ALLAN LINDSAY

My father went to Libya well before us and I remember we took off from the East Coast somewhere - This was good since we also have family on the East coast and had time with them before our flight.

I seem to remember us flying to somewhere in Ireland to re-fuel. At that time my other family members were to get a flu shot. I was young enough not to have the shot. Good thing too since they all became sick once we continued our flight to Libya.

When we arrived in Tripoli, my father had a Villa rented since Base housing had a wait list. We lived off base for several months. Not exactly sure how long but in hindsight, this was a very memorable time for us. We had neighbors that worked at the Syrian Embassy and took us under their wing. My older brother hung around with their son and probably did way too much for boys 11 or 12. Since the other boy spoke fluent Arabic, my brother was pretty safe even though I remember hearing that they passed my brother off as British.

We played Baseball outside of the Villa and the local kids must have been watching because my mother would tell the story of when she saw them trying to play, they kept arguing about the rules. My mother then went out there and tried to “teach” them the basic rules. 

We also had met the family across from the Villa and my Mother and Sister were even invited inside their home. I remember we could see into their home and it had a large courtyard with various rooms shut off from view on the sides of the building. I also remember being invited to their family's country place and they served Couscous. We have tried to recreate that and never could come close. My sister would help carry bread to the community ovens - that bread was so good and to this day I haven’t been able to make anything quite like it. If anyone has a recipe for that bread, I would love to have it.

Once on base, we lived in a small trailer that had a front living room and bedroom attached. Both were very small as was everything about the trailer. My sister and I slept in bunks in the hallway and my brother had the back bedroom that barely fit a double bed. The Bathroom had a tub that had sort of a step in it so you could sit on the step and use water on the bottom portion to clean with. Winter mornings were cold since we had to stretch the propane to heat the place. 

Our memories of living on base were all good. We lived a couple of blocks from the Fire Station that also was a base bus stop. Visiting the Fire Station was fun especially around Fire Prevention week. Our Trailer was about 2 blocks from the beach and in the summer, we were always going swimming. Back then it was normal for kids to have free rein like that and as long as we were home for dinner, all was good.

My father was an NCO at the K9 Sentry dogs. My sister and I would often visit and that is where some locals taught us to speak and write Arabic. My sister was older and way better than I was but those lessons along with the tea were very memorable. 

In 2015, I actually met one of the Airmen that worked for my father. He had some stories about my father that I had never heard before - I’ll save that for another day.

In June of 1967, the Mid East Crisis occurred. I just remember my Dad telling my Mom we needed to evacuate and she didn’t want to leave. Also since he was Air Police, he came home and I saw he had an M16 in his vehicle. That was scary to me.

We eventually did evacuate to Germany (Spangdahlem, near Bitburg) on the last flight out. We were in a troop carrier since we sat on webbed seats for the flight. We had to land in Frankfort since it had the necessary emergency equipment for our plane. There was some sort of indicator lighting up and I guess it was related to the gears not being down. Come to find out, I heard our plane had been shot at while we were taking off from Wheelus but the landing ended up being uneventful.

Once we landed in Germany, we couldn’t get over how green everything was and for the first time in ages, we had whole white milk. We could hardly drink it since we hadn’t had fresh milk in a couple of years.

My mother was an adventurous type and our time in Germany was spent sightseeing and traveling around the country. The huge Castles along the river still stand out in my mind.

After 10 weeks in Germany, we were allowed to return to Libya - my mom was good with money and saved a lot during our time in Germany. With this saved money, we were able to purchase a couple of horses upon our return.