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Through the Front Door! by Jim Kuebelbeck Electronics School - Part 2 On the next few weekends, over a beer or three in the enlisted men's club, we went over my notes again and again, and I began to feel quite confident he would be able to pass the exams. After he took the tests, he didn't come through the shop for about a week, which was quite unusual. I began to fear he wasn't able to pass the tests after all, and didn't want to tell me. Well, my fears were put to rest some days later when again, all smiles, he came into the electronics shop. “I got the results of the tests, and I just got my transfer approved!” he said. “Thanks to you and Mr. Lane, I'm getting out of here, and going to an electronics school! I couldn't have done it without your help. I don't know how to thank you.” Some weeks later, I received a letter from his mother in Tennessee, thanking me for helping her son. She said he was so happy and so eager to get to do something he really wanted to do. (I wish I had saved her letter.) Many months later, I received a letter of thanks from this young airman telling me he had graduated, and was being assigned to an “Electronic Counter Measures” squadron. (A surveillance reconnaissance aircraft.) To my great sorrow, in April of 1969, I learned this young airman was killed while flying off the coast of North Korea. His plane number “EC121” (code named Deep Sea 129) was on a routine mission flying in international air space some 90 miles off the coast of North Korea, and was shot down by a North Korean fighter jet. Unfortunately, little publicity was given about it in the press, because the United States didn't want to create an international incident that would involve other nations. The shooting down of his plane occurred some time after North Korea had boarded and seized the USS Pueblo (a navy destroyer), and held the crew members captive. That was still the story dominating the news at the time, and little information about the shooting down of the EC121 was reported. Because the plane was in international air space, President Nixon was so incensed he wanted to drop a nuclear bomb on the particular military airbase in North Korea where the fighter pilot had taken off. His advisers, however, talked him out of it, and the lack of retaliation simply emboldened North Korea. To this day, I firmly believe if Nixon had taken aggressive military action against the North Korean regime at the time, it would have sent a clear message to the rest of the world, and ultimately served to deter any future aggression by small foreign countries against the United States and its allies! Time will tell. Glenn Lane and I continued to communicate over the years. When he retired from the Navy, he moved to the state of Washington. In one of my last conversations with him, he told me he just had a complete knee replacement. I asked him why he did such a thing at his age, and he said to me, “Jim, just because I have a bad knee, doesn't mean I'm going to quit living, and just for your information, I want you to know that there's a big bottle of wine in a display case down in the Air Museum in Arizona that's reserved for the last two survivors of the attack on the USS Arizona . The way I've got it figured, Don and I are going to split that bottle of wine.” (I never asked Don's last name.) I told Glenn, “There's no way you two old guys will ever be able to finish that bottle by yourselves.” He replied, “Okay, Jim. I'll tell you what; when that time comes, I'll see that you get a glass or two.” I guess it wasn't meant to be, because Glenn passed away about a year later. As per his wishes, the urn with his ashes is now entombed in the sunken hull of the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, “along with his shipmates”. Glenn was a great guy and a good friend, and I will forever remem- ber him and that young airman. The statements and comments in this arti- cle are based on information and references believed to be true and factual. If you have any questions or comments, please forward them to me in care of WWDR . Jim Jim Kuebelbeck may be contacted via e-mail to michele@ worldwidedrillingresource.com Move forward in Print and Online with WWDR . We are here for you. 17 WorldWide Drilling Resource ® JUNE 2020 Open the Doorway to all the Event Photos during Tennessee Water Well Association 2020 To see more photos from this event, go to www.worldwidedrillingresource.com Feel free to download at will and print the photo(s) of your choice. Compliments of WorldWide Drilling Resource ® . Photos are copyrighted and released for personal use only - no commercial use permitted.