay.

LI:By then, I had already moved to East High School [in Salt Lake City].

RB:So, why did you go to East High School from Granite? That's where you lived?

LI:Well, because my folks bought a home three blocks from East High School.

RB:I see, that makes sense.

LI:[Inaudible] In fact, it was only two blocks from President [Russell M.] Nelson's family home. [President Nelson became President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2018.]

RB:Oh, is that right? Okay.

LI:His little brother, Bob, was my first tennis partner [when] I played in a tennis tournament.

RB:[Laughter.] Is that right? So, you spent two years at East [High School]?

LI:Yeah.

RB:Okay. What kind of things did you get involved in, then, [at] East High School?

LI:I was a varsity basketball player.

RB:Okay. Very good.

LI:In fact, I was all-conference.

RB:Wow! So they had a good team?

LI:We lost the state championship by two points.

RB:On no! Really? So, you went to the state championship that year? Was that your senior year?

LI:Yeah.

RB:Yeah? Were you a good student in high school, would you say?

LI:I was pretty good. I wasn't great. I wasn't terrible, either.

RB:Yeah. Did you like school?

LI:I did. I had some great, great teachers.

RB:And so, you graduated, you said, in the class of 1948?

LI:Yeah.

RB:From East High [School]?

LI:That's right.

RB:What did you do after you graduated [from] high school?

LI:I worked summers at the, the first summer I worked for Petty Motor [Company].

RB:Petty Motor?

LI:Petty Motor.

RB:Okay.

LI:The Ford dealership. Their basic place was in Sugar House, but they had a satellite place downtown in Salt Lake City. The first job I had, I worked in the shop that covered the seats.

RB:Oh, upholstery?

LI:Upholstery. And did the canvas for convertibles.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:That was really my first job.

[INTERRUPTION.]

RB:So, do you remember how much you earned in your job, when you started?

LI:I don't know, I think probably about $.50 an hour.

RB:[Laughter.] Yeah. Those were the days! Did you go to college after you finished high school?

LI:I did.

RB:Where did you go?

LI:University of Utah [Salt Lake City, Utah].

RB:Okay.

LI:It was just down the street.

RB:What did you think about college? Did you enjoy that experience?

LI:I really did. I loved everything about the University of Utah.

RB:Yeah. Now you said you joined a fraternity. Is that right? Which one?

LI:Sigma Chi.

RB:Sigma Chi. And did you live with the other fraternity brothers together?

LI:No, I lived at home.

RB:You lived at home.

LI:Just commuted.

RB:Sure. Okay. So you went two years there, and that would have taken you through to about 1950. What happened after that?

LI:Well, let's see. 1950 is when the Korean War [Conflict] started. I had a job at Standard Stations, Incorporated.

RB:What was that? A job with who?

LI:Standard Stations, Incorporated.

RB:What was that?

LI:It was part of Standard Oil.

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:There was a part of it that ran, actually ran gas stations.

RB:Okay, I see. You were working ─

LI:They had a gas station, a couple of them in Salt Lake [City], and they had one in Moab [Grand County, Utah], and they had one at the north rim of the Grand Canyon [National Park, Arizona].

RB:Oh?

LI:So, that summer I worked at the Grand Canyon.

RB:Is that right? Okay. By the north ─?

LI:The north rim.

RB:North rim? Okay.

LI:That was a great assignment. When I got back in school, went by the student union and there was an [United States] Army Air Force major with a little desk there. He said, "Come on over here. Take a look at this." I said, "What do you 00:28:00want?" "Pass this test and I'll see you at Randolph Field [Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas] at the first of the year."

RB:Yeah. [Laughter.]

LI:I said─ I guess I had a Sigma Chi pin on. He said, "You know, I used to be president of that fraternity when I was in school here several years ago."

RB:Oh, is that right?

LI:Anyway, he, I took his little test. He said, "That's the highest score I've ever seen on this test."

RB:[Laughter.] Okay.

LI:"And I'll see you at Randolph the first of the year." But it didn't turn out that way. The Air Force, I guess they had jammed up students. I know they had at least one Sigma Chi who was at Randolph at the time.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:In fact, he was killed in an accident at Randolph and we had his funeral. He was from Davis County [Utah] and we had his funeral in a fraternity motif.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:Anyway, the Air Force sent me a letter and said, "You qualified for flight school, but there are no openings. You'll have to enlist in the Air Force or your position will no longer be available."

RB:Oh, right.

LI:So, the [United States] Army was trying [to] draft me in the Army at the same time.

RB:Oh.

LI:So, I [was at] Fort Douglas [Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah]. I had 00:30:00to go see a Army colonel to see if they were going to make me go to the Army draft, or I could, I could go to the Air Force.

RB:Right.

LI:And I guess I convinced them that it would be more useful to the country if I was a pilot rather than a ─

RB:Infantry, a solider.

LI:I guess I convinced him because he gave me the okay to let the Air Force know that I was available. I had to enlist in the Air Force to hold that position.

RB: Right.

LI:So I did, and I had four guys that were going into the Air Force. One was Bob Holland [my fraternity] brother; we went in together.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:I had the highest score on the entrance exam, so I was in charge of the four guys.

RB:Oh, yeah? [Laughter.]

LI:We took the D&RG [Denver and Rio Grande Railroad] up to Denver [Colorado], over and down to ─

RB:What was that?

LI:D&RG, Denver and Rio Grande.

RB:Oh, the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad? Okay. Is that why the station is called the Rio Grande Station in Salt Lake [City]? I never thought of that.

LI:That was a home station.

RB:So, you took the train to San Antonio?

LI:Yes. They had a bus there to meet us. Actually, there were quite a few others from other sections of the country. We just about filled up a bus. They took us out to Lackland [Air Force Base, Texas] and put us in a row barracks and said, "Okay, you're part of the Army, or Air Force now."

RB:Air Force.

LI:The Air Force didn't become separate until 1947.

RB:That's right.

LI:So everything was still Army.

RB:Okay, so that makes sense.

LI:We had the Army marching and things like that. The first weapon I ever qualified on was a M-1 carbine.

RB:Oh! Okay. Was that a World War Two era rifle?

LI:Yeah, and they used it in Korea, too.

RB:Okay. And did they call you an airman or a private?

LI:They called, I think, mainly an airman, but we were "private milk glasses."

RB:Okay, right.

LI:But we graduated from that to private first class.

RB:Okay. Private first class, they called it.

LI:That was my first ─

RB:You had a, your first stripe. [Laughter.]

LI:It went from there, and it just so happened that we took a little bit of a vacation after basic training and went down to the Gulf Coast, south of ─

RB:By Mobile [Alabama]?

LI:Houston [Texas].

RB:Oh, south of Houston, yeah.

LI:Galveston [Texas].

RB:Galveston, sure.

LI:Came back and found our way back to Lackland, and when we got back there they already had our cadet orders cut. So [all we had to do was] pick up the orders, 00:34:00got a ride out to Hondo, Texas which is another thirty-five miles west of Lackland.

RB:Okay. So you qualified to be an aviation cadet?

LI:Yep.

RB:Great!

LI:Hondo was closer to San Antonio and Randolph [Air Force Base]. We inherited a lot of the Randolph stuff. It didn't go to Randolph, which was the original Air Force flying school.

RB:Right.

LI:So they started a new school right at Hondo. Flying those yellow T-6 Texans [aircraft].

RB:Okay. [Laughter.] So, when you went to basic training as a cadet for air 00:35:00training, was it ground school or ─?

LI:This was a ground school.

RB:What did they, like basic air training or something like that?

LI:Oh, no, basic was just being an initial soldier.

RB:Right. But I mean, if you had gone in as a cadet, there were probably stages in your [training].

LI:Yeah, there was a lot, a little bit about being an officer.

RB:Okay. Alright. Sure.

LI:A little taste of academics, flight school and what keeps an airplane up.

RB:And so, you also got to go up in, you said, a T-6?

LI:Yes. We got a little over 100 hours in a T-6 ─

RB:Okay.

LI:in that section of training. Then we graduated and they gave me the option of going to multi-engine training or single-engine training. I selected single-engine.

RB:Okay.

LI:So they sent us to Big Springs, Texas for ─

RB:Big Springs, Texas for single-engine flight training?

LI:Yep. The first airplane was flying T-28s.

RB:Okay.

LI:Then the last part, T-33s.

RB:Alright.

LI:We got into jets then.

RB:Oh. Alright.

LI:And graduated with our commission and wings.

RB:Alright, so you were a second-lieutenant at that point. When was that? Do you remember?

LI:Yeah, it was September 13, 1955.

RB:1955. Okay. So the Korean [Conflict] was ended?

LI:No, no. Not yet.

RB:So, 1955 ─?

LI:We got married in 1955.

RB:You were in the Philippines in 1955.

AI:We met in 1954.

RB:So, did you go to the Korean, Korea?

LI:I did.

RB:You did.

AI:You went on 51 missions?

RB:Fifty-three. Fifty-three. So, if Korea ended in 1953, you, let me see, if I get the timing right, you finished up your second year at University of Utah 1950 and then, is that right?

LI:1950.

RB:Then the war broke out in 1950, and so you went to basic training, I'm guessing, in late 1950 and then got in, like 1951, was going through flight training?

LI:1952.

AI:So, maybe September 1951?

LI:I didn't graduate from high school until 1948.

RB:Right. Then two years at the university?

LI:[Yes.]

RB:So 1950? Then you got into the military. So, it doesn't really matter on the dates, so you became commissioned as a second lieutenant. Did they send you to, then to specific or advanced flight training?

LI:That was advanced flight training.

RB:The multi-engine, that was the advanced? Oh?

LI:T-33 jets.

RB:Okay, that was the aircraft that you trained on? So, what were you going to fly, then, in the military?

LI:I went to Nellis [Air Force Base] for the F-86 Sabers.

RB:Okay, yeah. And so that was the first regular squadron that you belonged to, I guess.

LI:It was [for] training squadrons, not combat squadrons.

RB:Oh. Still training? Okay, so you were training on ─

LI:Yes. F-86 Sabers.

RB:And that's a single-engine?

LI:Yeah, single-engine F-86 -As and -Es.

RB:Okay.

LI:But by the time we graduated, they had F-86 -Fs. The -Fs were the ones we got in Korea.

RB:Who made those? Do you recall?

LI:Sure, North American.

RB:Okay, right. Was that a good plane?

LI:Beautiful!

RB:Okay.

LI:It's hard to express. The airplane was just part of you. You thought, "I want to do a split S[???]" and the airplane would do it.

RB:Oh, wow!

LI:You didn't have to consciously make it do it. It was like a trained dog.

RB:So, it was like you and the aircraft were one and the same.

LI:And then we got to fly with some of the aces that were just coming back from Korea.

RB:Oh, okay.

LI:Like Iven [Carl] Kincheloe. Those guys were really killers.

RB:Yeah. Refresh my memory. An F-86 F, it's one pilot?

LI:One.

RB:Okay, so single pilot aircraft.

LI:Navigator, bombardier, gunner.

RB:And were they bombers as well as fighters?

LI:Well, only, we were the first ones. We were going through the ones, the air-to-air group of the 96th squadron at Nellis [Air Force Base]. They broke us out about halfway through and sent us to the 94th squadron.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:In the 94th squadron they were emphasizing bombing.

RB:Okay.

LI:And ground attack.

RB:Right.

LI:So, when we got to Korea there were two wings of, we called MIG [Soviet fighter planes] killers, the 4th and 51st wings; and two wings of bombers, the 8th and the 18th.

RB:Okay.

LI:I was in the 18th.

RB:When you say bombs, like in World War Two they would just drop these bombs, did you use missiles yet, or no?

LI:We had rockets.

RB:Rockets.

LI:Basically, we carried either two 500- or 2,000-pound bombs.

RB:Okay. And you would fly over a target and just release it.

LI:Dive-bomb it.

RB:So you had to be concentrating on flying, but also on the target and then drop it at the right point. And also be aware of anti-aircraft artillery. There was a lot to be in charge of [laughter] and navigate. You flew in formation with other ─

LI:Basically, you had what they called the finger four. Lead, who was the shooter in air to air and his number two man was to protect his behind, back up. Number three was the second in command and he had a wingman, too.

RB:Okay.

LI:So they split up as two always─ a wingman and a─

RB:Okay, right. A person, a lead, and then a follower.

LI: Wingmen were not followers.

RB:Yeah, wingmen. So, how did you communicate back and forth?

LI:Radio.

RB:Radio.

LI:We had good radios. First, VHF and then UHF. Very clear and good range.

RB:Great! So how long were you at Nellis [Air Force Base, Nevada] before you went overseas?

LI:I think it was three months.

RB:About three months? And then you got orders to go overseas. Where were you stationed out of? You were actually in Korea, but what location? Do you recall?

LI:It was called K-55.

RB:K-55, okay.

LI:It was Osan [Air Base], by the sea.

RB:Okay. It was actually by the [inaudible].

LI:Correct.

RB:And the, so how long was that assignment in Korea? Was that a one year or ─?

LI:Well, they said just prepare for one year, but ─

RB:No guarantee.

LI:if you get your 100 missions earlier they will send you over.

RB:Okay. So that was the requirement, you had to do 100 missions in Korea. And how many missions did you do?

LI:Fifty-three.

RB:Fifty-three. And what happened? Did the war end?

LI:Yeah, it did, July 27, 1953.

RB:Right. Okay. And, so in those 53 missions, do you recall, I think when we first started talking you mentioned some of the statistics of that. You were flying against MIG aircraft?

LI:Well, we flew all kinds. MIG sweeps where you try and set up a barrier.

RB:Right, right.

LI:Frankly, so the MIGs couldn't get after your target. Sometimes you'd be ordered to hit a particular target. Sometimes you'd have four airplanes going against [you], sometimes as many as 16or 20.

RB:Yep. What were some of the targets like, that you were ─?

LI:Did you ever hear of Pork Chop Hill?

RB:Pork Chop Hill? Yes.

LI:There was a movie about that.

RB:Yeah.

LI:I flew, I think, three combat missions of support of the people [at] Pork Chop Hill.

RB:So, that was an Army mission, so you were flying air support for that. And was that in North Korea? What is now North Korea, at the time?

LI:Pork Chop Hill was pretty much along the DMZ [Demilitarized Zone].

RB:Okay, I see.

LI:It was the front ranks of the Army.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:I don't know how many times they fought over Pork Chop Hill, but it was 00:48:00several times.

RB:Was most of your support, then, as a fighter pilot, close full air support?

LI:They assigned you a specific target, like a bridge somewhere that they wanted knocked out. That's what you went after.

RB:So, there were some tactical targets as well.

LI:Oh, yeah.

RB:Okay.

LI:One time, one of our best missions, we caught a choo-choo train trying to get North Korean support to a drive [where they] were attacking the South Korean capital division.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And they, it's what they needed, they had to try to run a train down to give 00:49:00materiel and men and whatever they needed.

RB:Oh, I see. Right.

LI:Then we caught them out in the open and wipe out the train.

RB:So, that was their supply line? You were interdicting that? Oh, very good.

LI:Interdiction was an important part of [our missions].

RB:Right. What else do you remember about life in Korea, when you were there for that year or so?

LI:It was dang cold!

RB:Yeah, cold? [Laughter.] What was the living situation like?

LI:We had a hut, kinda like a Quonset hut, only it wasn't curved, it was [square]. Each flight, we had four flights. I was in gin flight, and we had a 00:50:00whiskey flight, we had a rum flight, and we had a coke flight.

RB:Yeah. [Laughter.]

LI:They're all drinks.

RB:Right. [Laughter.] What did you use to stay warm?

LI:We had a pot-belly stove.

RB:Is that right?

LI:And an oil thing to feed the fire.

RB:What was the food [in Korea] like?

LI:Terrible!

RB:Yeah? [Laughter.] Oh, dear!

LI:Well, for example, except we didn't ever have any milk, except dried milk.

RB:Dried milk? Yep. Powdered milk.

LI:Powdered milk.

RB:You had to mix that up.

LI:We had eggs that they were, the agricultural department had stored away in caves or something. We got the eggs, but they were terrible tasting and terrible smelling.

RB:Oh, man! Yeah. [Laughter.] Did they have any kind of meat that you served?

LI:Yeah, we always had something, hamburger or bacon. Even once in a while they had a steak or something.

RB:Yep.

LI:Another thing we did, we could check out shot-guns from the air police.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And we would go out and shoot pheasants.

RB:Is that right? [Laughter.]

LI:Pheasants and ducks and geese, and bring them back. And at least, our cook would cook them for us.

RB:[Laughter.] Great!

LI:We had a feast of fresh birds.

RB:Did you spend a Christmas there? Christmas of 1952, maybe? Do you recall?

LI:Let's see. It was Christmas of 1953, but I was already on my way to the Philippines, and that 1953 Christmas was in Japan.

RB:Oh, okay. Where in Japan did you go?

LI:I had two R&Rs [rest and recuperation] there. I stayed at the Fujiya Hotel in 00:53:00Hakone National Park.

RB:Oh, yes.

LI:It was the same, exactly the same hotel that they had in The Bridge on the River Kwai.

RB:Oh yes, alright. Where they filmed that, you stayed there on an R&R.

LI:Twice.

RB:Oh, nice! This might be a good time to kinda interrupt, I wonder if we could continue, because you have quite a story, next week. Would that work out for you?

LI:You bet.

RB:Same time? Same place?

LI:Okay.

RB:Tuesday at 3:00 p.m. next week?

LI:Let's do it.

RB:That's great. I'll let you kinda rest.

LI:I have to rescue my dog.

[END OF RECORDING THREE.]

[Next interview date.]

RB:Aright. I'm Randy Bunn and today is April 16, 2019. Yesterday was Tax Day. 00:54:00That's right. I'm here with [Loraine] Reid Ivins and his wife, Ana Marie.

AI:"Nani." My name is Nani.

RB:Nani, okay. And we are going to continue where we left off last week.

So, Reid, last week you told me that you finished up your tour in Korea, and you spent two R&R times, with the last one in Japan.

LI:Yeah.

RB:Then you were heading for the Philippines.

LI:For the Philippines. We had to go back through Japan. We caught an Air Force C-54.

RB:C-54. [Laughter.]

LI:From Tachikawa [Airfield, near Tokyo, Japan].

RB:Yep.

LI:To Clark [Air Force Base, Luzon Island, the Philippines].

RB:Okay.

LI:And I was flying with a friend of mine named Will Dreis.

RB:Will Dreis? Okay. And he was going to the Philippines also?

LI:Yeah. In fact, I talked him into, when I was in Korea, I talked four guys into flying for─ We all got an okay, and the four guys were very close.

RB:That's great!

LI:Well, me and three other guys [got] to fly to the, the Philippines.

RB:Let me ask you before you talk about the Philippines, 1953, was it that you were traveling to the Philippines?

LI:Well, it was, I spent Christmas 1953 in Japan.

RB:Okay, so 1953, 1954. What do you recall about Japan at that time? It was still, I think, Occupation.

LI:Well, I don't know if they called it Occupation, but there was a lot of U.S. [United States] there. The Air Force had a hotel there called Tokyo "Diki," which meant Tokyo Electric in Japanese.

RB:Oh, okay.

LI:Tokyo "Diki" was the Japanese name for electricity. So it was ─ so we did some sight-seeing around.

RB:Looks like the occupation period that, at least the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed September 1951, effective April 1952. So when you were there, it was back to being a sovereign nation.

LI:Christmas 1953. One of the things I can remember about Japan is they have these beautiful strawberries and things.

RB:Yep.

LI:But they have no taste. They didn't really taste like strawberries that I was familiar with.

RB:[Laughter.] Yep!

LI:They grew them hydroponic or something. I don't know.

RB:Yeah. That's funny. They probably didn't even know what a real fresh strawberry tasted like. [Laughter.]

LI:Well, they are pretty good truck farmers, though.

RB:Yep.

LI:So they probably knew more about it than I did.

RB:[Laughter.] So you flew down to, what, Clark Field?

LI:Yeah, and we stopped off at Okinawa [Air Base, Japan].

RB:Of course.

LI:Then stopped in Taiwan [Republic of China].

RB:Okay, yep.

LI:And then I remember flying, and I could see Mount Fujiyama ─

RB:Yeah, right.

LI:came up right through the clouds.

RB:Oh, beautiful! You still have that memory?

LI:I have a picture of it too.

RB:Oh, nice.

LI:And then we flew on down and landed at Clark. That hot moist air could knock us down.

RB:[Laughter.] Yeah.

LI:We stayed overnight in the visiting officer's quarters, which was a Quonset hut.

RB:Oh? Is that right?

LI:It was a Quonset hut and then we went to the, it was New Year's Eve then, by the time we got down there.

RB:Right.

LI:We had a Korean lady who was entertaining at the officer's club.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And Will and I were out late until, I don't know, about three or four in the morning ─

RB:Right.

LI:She was a very good singer.

RB:Oh.

LI:And could play the piano at the same time.

RB:Oh.

AI:Not Korean, she was Filipino.

RB:Filipino, okay, that makes sense. [Laughter.] What was Clark Field like at that time?

LI:Well, it was a beautiful air force base. What I really thought was we'd go 01:00:00down there, get in a squadron and be out by the beach or something, like a PSP [Pierced Steel Planking].

RB:[Yes.]

LI:Do you know what PSP is?

RB:No.

LI:Pierced Steel Planking.

RB:What is it?

LI:PSP, pierced steel planking. They put these things together and they make a runway out of the steel thing.

RB:Oh, I see. [Yes.]

LI:But they were hard to land on, very slippery.

RB:I bet. [Laughter.] If they were wet, they would be horrible, [laughter] like landing on ice.

LI:Anyway, we made this Filipino lady sing all night. The thing I can really remember that she sang, we made her sing over and over, was It's Not Istanbul, It's Constantinople Now.

RB:Oh. [Laughter.] No, it's the other way around. It's Not Constantinople, But Istanbul.

LI:It's Istanbul now.

RB:Okay. [Laughter.]

LI:And several other songs that were popular at the time.

RB:Sure.

LI:One I remember also was, something about, "Oh My father ...." [inaudible].

RB:Yeah. [Laughter.] So, it's 1954, and so you were twenty-four, twenty-three years old.

LI:Twenty-three.

RB:What was your assignment there?

LI:Fighter pilot. For the 44th Squadron.

RB:44th Squadron, okay. And by that time, were you a captain yet, or no?

LI:No, I was a first lieutenant.

RB:First lieutenant.

LI:I'd been a first lieutenant, 'cause when I went to Korea our squadron commander made us spot first lieutenants. So, I never was a second lieutenant.

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:I was a spot first lieutenant. That was good because it made another $150.00 a month.

RB:Right, but you just had to be a first lieutenant for a lot longer.

LI:Yeah. Well, but see also, the timing was great as a spot─ it counted for twice, so I got my permanent first lieutenancy several months before my contemporaries did.

RB:Oh, okay, yeah, because you were, had the longevity in that grade. Nice! Well, so unlike in Korea where you were flying some combat missions, what type 01:03:00of flying missions did you do in the Philippines?

LI:Well, we had brand new F-86s.

RB:Right.

LI:And we would fly a lot of formation and we had a gunnery range, Crow Valley Gunnery Range that we could fire strafing and skip bombing, I-Angle bombing [???] and I-O strafing [???]. Then we also would hang up a banner on a long cable behind by a T-33, even a F-86, fly it. Then you'd shoot at that thing. 01:04:00You'd fire fifty caliber bullets tipped with colored wax.

RB:Oh.

LI:And everyone had a different color, so you could always count whoever hit the target.

RB:[Laughter.] So, target practice? That's great! [Laughter.]

LI:Then, of course, practice hassling [???] where you get four in a form.

RB:Okay, yeah.

LI:Formation.

RB:So, different formations?

LI:No, that's like a air-to-air combat training.

RB:Oh, okay, I see.

LI:Then we flew some around the islands, navigation things around the island. I 01:05:00remember one time, we went to fly down to the place where the U.S. landed first back in the Philippines.

RB;Oh?

LI:Just a fly-by to show them.

RB:Oh, that's nice.

LI:Then we had a longest non-stop flight of F-86s. We carried four tanks, four prop tanks. The four of us got there as they burned out, we just punched them off, just drop out in the South China Sea. We flew over Vietnam and Cambodia to 01:06:00Bangkok [Thailand].

RB:Oh, is that right? Yeah?

LI:And uh─

AI:Tell him why you went to Bangkok for. To celebrate.

LI:It was the king's [King Bhumibol Adulyadej] birthday. We put on a show for the king.

AI:To celebrate the king.

RB:Oh, so you went to see the king's birthday in Bangkok, kind of a country to country visit.

LI:It was pretty high level. We had some, one Air Force four-star general there. Because things were made pretty hot [in] French Indochina with China.

RB:Right, 1954.

LI:Okay, we can reinforce you. We can get people to Bangkok to help the Thais' defense.

RB:Oh, I see, yeah.

LI:Actually, during Vietnam, we had, I think, four bases in Thailand that we 01:07:00flew directly bombing missions into North Vietnam.

RB:Right out of Thailand?

LI:Thailand.

RB:Okay. How many years were you in the Philippines?

LI:It turned out to be just about a year.

RB:Oh, okay.

[INTERRUPTION.]

AI:He can wear Thai wings.

RB:Oh, you can wear the Thai wings?

AI:[Yes.]

RB:Really? Because you have flown out of Thailand?

AI:No, they gave it to him as a, for showing [appreciation].

RB:When you flew for the king's birthday?

LI:[Yes.]

RB:Very nice.

LI:Air Chief Marshall wanted to adopt me.

RB:Oh? Is that right? [Laughter.] That's nice!

LI:They really treated us royally there. The most elaborate dinner I have ever, ever had anything to do with.

RB:Yeah?

LI:They put it on a big long table and all the guests had, and the king came in, and each different type food and they would go around and you'd take it [gesturing]. At least two hours long.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:And it got to the end, you could only take a little bite.

RB:I bet! [Laughter.] That's incredible! Very nice! What an experience!

LI:It was an experience.

RB:Well, if you were in the Philippines in 1954, and I have that you got married in 1955, I am assuming that you met your wife there.

LI:Yeah, I did.

RB:Tell me about that.

LI:Okay. It was 1954 and there was a German named Von Heiland who had married into a rich Filipino family and they had an interest in a sugar plantation.

RB:Oh.

LI:They also had a night club, the Esquire Night Club.

RB:Esquire Night Club, okay.

LI:And they invited all the fighter pilots [to] go to this party in the sugar mill and we, so we went down there and it was close enough that the people had 01:10:00cars to drive down.

RB:Oh.

LI:Or they had a bus or something for the ones who didn't have cars to drive or couldn't get rides.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And it was really quite a thing, because it was quite a ways away from any elaborate thing. So they had tennis courts.

RB:Oh, nice!

LI:They had ─

AI:Bowling alleys.

RB:Bowling alleys?

LI:Well, it was duckpin bowling alley, and a swimming pool. Her father, her dad 01:11:00built a three-hole golf course.

RB:Oh, really?

AI:Not there.

LI:Oh, that's right.

RB:Oh, okay, yeah.

LI:But anyway, they got, I guess, for companionship they brought a bunch of girls up from Manila [the Philippines] and I looked them all over. I saw this one and I said, "Well now, that's how a Spanish girl should look." That's her.

RB:[Laughter.] Oh, okay.

LI:So, I challenged her to a bowling match and she beat me.

RB:Is that right?

AI:I was a stewardess in another part of the Philippines.

RB:Okay.

AI:But we could always exchange.

RB:How nice.

AI:So I was able to go to that party.

RB:So, you were, your family came from Spain?

AI:Yes. My father was born in Spain and my mother was born in the Philippines, 01:12:00but her parents were Spanish from Spain.

RB:Okay.

AI:But I was born and raised in the Philippines.

RB:The Philippines. So, you don't have much native Filipino background?

AI:I have a little bit.

RB:Okay.

LI:Probably about one-sixteenth.

RB:Yeah. I'll give you a secret: I'm half Hispanic.

AI:Are you really?

RB:Yeah. [Laughter.] My mother's parents came from Mexico and she was born a year after they immigrated to California.

AI:Oh.

RB:And my grandmother's mother had a French last name, and they were living in a French mining town in Baja, California. So, I have the French side and then ─

AI:Spanish side.

RB:Gutiérrez was her father's, my grandmother's father. And then on my 01:13:00grandfather's side, he's more mixed between Spanish and Native Mexican because, but his last name was Castro, but has more of the Mexican. My father was blonde hair, blue eyed, Northern European, so I guess I take after my father. [Laughter.] People don't believe ─

AI:[Laughter.]

RB:So, ─

LI:Do you speak Spanish?

RB:No, I don't. [Laughter.] I never learned.

LI:You can probably understand?

RB:I can understand some and I have traveled to Mexico a few times. And I did try to study it.

So, you met at that party at the plantation?

LI:And I made a date with her for the next weekend in Manila.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:They had some Communists called "Huks." ["Kukbong Bayan Labansa Hapon" or "Hukbalahap."].

RB:What?

AI:Huks. They were the Communists in the ─

RB:Communists in the Philippines?

AI:[Yes.]

RB:You said it was "Kops"?

AI:Huks. Hukbalahap.

RB:Hukbalahap.

LI:H-U-C-K, I think.

RB:Oh, "huck," okay.

LI:We had a bus we'd drive to Manila daily, but you had to leave your name and check in because they were afraid that they would get ─

RB:Ambushed or something?

LI:Ambushed or something on the way.

RB:And they wouldn't know what happened to you.

AI:An hour's drive.

RB:Yeah, right.

LI:And in those days the Air Force ran the Port of Manila.

RB:Oh?

LI:And they had a nice little place there, and in fact, Will [Dreis] went down 01:15:00there, he went down there to be the officer's club manager.

RB:Oh, I see. [Yes.]

LI:So anyway, I went out there and I was staying with Annette [Ana Marie].

RB:Okay.

AI:I wasn't really there. I would just go on flights [from there].

RB:Flights out of Manila?

AI:Yeah, but I was stationed up in the south.

RB:Oh, okay, I see.

LI:But she could trade with others.

AI:I could trade [with other stewardesses].

RB:Very nice.

LI:So anyway, I called there and I got her on the phone.

RB:Yeah.

LI:She said, "If you are not here in fifteen minutes, we don't have a date." [Laughter.]

RB:Oh, oh! [Laughter.]

AI:I explained before─

RB:[Yes.]

AI:In those days it was very different than the customs here in America.

RB:Sure.

AI:When you go on dates, you weren't allowed to go alone with your date.

RB:Oh, okay. Right.

AI:So it always had to be a group, always had to be a group.

RB:I see, yes.

AI:It wasn't─

RB:Yeah.

AI:It wasn't one on one, it was five or ten [people].

RB:So, if he wasn't there, the rest of the group was going to go, I guess.

AI:So, I didn't go.

RB:Yeah. He needed to get there or he was going to miss.

LI:So I did get there, but it was, I was at least fifteen minutes late.

RB:Uh oh.

AI:We were still there. In the Philippines it's kind of─

LI:We went out nightclubbing. Went out to the Jai Alai. [A sport involving a ball that is bounced off a walled space.]

RB:Oh, right.

LI:Then there was a Spanish guy who had a restaurant, Maros.

AI:Marcos.

LI:He made great steaks.

RB:Oh, is that right? [Laughter.]

LI:I haven't had steaks like that since Bourbon Street.

RB:Oh, in New Orleans [Louisiana]?

LI:In New Orleans.

RB:Oh, nice!

LI:He always had a pound of butter that would melt on top of his steaks as he cooked them.

RB:Oh, is that right? Nice! [Laughter.] So the two of you decided to get married at some point?

LI:Yeah.

AI:Well, it is a custom, it is a Spanish custom, that before you announce your engagement that the parents of the boy would come to the parents of the girl to ask for the [girl's] hand in marriage.

RB:Oh, the parents did?

AI:The parents did. And then you announced.

RB:Right.

AI:He said, "My father's not here, so I will go talk to your dad myself," so ─

LI:Well, there is something that intervened there, because your brother had been injured in a soccer game and you had a tonsil out, so they, two members of the family were in the hospital at the same time and I went to see her in the hospital. That is where I met her mother and father.

RB:Oh, I see.

AI:So he went, then we went over and talked with my parents who were living in a sugar plantation.

RB:[Yes.]

AI:My father was a chemist where they determine how much sugar come out of so much sugar cane.

RB:Right.

AI:So, he went to talk to my father.

LI:Well, before that, at the hospital at that time, we ditched the family and went out on a balcony overlooking Manila.

RB:Oh, nice!

LI:And I said, "We can't keep seeing each other this way. We've gotta do something else."

AI:[I said,] "Make up your mind. What are we going to do?"

RB:[Laughter.] Oh, okay.

LI:So later that night, I bought her a diamond ring and she is still wearing it.

RB:Oh, wow! Okay.

LI:That was the unofficial [engagement.]

AI:That was the unofficial [engagement.] Then he went to talk to my dad.

RB:Oh, I see.

AI:Then is when we told my dad. I am sitting there, but out of respect you don't say anything.

RB:Right, right.

AI:So, he asked my dad.

LI:I told him I was serious about Anny. They called her Anny, A-N-N-Y.

RB:Oh, Anny.

AI:Anny.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:I made her change it to N-A-N-I.

AI:[Inaudible.]

LI:I didn't think it was a good nickname for a female girlfriend.

RB:Right. [Laughter.] So, what did you say?

LI:I said, "I'm serious and I do want to marry your daughter." He said, "Well, I've seen these kind of things, G.I. soldier, lonely G.I. get involved with local girls."

RB:[Yes.]

LI:There was one shirt tail of yours [who we saw] get pregnant and she had to raise her kid by herself because it didn't work out for a wedding. Anyway─

RB:So, he was skeptical.

LI:He was a wise ol' guy and he said, "You go over a year, and if you still feel the same way, we'll talk again."

RB:Oh.

LI:So I did. I went home.

RB:[Yes.] So you left the Philippines and then went back where?

LI:To Salt Lake City where my folks were living.

RB:So you separated from the Air Force?

LI:No, no, I was still on active duty. It was just between permanent change of stations.

RB:Right.

LI:They usually had some leave in between.

RB:I see. So you went home, and then went on to your next assignment?

LI:I did shortly after that, but a few things happened in between, 'cause I came 01:22:00back on Space-Available [flight] military and I had her taken on Pan Am [Pan American Airways].

RB:[Yes.]

LI:So she flew Pan Am and, but anyway─ So I had a good friend in San Francisco, [California] so I left my car with him and stayed with him a couple of nights. And then, when I knew that she was coming in, then it wasn't too far from the San Francisco International [Airport] and I went down to meet the airplane.

RB:Okay.

AI:You know what, the thing is that when he came to America, we mostly corresponded, letters and ─

RB:Right.

AI:then he already had everything arranged for us and we set the date for 01:23:00certain [to get married].

RB:Oh, you did.

LI:I had all my leave all ready to go back to the Philippines. I had permission from my boss and the Air Force.

AI:In the meantime, when you marry an American as a foreigner you are investigated by the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation] to make sure─

RB:Sure, right.

AI:that everything is [alright]. But he had a friend, they said they needed American pilots to go to the Philippines to check out Filipino pilots to transition from propeller airplanes to jets.

RB:Oh.

LI:In the meantime, I was designated instructor pilot for our new wing commander.

RB:Oh.

LI:So every day I flew with him. And he said, "You know, I've got an order across my desk for a pilot to go to the Philippines to fly." I had already 01:24:00briefed him that I had already set up things to go to the Philippines. He said, "You're going now, get in there and get that." I said, "If you give it to me, my name will be mud because someone else has been assigned that and that was a plum that they would have really liked."

RB:Right.

LI:But anyway, he insisted that I go.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And it was, when I got to Hawaii, there was a thing in the paper that my wing commander had been killed. He was leading the gunnery team from our base in Cannon [AFB, New Mexico]. They were up in Wendover [Nevada] practicing for the gunnery meet. I don't know if he flared out or if he tried to land it or something, [or if it] wasn't on the smooth part of the dry lake.

RB:Oh, no. Dry lake there? Wendover?

LI:And they had bushes that grew up and then they would hold the soil around so it was a hard clump around the surface. He landed and hit one of those things and was killed.

RB:[Oh.]

LI:Anyway, so I started flying with the Philippine Air Force. We had a major who was in charge of it and he ended up in a house right across the street from our house in Cannon [AFB].

AI:In Cannon [AFB].

RB:Oh, is that right? Yeah.

LI:Yeah. I remember his wife, she couldn't listen to anything but Frank Sinatra.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:But he was a good guy. And our honeymoon was just a trip to Baguio [the Philippines].

RB:Oh, yeah?

LI:Yes.

RB:I've been there.

LI:One of Nani's cousins, I think Rose Marie, she married into a British family there and they had a compound and had beautiful houses for each one of his kids in this compound. They gave us one of the houses.

RB:Oh.

AI:So that was in the Philippines. We came to America.

RB:Yeah. So you finished the training with the Filipino pilots, Air Force, and 01:27:00then went back to Cannon Air Force Base?

LI:Yeah. We did. That is exactly what we did.

RB:Okay. At what point did you make captain? You probably still were a lieutenant then?

LI:At first. I made captain at Cannon [AFB].

RB:Okay.

LI:And probably pretty early on in going back, because my next assignment was to Germany, and I traveled as a captain to Germany.

RB:Okay. I have that you had your son, Anthony Robert Ivins, [who] was born at Clovis, [New Mexico] at Cannon in 1956. Your daughter, Brooke [Ivins], was born 01:28:00in 1957 at Cannon, and your daughter, Michelle [Ivins Oates] was born at Cannon in 1958, when you were in Germany.

AI:And then John [Ivins] came─

RB:So, when did you leave Cannon? Probably 1958 or 1959?

LI:Let's see. My assignment to Germany was in 1960.

RB:Oh, 1960? So that would have been your four-year assignment at Cannon?

LI:Yeah, but I went first, and she had to fly later with three little kids.

RB:Three kids? Oh!

AI:From Salt Lake City.

RB:I know. My wife had to do the same thing when we went to Japan. I had to go early and she followed with, after I found a place to live, with three, no, I take it back. She was pregnant and two kids. [Laughter.]

LI:Anyway, she had to put a harness on a child.

RB:[Laughter.]

AI:One was a little─

RB:That's a lot, though, to handle. So, anything different happen at Cannon? What was your assignment there? Were you still flying the F-86?

LI:No, the F-100s there.

RB:Oh, the F-100s.

LI:We were flying F-86s initially, but then we transitioned to the Super Sabers.

RB:The Super Saber? And the F-86 is a Saber? Right, or not?

LI:It is a Saber, but the Super Saber is a F-100.

RB:The Super Saber is the F-100. Okay. Cannon, I think, is still a fighter pilot [base].

LI:Well, it has been changed for a lot of different things.

RB:That's probably true.

LI:They, at one time, had a F-111 wing there. They had these C-130s that shoot 01:30:00guns flying out the side.

RB:Oh, [yes.]

LI:They had, and I was the standardization officer for two wings. We had two wings and the 474th Wing. Both, initially F-86 Aces.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And I was the standardization officer for the whole air division. If you had one wing, it becomes an air division.

RB:Oh.

LI:And I was the standardization officer for the whole bunch.

RB:Alright.

LI:It was pretty─. And I replaced a guy on that job who became a brigadier general. So it was a pretty intense job to have.

RB:I bet.

LI:One thing, one time we had a radar unit come on the base. They guided planes over targets and we used them in Korea.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And they were operational also in Europe. They used them in Vietnam too, later.

RB:Oh, is that right?

LI:They would guide─ pick you up and would guide you over the target and tell you when to release the bombs.

RB:Oh, yeah.

LI:You could do that in bad weather.

RB:And those were unmanned?

LI:No, no.

RB:What were they called?

LI:MSQ [the AN/MSQ-77 was a radar system used to guide aircraft to targets. This type of mission was called Ground Directed Bombing (GDB).].

RB:MSQ, okay.

LI:You could do that singly, you could do it with a four-plane formation. It must have been exciting to be on the ground and see 8,000-pound bombs come out of the clouds.

RB:Wow!

LI:But there was also a system for even nuclear weapons.

RB:Oh, was that right?

LI:We practiced that. One time I was taking a─ I was asked by an officer to fly with him to see if they were combat ready.

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:And one, I had one of these MSQs and the weather is pretty tough there. And we were in the clouds before he got the gear in the well.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:So I just flew the last heading that they gave me and altitude they gave me. And I let them pick me up.

RB:Right.

LI:We were flying one of these MSQ things.

RB:Oh, okay.

LI:And a B-66 blew a tire on the Ramstein [Air Base, Germany] runway. So it was closed.

RB:Oh, no!

LI:So we had to find an alternate. And our alternate was Erding [Air Base, Germany], a German fighter base down by Munich [Germany].

RB:Oh, no, okay.

LI:So we got permission to go down there, but it wasn't very good and it was 01:34:00strictly low-frequency direction finding. It wasn't very good. I got down in the area with this young pilot I was giving a check ride to ─

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And we started speaking in English and they were giving us directions. I guess they understood us, but they were coming out of Czechoslovakia.

RB:Oh?

LI:And we got metrics to go east. That would have gone directly to Czechoslovakia.

RB:Oh, dear! Okay. That was under the Soviet Eastern Bloc. That was a little dangerous, wasn't it?

LI:Oh yeah.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:But, anyway, I finally got in touch with the GCA [Ground Control Approach] 01:35:00German base.

RB:Right.

LI:The guy had a Brooklyn [New York] accent. I was talking to him.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:For the ground control approach.

RB:He was a German?

LI:He was a German.

RB:He was a German with a Brooklyn [New York] accent. [Laughter.]

LI:He was. His mother married an American and he had lived in New Orleans.

RB:Okay, that's funny. [Laughter.]

LI:But anyway, it was interesting.

RB:So you landed in Erding [Air Base]?

LI:Yeah. But we [were] just about out of fuel by that time.

RB:I bet, yeah.

LI:We broke out on the runway. And since I was the lead, the wingmen always use 01:36:00more fuel than the leader. So he was free to go. I dropped him off, landed like a close pattern and landed. Then they put more fuel in my tank than was supposed to be allowed.

RB:Oh, yeah?

LI:So some fuel came out.

RB:Oh, no.

LI:But the Germans really took care of us there.

RB:Oh, that's good. So you were flying the F-100s in Germany, as well?

LI:Yeah.

RB:So, this is in 1960 to 1963 or something?

LI:Yes, probably late 1960 or early 1961.

RB:Okay. Were you in Germany when the Cuban Missile Crisis took place?

LI:Yes.

RB:Did that put everybody on alert?

LI:Yeah, it did.

RB:What was that like? Do you remember?

LI:Yeah, we were on alert in case we had a war in Europe.

RB:Right. How about when President [John Fitzgerald] Kennedy was assassinated, were you still in Germany?

LI:I was still in Germany. In fact, I was assigned to escort a French general to an Air Force Dining-In [formal military dinner event].

RB:[Yes.]

LI:When he got up to the Dining-In ─

RB:Yes.

LI:they knew he [JFK] had been shot.

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:So that broke up the party.

RB:Right. That was a major event.

LI:And I got the French general home and didn't have any more to do with that.

RB:In 1961, Berlin [Germany] was closed off. The [Berlin] Wall shut off the East from the West. Do you recall that?

LI:Yeah, but I think it was a little later than that. Well, let's see, no, you're talking about when we had the Berlin Airlift? That was actually earlier.

RB:In 1948, they did that, but I thought they actually made the Berlin Wall in 1968, I mean in 1961.

LI:Well, it was so ─

RB:Or something happened then.

LI:It was still there when we were there. In fact, I had been assigned to Command and Staff College. After I finished that, it was very tense. Nani's parents were visiting relatives in Spain. And I packed up Nani and the kids, and sent them to Spain because things were really ─

[INTERRUPTION]

RB:I'm reading that the Berlin Wall, "They created a concrete barrier that 01:40:00physically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989."

LI:And that is when [President Dwight] Eisenhower went to the Wall and he said, "Kruchev, tear down this wall."

AI:Not Eisenhower.

RB:No, you mean ─

LI:Not Eisenhower, "Kruchev, tear down this wall."

AI:No, that was─

LI:No, it wasn't Kennedy, it was ─.

AI:No, it wasn't Kennedy.

LI:It was Eisenhower.

AI:No, it was [President Ronald] Reagan.

RB:Reagan said that to Gorbachev.

AI:Yeah.

RB:In 1989, or before that. So, it lasted almost thirty years.

LI:So anyway, by that time I was in law school.

RB:Right.

LI:After law school, we set up a trip with my sister and her husband and I. We went back to Europe and saw the places [at which] we were stationed before, and then went to Hungary.

AI:[Inaudible.]

RB:Yeah.

LI:We also went to Oberammergau [Germany] where every ten years they have The Passion Play.

AI:Passion Play.

RB:[Inaudible] So, in 1970, or 1980?

AI:You were already working ─

RB:So maybe 1980, you went?

AI:You were already working for Howard [Nielsen, Utah Congressmen].

LI:Yeah.

AI:After he graduated from law school [in 1975], after he got out of the Air 01:42:00Force [in 1973] and went on to law school, and then he practiced in Provo [Utah County, Utah] and in Heber [City, Wasatch County, Utah].

RB:Right.

AI:Then Congressman Howard Nielson asked him to be [his] Chief of Staff.

RB:Oh, that's right.

AI:So, we were back in Washington [D.C.]. Then is when we went, we were working for Howard when we went to Eastern Germany and all that area [in 1990].

RB:And the Wall was up?

AI:And the Wall was being knocked down.

LI:East Berlin.

RB:So maybe it was 1990, then, when you went?

AI:And then we couldn't find a place to stay. We went to East Germany and everything was taken.

LI:There were places in West Berlin, but they wanted us to pay $1,000 a night or something.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:So we just drove over to West [East] Berlin.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And you could sure see the difference between.

AI:It was terrible.

RB:Yeah.

AI:We went back, and so we just parked right by the Wall.

LI:So, all four of us slept in the car.

RB:[Laughter.]

AI:Slept in the car. Right by the Wall.

LI:By Brandenburg gate.

AI:Yeah, by the gate.

RB:Oh, boy!

AI:And we woke up and we see two Russian soldiers knocking [off] pieces of the Wall to take home. So my sister-in-law and I went over there after they finished [getting pieces] and we knocked [off] pieces of the Wall to take home, too. [Laughter.]

RB:Oh, yeah? Do you still have those pieces?

AI:I have some pieces. I still have pieces of the Wall.

RB:Yeah. [Laughter] Well, take me back to Germany then. When you finished your assignment in Germany, where did you go?

LI:Command and Staff College at Maxwell Air Force Base [Montgomery, Alabama].

RB:In Montgomery, Alabama? Yes? And spent a year there?

LI:Yeah.

RB:Okay.

AI:[Inaudible.]

RB:So you were a major by then, right?

LI:Yeah, I made major in Germany, actually.

RB:Yeah.

LI:But I didn't put on an oak leaf [cluster] until we were in Montgomery, [Alabama].

RB:Okay, alright.

AI:And then they sent you to─

RB:Where did they send you from there?

LI:They wanted me to go to the Pentagon, [but] they sent me to TAC [Tactical Air Command] headquarters in ─

RB:Langley Air Force Base [Hampton, Virginia]? Okay.

LI:And we were there for a couple of years.

AI:[Inaudible.]

LI:I was a war planner. I was in the war planning phases there.

RB:Okay. That would have been about 1965? Maybe?

LI:I think we are getting into the 1970s.

RB:Oh. How long were you in Germany? Was that more than three years?

AI:Four years.

RB:So about 1964, a year at Air Command and Staff College, 1965, and go to Langley for what? Four years at Langley?

LI:I think we were only there two or three.

RB:Three years?

AI:And we were sent from there to ─

RB:Vietnam?

LI:That's where we built, bought our first house.

AI:Yeah. [Inaudible.]

RB:Oh.

AI:From there we went to ─

LI:I had already retired, I think.

AI:No, no. You didn't retire. From there you went to the Pentagon, after.

LI:No.

AI:You went to the Pentagon after Vietnam.

LI:After Vietnam.

AI:Okay, after Vietnam.

RB:Okay. So, you went to Vietnam, about what time period? What was going on in Vietnam?

LI:I got there in time for Tet [This was one of the major North Vietnamese offensives around the Lunar New Year holiday in February 1968].

RB:Okay, so Tet was in 1968. You got there in 1967, or early 1968?

LI:Late 1967.

RB:Okay.

LI:All of 1968.

RB:And where were you stationed in Vietnam? Do you recall?

LI:Tan Son Nhut [Air Base, near Saigon in southern Vietnam].

RB:Okay.

AI:And from Vietnam, went to Pentagon. From Pentagon, we went to Panama. Then you retired ─

[END OF RECORDING FOUR.]

RB:What do you remember about Vietnam?

LI:That was in January. There were several things going on. I was secretary to the Operation Rolling Thunder coordinating committee. We coordinated all the bombing in the North─ Group PAC-6. We coordinated the Marines, Navy, SAC 01:47:00[Strategic Air Command], TAC, and the Allies. My job there was to set up meetings. Usually, we did it in Bangkok. One time it got set up at Baguio.

AI:In the Philippines.

RB:Yes, in the Philippines?

LI:She was still in the Philippines.

RB: Oh, did you go back to the Philippines when he was in Vietnam?

AI:No, we stayed in Salt Lake City with his mom.

LI:[For] my first R&R, I had already sent her and her youngest son back to the Philippines.

AI:We went to the Philippines.

LI:So I could spend my R&R [with Nani].

AI:I spent a month [in the Philippines]. The kids were at school, so the little 01:48:00one wasn't in school.

LI:At a BOQ [Bachelor's Office Quarters] which was actually an old French hotel, which was actually in our BOQ in Saigon. I tried to get her to come to Saigon for a [flight layover], to spend a day or two, but she wouldn't do it.

AI:They wouldn't let me.

RB:Oh, okay. Now when the Tet Offensive took place, you were on the planning coordinating committee. What do you remember about Tet?

LI:It was at the end of January and I was at the BOQ [in] downtown Saigon, and we had three lieutenant colonels who ran our BOQ, but they had their own staff 01:49:00car, so as soon as things started to get hot, they took their staff car and went back to the base. And it turns out that I was the ranking major, so I was in charge of whatever we did. And we had some Vietnamese guards and when the shooting started they disappeared, too.

RB:[Laughter] Oh, no!

LI:So I was left there, with the infantry. We had one 32-silver plated, 32-caliber gun. That's all we had.

RB:[Laughter.]

LI:That's all we had.

RB:[Laughter.] That's it? [Laughter.]

LI:But next door was taken over by the bad guys and they had heavy machine guns which were virtually 50-caliber. I think they called it 12.7.

RB:Yeah. And ─

LI:That weapon would shoot right through our BOQ.

RB:Right.

LI:Except the only thing that, it was built on concrete pillars and they did not penetrate the concrete pillars.

RB:Oh.

LI:And all the soft parts─ right outside my room there was a water cooler. And one of those hit that and exploded the water cooler.

RB:Water everywhere!

LI:And the bad guys were in the next building and they sent a light tank down the street in front of us.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And they knocked that [tank] down so fast.

RB:Oh, man!

LI:But that plugged the road and, but there was another reconnaissance squadron 01:51:00that had another hotel down the street ─

RB:Yeah.

LI:And they had a captain come with a pickup truck and take them out. And he stopped at our place. And I wouldn't let him go. I made him stay and I made him, he made three trips and got all our guys back to the base.

RB:Oh, okay. Wow!

LI:And I tried to get him written up for a Bronze Star.

RB:Right.

LI:But they wouldn't take him.

RB:They wouldn't take him.

LI:He deserved it.

RB:Yeah.

[INTERRUPTION.]

LI:Even on the way back to the base, there was another BOQ that was covering 01:52:00O-6s [officer grade six]. Those are all full colonels.

RB:Oh, right.

LI:And they sent some MPs [military police] to protect them. That was the first time I heard of the RPGs [rocket propelled grenades] and the RPGs wiped out those MPs that were trying to rescue the officers.

RB:Oh, is that right? Rocket propelled grenades?

LI:Exactly.

RB:Yeah. Wow!

LI:Then they had an explosion there. They said it was a case of hand-grenades that had been hit, but I don't really know.

RB:Right.

LI:But anyway, that was close [inaudible].

RB:Right.

LI:We got them evacuated too.

RB:We are going to stop, real quick, here.

[INTERRUPTION. END OF RECORDING FIVE.]

RB:We're going to get started again. So, where we left off, you were finishing up your experience with the Tet Offensive in Saigon. So, did you finally make it back to the base?

LI:Yeah, when we commandeered that pickup truck. I made him make three trips back to the base. He got all our people out of there.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:Then after that, they issued us some M-16s and we were to defend our BOQ by ourselves.

RB:Oh, really? [Laughter.]

LI:And we did, I set up a little command post that was the last stand place. And then we had guys watching walls, if we were ever attacked we would have all gone 01:54:00to that place.

RB:Oh. Yeah, take cover?

LI:We had quite a few sand bags, built up a little protection. Our own little fortification there.

RB:Yeah, right. During that period, did you say that one of the people got shot? I thought you said, that was taking you back to the base or something? Or no?

LI:Well, there was that BOQ the MPs were trying to relieve.

RB;Oh, right.

LI:First time I had seen or heard of RPGs.

RB:Right.

LI:And that's apparently what wiped them out.

RB:I see. How many casualties were there?

LI:I don't know. Seemed like seven of the MPs were all killed.

RB:Exactly, right, right.

LI:They were all killed.

RB:So, you didn't do any flying in Vietnam? Is that right?

LI:I did, but it was not on combat missions.

RB:I see, right.

LI:I was─

RB:You were on the staff.

LI:Yeah, I was a secretary to the [Operation] Rolling Thunder coordinating committee.

RB:Right.

LI:I helped on planning the missions that they were flying. I made sure that they didn't all fly the same place at the same time.

RB:And you were in Vietnam for twelve months?

LI:Yeah.

RB:[Yes.] Then when you came back, where did you get stationed? At the Pentagon?

LI:At the Pentagon.

RB:What was your job there?

LI:Okay, they wanted me to go to Strategic Planning because I had all that nuclear training.

RB:Right. You said, what planning? JC planning? JCS? [Joint Chiefs of Staff]

LI:No, nuclear planning.

RB:Nuclear planning, okay. On the air staff?

LI:Well, in Europe and on the air staff and ─

RB:You went back to the Pentagon?

LI:No, at a SAC [Strategic Air Command] Headquarters.

RB:Oh, at SAC Headquarters.

LI:Then after SAC, they wanted me to go to the Pentagon for strategic planning.

RB:Right.

LI:But I didn't want to get into that SAC business. They would have me out there 01:57:00flying B-52s or something.

RB:Right, right. So you went to, that's when you went to Langley [Air Force Base], no?

LI:No.

RB:You went to TAC [Tactical Air Command] Headquarters?

LI:Yeah, then I went to Vietnam from there.

RB:Right.

LI:And from Vietnam, they wanted me to go to the Pentagon in strategic [planning].

RB:Did you, you didn't do that?

LI:Well, that's when they had─ I talked them into letting me work on the Southcom [Southern Command]. So we, I did planning for Latin America.

RB:I see.

LI:At least I didn't have to mix up with those SAC guys.

RB:Yeah, that's a different world. [Laughter.]

LI:But then, my father died on the golf course here and I came home on leave for 01:58:00his services. And when I went back, the Air Force had posted me at the Pentagon anyway.

RB:When did he die? When did your father pass away? Do you recall the year?

LI: Yeah, he was buried on the third of March 1950, 1960 ─

RB:About 1969, maybe?

LI:Yeah, it must have been.

RB:Okay. Yeah, so he was just only in his seventies.

AI:[Yes.]

RB:About seventy-three or?

LI:Yeah, he was buried on his seventy-third birthday [in 1969].

RB:Oh, I see. Great, because he was born, you told me, on the fourth of March 1896.

LI:[Yes.]

AI:From the Pentagon, he was sent to the [inaudible].

LI:From there, I went to the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] and that was a mixed blessing, because they assigned me to an old Air Force colonel who was just sitting ready to retire.

RB:Oh, okay.

LI:And it was going nowhere at all.

RB:Right.

LI:But then, I started working for an excellent Army colonel who had been a helicopter commander in Vietnam.

RB:Right.

LI:And he was a real go-er, so we got along very well.

RB:What did you do for the Joint Chiefs of Staff? What was your job?

LI:I did contingency plans for the countries in Latin America.

RB:Okay, that's right.

LI:One of the things when I was the planner for the air war in Cuba ─

RB:Okay.

LI:I had to spend a lot of time on that plan.

RB:Right.

LI:And I had to work a lot when the commander-in-chief of Atlantic Command, who was a four-star admiral.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And so our second job there was AFALANT, Air Force Atlantic Command.

RB:Okay.

LI:But anyway, I had the responsibility to do that. And they had a big exercise, to exercise that plan. And I was the planner, but the operators were supposed to task the units whether they were going to bomb or whatever.

RB:Right.

LI:And the guy never showed up, so I had to do it. So, I did all the planning and the operations as well.

RB:Oh, I see. [Laughter.]

AI:And then he was chosen by the Air Force to go to Harvard [University, Boston, Massachusetts]. But he didn't go.

RB:No?

LI:I was selected for the advanced management course at Harvard.

RB:Oh, right!

LI:And they would not let me go. They said, "You have a four-year obligation to 02:02:00the JCS."

RB:Oh. [Laughter.] So you never went to Harvard.

LI:So the next year I said, "What do I have to do to apply for that position again?" He said, "It's a selected position. You can't do it again."

RB:Oh, I see. It was a one-time deal. They chose you and if you couldn't do it then, they wouldn't choose you again.

AI:Then we went to Panama.

RB:You went to Panama?

LI:Yeah.

RB:Howard Air Force Base?

LI:No, well, I was at the Headquarters of the U.S. South[ern] Command.

RB:Oh, okay.

LI:[Inaudible.]

RB:Oh, I see.

AI:[Inaudible.]

RB:Really?

LI:Yep.

AI:Then he decided to take a test for law school from BYU [Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah County, Utah].

RB:[Yes.]

AI:They started a law school. He was in the first class.

RB:I see.

AI:Got accepted, and then the Air Force wouldn't let him retire.

RB:Oh, no?

AI:And so he said, he called his friend who was head of personnel.

LI:Well, that was when we were in Panama.

AI:We were in Panama.

LI:I had a very good friend who just made brigadier general.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And he was in charge of personnel, and we had worked together in Germany pretty well.

RB:[Yes.]

LI:And I said, "Billy," Billy Rogers was his name, "Billy, I have never asked for any help in the Air Force in all my twenty-two years, but I'm asking for 02:04:00help now."

RB:Right.

LI:"Can you fix it so I can retire?" And he did. The next day I got a wire [telegram] from the Pentagon that said, "We've reconsidered."

RB:[Laughter.] I wonder why!

AI:[Laughter.]

RB:That's great!

AI:So we retired and went to Provo to law school.

RB:So, how long were you in Panama? Do you recall? Probably ─

AI:A year and a half.

RB:A year and a half.

LI:No, I think it was just a little bit, about a year.

RB:Okay. And so you retired at, well, I know what I was going to ask you, when did you pin on lieutenant colonel? [Inaudible.]

LI:That was in Vietnam [that] I pinned on.

RB:Oh, okay, so you were major when you went, and pinned on in Vietnam, and then you retired as a lieutenant colonel.

LI:I did.

RB:Right.

LI:Then, from the Pentagon they wanted me to go to the Defense Intelligence [Agency] at Bolling Air Force Base [Washington D.C.].

RB:D.I.A.?

LI:Yeah, they wanted me to go there, so that's when I called Billy and said, "Hey, they're messing me around ─

RB:Right.

LI:with assignments that I really don't care for."

RB:[Yes.] [Laughter.]

LI:And he arranged for me to get out of the Air Force.

AI:He went from the Air Force and went to law school. By this time, he graduated from law school and the older kids were old enough, at BYU and at college.

RB:That's right.

AI:And so, then from there, he had his law office in Provo and one in Heber.

RB:What kind of law did you practice?

LI:Well, it was pretty general. A lot of domestic work.

RB:Oh, that's right. You told me that.

LI:I was the guardian ad litem for Wasatch, Utah and Juab counties and I had to recruit people, which I really did 'cause I got [a] lot of teachers and bankers, and whatever to assist me in that [guardian ad litem] program.

RB:Right.

LI:Because I couldn't go and investigate all the cases.

RB:No.

LI:So I had some good assistance from professionals in other ─

RB:Disciplines. Did you like that function, as a guardian ad litem coordinator?

LI:Yeah, I did, because you took care of kids.

RB:Right. And so, did you get in, involved in other than, that would be family law, I guess, other types of law as well, in your general practice?

LI:Oh, yeah. I had a couple of criminal cases. I had quite a number of adoptions.

RB:Okay.

LI:I had an adoption of a Latino child and I'd take my wife there to make sure that we were talking about the same things.

RB:Oh, right. [Laughter.] That's good.

LI:A lot of those were done under Judge David Sam. David Sam was just a little lovely man.

RB:Oh, is that right?

LI:So, it was always good that he had his contact with ZCMI [Zion Cooperative 02:08:00Mercantile Institute].

AI:I was working at ZCMI.

RB:Oh, you did?

AL:[Judge Sam would say,] "I'm near and I will send my clerk over and you tell him what you think is the best."

RB:[Laughter.] Great!

AI:He was really nice. But then after he practiced law for a while, Howard Nielson asked him to be his chief of staff.

RB:Right.

AI:So we moved back to Washington [D.C.].

RB:Oh, that's great.

AI:In Arlington [Virginia]. And then, when Howard retired and Jake [Garn, U.S. Congressman] asked him to be his legal counsel. So he worked for Jake, and when Jake retired he said, "I'm retiring."

RB:Yeah.

AI:So we came to St. George, [Utah].

RB:So ─

LI:First, we actually went up to New Jersey because your daughter was building a 02:09:00new house.

AI:My daughter.

RB:Okay.

LI:And she needed some help with her kids.

AI:She had two kids, seven and ten. They were in school and she had to drive them [to school].

LI:She was actually [inaudible].

RB:And this is your daughter?

AI:Yeah, my daughter.

RB:Which one? Brooke or Michelle?

AI:Michelle [Ivins Oates]. She was married to her husband, [who] played fourteen years for the [New York] Giants and two years for the [San Francisco] Forty-Niners.

RB:And he was, too, acting as a general contractor?

AI:Yeah, her husband is Bart Oates.

RB:You know what? And Bart Oates, isn't he a lawyer?

LI:Yes, he is.

RB:When I was at BYU, his [library desk] carrel was right next to mine. But he wasn't there in the fall.

AI:No.

RB:He was playing football.

AI:He graduated from Seton Hall [Law School, Newark, New Jersey].

RB:Oh, he did? Okay. I lost track of him.

AI:He was in New Jersey. It was a year or two where his [football] practice was.

RB:That makes sense.

AI:He would practice there, and then he'd just go to the school. He graduated from there.

LI:Well, the law school is right by the train station too, so when Nani would take the train from Washington [D.C.] up there, he could stop by and pick her up.

AI:He could just pick me up.

RB:[Laughter.]

AI:It worked out really well. And so, then when he took the bar in New Jersey, he scored high enough that he can practice law in New York, New Jersey, and in Washington D.C.

RB:Wow! He is a smart man!

AI:And now he is the president of all NFL [National Football League] Alumni.

LI:Alumni.

RB:Oh, is that right? That's a big group.

AI:He's so busy.

LI:When he came back to start a chapter in Utah, he found out there's almost 200 02:11:00ex-[football] players in Utah.

RB:Is that right?

AI:In Utah.

RB:So let me see, Howard Nielson served as a Congressman [from Utah] from 1983 to 1991, and then a guy by the name of Bill Orton took over. Bill Orton was in my class at BYU.

AI:Oh, my gosh! Small World!

RB:[Laughter.] Yeah! So when Bill Orton went back, you then went to work for Jake Garn?

LI:Yep.

RB:Okay.

AI:Jake Garn was his high school classmate.

RB:Oh, is that right?

LI:He was not in my class, but he was ─

RB:Went to your high school?

LI:but he went at the same time.

AI:Same time.

LI:And we were fraternity brothers at the University of Utah.

RB:Oh, okay. So ─

AI:Jake is still alive, but his second wife, first wife died and second wife died.

RB:Oh, is that right?

AI:Yeah, and he's still alive.

LI:I heard that he has Alzheimer's or something.

RB:Right.

AI:He can't any more.

RB:So Jake Garn, looks like he retired in 1993. So just for a short time you were with Jake Garn?

AI:How long did you work for Jake?

LI:A couple of years.

AI:Couple of years.

RB:And were you his chief of staff, also?

LI:No, I was his legislative counsel.

RB:Okay, and, but when you worked for Nielson, you were ─

LI:Chief of staff.

RB:Chief of staff, okay.

LI:Actually, I had several different jobs with Howard. I was his administrative assistant, which was really chief of staff.

RB:Right, yeah.

LI:And then for a year I ran his operations in Utah because he had an office in Provo─

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:We took care of his district office.

RB:[Yes.] I am reading here: "Jake Garn was a pilot also."

LI:Yeah. He was.

AI:A general.

RB:Oh, he was a general?

LI:Well, what happened, he joined the [Utah] Air National Guard in Salt Lake [City].

RB:Oh, okay.

LI:And he did. After the fighters dropped off, he never flew the plane. They flew the C-124s and then they switched to tankers, C-135 tankers.

RB:Right.

LI:He got a lot of time with those.

RB:Yeah.

LI:He also got to─

RB:He flew C-135s and then retired in April of 1979, and promoted to brigadier general.

LI:Of the National Guard.

RB:He did a space shuttle mission.

LI:Yeah, he did.

RB:[Laughter.] He was quite a man!

LI:I got to go down to Cape Canaveral [Florida] to watch his launch.

RB:Oh, did you really? Since he flew 10,000 hours in the military and then private civilian aircraft. How many hours did you fly? Do you know what it was?

LI:I got about 5,000 hours.

RB:Very good, yeah.

LI:But mine was not droning along, I was ─

RB:[Laughter.] Yeah! And people firing at you sometimes! That's good. So he 02:15:00retired in 1993, so you left Washington [D.C.] then as well?

LI:Well, we went that one year up to help my daughter in New Jersey.

RB:New Jersey? Right.

LI:Then we moved here in July of 1994, I think it was.

RB:Okay, so July of 1994, that would have meant you were about sixty-four then?

LI:Yep!

RB:Yep! Okay. And what have you been doing in St. George?

AI:Playing golf. Not now because [of his health].

RB:No, but when you first came here?

AI:Golf in the morning, no tennis in the morning, golf in the afternoon, and ping-pong at night.

LI:You've got it wrong. We played basketball ─

AI:Basketball, you name it.

RB:Wow!

LI:then we played tennis, then we played golf.

RB:[Laughter.] And did you play sports with him as well?

AI:No, no, I play tennis, but not in his league.

RB:No?

AI:He almost got the gold ribbon for the Huntsman [Games], but he fell ─

RB:Is that right?

AI:and got hurt in the finals. They were ahead in the finals.

RB:Oh. [Laughter.]

AI:The guy said you could have won it because you were so far ahead.

LI:He said he would give us the gold because you are so superior to us. But he never did.

RB:Yeah. [Laughter.] So that was 1994? That's about twenty-five years you have lived in St. George? Very good.

AI:In the same house, the same place. Never moved.

RB:What neighborhood do you live in?

AI:Green Valley.

RB:Oh, Green Valley, you told me that. That's right.

AI:Green Valley, Cottages Row.

LI:Green Valley.

AI:But, you know Green Valley changed names when somebody else bought them out.

RB:Oh, I didn't know that. Okay.

AI:They bought the whole thing. They knocked down some of the places. They built resorts.

RB:Oh, I see.

LI:Not a tennis resort anymore.

AI:People come and they rent the places, swimming pools and stuff.

RB:Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that's a great story. I appreciate you spending the time and kind of tracking your career through with me. You have done some good things in your life. Any other thoughts? Usually, I am curious─ see, you're a, see, going on eighty, right? You are almost seventy-nine?

AI:No, no.

RB:No, wait a minute. You are eighty-eight and going on ninety. So, if you have to look back on your life, what do you think is the best thing that you have learned about your life? One, the best thing that happened to you, is your wife. 02:18:00But what ─

AI:Life.

RB:But what life lesson would you say has been most useful or important in your life?

LI:Be flexible.

RB:Yeah.

LI:You'll be great no matter what, if you have the right attitude.

RB:If you have the right attitude. Yeah, I think that is a pretty good solid lesson. Thank you.

AI:Going a ways with someone.

RB:[Laughter.] Okay. Alright, we will end it here, though.

[END OF RECORDING SIX. END OF INTERVIEW.]