Contributed by Harvey L. Hartman, Jr.

I was assigned to the Radar Maintenance section of the 743rd AC&W Squadron at Campion AFS, AK in May 1975 and it did not take me long to fall in love with Alaska. In fact, I liked Alaska so much that I kept extending my tour in 6 month increments until I was forced to leave in Sep 1977 when all electronic maintenance was transferred to a civilian contractor (RCA, I believe.) All in all, I was there almost 2-1/2 years! When Sep `77 rolled around, I was STILL enjoying my Campion life and I sometimes wonder just how long I would have stayed if the civilian contractor had not taken over.

Anyway, I have absolutely NO regrets for spending so much time at an assignment that everyone was `supposed` to hate! And, funny thing, every Dewliner that I`ve spoken with since then has admitted that their time in Alaska was the most rewarding year of their life! Of course, I was not married at the time and didn`t have a family far away. I do understand why the married men didn`t exactly relish their year away from their families.

The interesting thing about being on a remote site for two and a half years when everyone else rotated in and out in one year cycles is that when it came time for me to go, not a single person there had a mental history of the site like I did. I had a total of four commanders while most everyone else saw no more than two. Same with OICs and NCOICs. Saw a lot of friends & co-workers come and go too. When I left in `77, no one was there for me to share memories of `75 with and although it seemed to everyone how little anything ever happened there in a typical year, you would be amazed at all of the interesting things that I saw in 2-1/2 years! I saw the Great Flood (it was either Spring of `76 or `77) when an ice dam built up down stream of Galena and the Yukon River flooded WAY out of it`s banks and destroyed the 9 mile gravel road connecting Campion to our host base in Galena. (All of our mail, food, supplies, etc had to be airlifted by helicopter to Campion`s softball field for a month.) I also witnessed The Great Fire of `76 when our main hallway caught fire one October Saturday night and tried to spread throughout the whole site. Talk about an exciting Saturday night!!! As a result, we were without electricity for about three days (and obviously the radar was down during this time) and heat(!!!), water and sewer for almost two weeks! About 80% of the site`s personnel were evacuated out and only radar maintenance and security augmentees remained on site. For awhile, we were in a situation that often generates books and movies. (But alas, not about us...)

More notes on the fire, contributed by Mike Gressman

As for the fire. To make a short story long, there was a guy a couple rooms down from me, Lucky Lortz. He had a grinder or drill or some power tool in his room that made a loud buzz when it was on. When the fire alarm went off, for some reason it sounded like Lucky`s machine to me, so I didn`t pay it any mind. Until people started running every which way yelling "it`s real, we gotta evacuate." So, we did. Luckily, no one was hurt. Most of us spent the night in Galena. When we returned to Campion, I remember pulling up outside the building, near one of the domes, and a door opened. A guy poked his head out. It was Harvey Hartman.

The sad part is, most of the sections that burned, were brand new, having been completely rebuilt that summer. With winter coming on, there was no choice but for us to rebuild the burned sections. Under the guidence of some "foremen" from Elmendorf, we did the rebuilding in a couple of weeks.

MSgt Harvey Hartman
(a.k.a. Rabbit)
Waller, TX