USAF ROTORHEAD Members

Jim Mardock

March, 1964; Joined the USAF in Buffalo, N.Y. after taking my draft physical – didn’t want to live in no stink’in’ foxhole!

Basic trng. at Lackland, then on to Sheppard AFB for Basic Helicopter Trng.

Sept, 1964 Assigned to El Centro NAF, CA., we were Det. 1 out of Edwards AFB flying support for the Navy’s Parachute Test Facility at El Centro.  There was 1, H-21 at El Centro with a S/S Paul Kline and myself to crew it.     

Nov, 1965 Assigned to the 20th Helicopter Sq. at Eglin AFB.  M-16 trng. and some CH-3C trng.  This was start of the 20th, as we broke down the 14 CH-3C’s for airlift to Viet Nam.  

Arriving in Tan Son Nhut Dec, 1965, we spent our first 6 months between there, Da Nang and Nha Trang.  The second 6 months we went over to Udorn, Thailand.  

Dec, 1966 I returned to the USA and was stationed at Sheppard AFB as a flight mech. with the 3630th Flying Trng. Wg.  Life was good there, I had a new car and there were a “ton” of WAF’s there in tech school.  

Mar., 1968  discharged from the USAF. 

I married my sweetheart back home, moved to San Jose, Ca and worked 34 years for United Airlines as a mechanic and foreman at their maintenance base in San Francisco.

I attended a reunion in Oct, 2006 of the original 20th members at Wright Patterson and it was great to see some of the guys again.  We had about 25 of us and we plan to do it again next Oct. in Tucson.