USO Canteen FReeper Style....FReeper FRiday.... July 12,2002

Larry Johnson , AntiJen , Cotelanche and Snow Bunny

[Snow Bunny]

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The USO Canteen Honors FReepers
who have served, or are now serving their country.

Today's Honoree

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You may have a loved one who has served in the past.
We at the FReeper USO Canteen would like to honor each and every one.

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Welcome to the USO Canteen FReeper Style

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Message from Snow Bunny to all those who visit the Canteen.

This is how I think of the USO Canteen Freeper Style.
It is like a cottage down a road,
a place where a weary veteran can spend the night.

Since it opened, it is magical how so many
Freepers who post here, feel it too.
It has been so dear how the Freepers
kept making it a cottage - a home-type of place
that had a huge living room
for them to visit in and a dance floor, a library, etc.

Many Veterans have written to me,
saying that the Canteen is like home
to them for the first time since they served.

This is your Canteen -
a respite from our busy
and sometimes troubling world.
Make yourself at home...............................................................................................................................................................................

In 1998 Larry Johnson became a FReeper.

He retired to Maine in 1996 to be near his grandkids. Jay is on his back in the first picture.

It was Maine where he first heard Rush and Mary Matalin and got on WebTV to view Drudge, whom he thinks led him to Free Republic.

The road to Maine is etched on his t-shirt, LAAFB. For Larry is a retired USAF Officer, who served 22 years, 13 active in Los Angeles and another 14 under contract to the AF space agencies based there.

"I spent WWII in Baltimore, in uniform whenever I could get one. The sailor suit picture is my favorite.

But as you can see from the picture me with my older brother Carl and our Dad, we were given Army things.

At the rail yard, we raided freight cars for helmets and belts and shell casings."

The picture of Larry and Carl in AF blue was when Larry was at Gettysburg College. In the next picture he and fellow senior ROTC cadets are appointed Distinguished Graduates.

After a year's AF assignment at NYU graduate school, Larry and his college sweetheart, Darby, were married.

The couple posed with his mom and dad who performed the ceremony.

The next 10 years Larry was a weather officer, forecasting for global SAC and recon missions using the new satellites that tracked his career.

He returned to graduate school at the University of Michigan.

"I went to LA to be the staff weather officer to the classified space programs, now credited to the National Recon Organization (NRO).

They needed support for launch of course, but on orbit weather and recovery weather scouted by weather satellites was my specialty. The launch experience was very valuable to my later career. The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was a fun program since we had our own military astronauts. When that program fell to the VietNam budget, those guys, test pilots all who flew into LAAFB, did very well, many flying the Shuttle."

Larry volunteered to go to Vietnam to run a classified weather satellite site at Tan Son Nhut.
The picture is of Site VI and the group picture shows those site troops who are not on shift. These are mostly electronic techs trained for this job at Keesler AFB.

Larry says he grew a mustache to look older as a supervisor. And he is the one wearing California sandals.

In Vietnam the weather satellite data was real time sent down to 7th AF HQ where it was briefed for the day's sorties.

"Two other favorite pastimes were frequent trips to the post office where I am standing in this picture and on my day off to find quiet places in Saigon like the Continental Palace beer garden where I sit in this picture".

This was Larry's last job as a weather officer.

He then returned to LAAFB.

"My first job as an engineer was in the Titan Launch vehicle program in the same building where MOL had been.
NASA was buying Titans for their interplanetary missions. I was to make NASA happy (see picture of me and the Viking and launch vehicle directors) and to manage the launch facilities changes and Titan engineering to integrate NASA's Centaur upper stage.
At the same time I was helping the Air Force Public Affairs remind the public that the Titan and the Launch pad were Air Force contributions.
The success of the Viking missions stands out as one of them landed on Mars on THE FOURTH OF JULY 1976 !"

Larry says his family saw him a little more when he was in the space launch business than when he was in Vietnam.

There were social things that wives just love as in this picture of Larry and Darby in formal gear (always white in LA).

But Larry traveled to Cape Canaveral AFS which NASA kept calling Kennedy, hundreds of times. Larry stayed in LA so long that both of his kids went K-12 in Manhattan Beach schools.

After Titan he had a Vandenberg AFB Shuttle launch pad planning job and was a safety standard officer for satellite tracking stations.

"My last assignments in the USAF were as both engineering and operations directors of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP).
This was the program that first launched when I started supporting global weather forecasts."

The last official picture of Larry is the only one he didn't shave for because he was retiring. Then he tells me he shaved off the mustache, this time to look younger to get a civilian job.

I worked as a contractor for 14 years consulting to the Air Force on integration of military payloads on launch vehicles.

The best part of the job was reporting to younger Air Force men and women who were dedicated to making every launch a success because the Warriors are now getting many more of the space payload products directly"

[Pippin]

Good Morning! And welcome to the canteen!

[larryjohnson]

I'm in my comments section to greet you all cause webtv is so slow going back fom reply to the thread. John,you are the masterposter,thanks. McLynnan,good to meet you too.coteblanche,we love Canadians as good neighbors to Maine,thanks for your posts. Tom,the sailor made me chuckle,thanks, Mayor the caffeen this mornin is 8 O'Clock half and half so I can drink more.

[JohnHuang2]

John,you are the masterposter,thanks

That's extraordinarily high praise, coming from you, Larry. Thank you, Sir.

[Pippin]

Good Morning, Misty!

[Pippin]

Good Morning D1 !

[Pippin]

Good Morning, BUP!

[Aeronaut]

Hey John, how are you?

[Pippin]

Good Morning, Aeronaut!

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Clara. Good to see you.

[JohnHuang2]

Doin'just fine, friend. Hope you are, too.

[Pippin]

A special Good Morning to you, Larry!

Congratulations on being selected as the Freeper of the week!

May God bless you and thank you for your service to our country!

[larryjohnson]

Coteblanche,I forgot to thank you for the plaque. Wish I could hang it on my wall.kneezies,I had to go to summer school when I was in ROTC to meet AF requirments. Then they sent me and 30 2nd Lts to NYU for a year(AFIT). Do they still do that?

[Pippin]

Good Morning,TM! Thanks for the coffee!

[Pippin]

Good Morning, Ligeia!

[Pippin]

Good Morning,Tom! I see you're just hanging in there!

[aomagrat]

Today's classic warship, USS North Carolina (ACR-12)

Tennessee class
Displacement: 14,500 t.
Length: 504’6”
Beam: 72’11”
Draft: 25’
Speed: 22 k.
Complement: 859
Armament: 4 10”; 16 6”; 22 3”; 12 3-pdrs.; 4 1-pdrs.; 2 .30 cal MG; 4 21” torpedo tubes
Commissioned on 7 May 1908
Sold for scrap on 29 September 1930

The second NORTH CAROLINA (Armored Cruiser No. 12) was laid down 21 March 1905 by Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co., Newport News, Va.; launched 6 October 1906; sponsored by Miss Rebekah Glenn, daughter of the Governor of North Carolina; and commissioned at Norfolk 7 May 1908, Captain William A. Marshall in command.

Following shakedown along the eastern seaboard and in the Caribbean, NORTH CAROLINA carried President-elect William Howard Taft on an inspection tour to the Panama Canal in January and February 1909. Between 23 April and 3 August, the new armored cruiser cruised the Mediterranean. Sailing with MONTANA (ACR-13) to protect Americans threatened by conflict in the Turkish Empire. NORTH CAROLINA sent a medical relief party ashore 17 May to Adana, Turkey, to treat both wounded and desperately ill Armenians, victims of massacre. NORTH CAROLINA provided food, shelter, disinfectants, distilled water, dressings and medicines, and assisted other relief agencies already on the scene. For the remainder of her Mediterranean cruise, NORTH CAROLINA cruised the Levant succoring American citizens and refugees from oppression.

In the years before World War I, NORTH CAROLINA trained and maneuvered in the western Atlantic and Caribbean and participated in ceremonial and diplomatic activities. Highlights included attending centennial celebrations of the independence of Argentina (May-June 1910) and Venezuela (June-July 1911); carrying the Secretary of War for an inspection tour of Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo, Cuba, and the Panama Canal (July-August 1911); and bringing home from Cuba bodies of the crew of MAINE for their final interment in Arlington National Cemetery.

As war began in Europe, NORTH CAROLINA departed Boston 7 August 1915 to protect Americans in the Near East. After calling at ports of England and France, she cruised constantly between Jaffa, Beirut, and Alexandria, her presence a reminder of the might of the still neutral United States. She returned to Boston 18 June 1915 for overhaul.

Reaching Pensacola, Fla., 9 September 1915, NORTH CAROLINA contributed to the development of naval aviation through service as station ship. On 5 November 1915, she became the first ship ever to launch an aircraft by catapult while under way. This experimental work led to the use of catapults on battleships and cruisers through World War II, and to the steam catapults on present-day aircraft carriers. On July 12 1916, USS North Carolina became the first US Navy ship to carry and operate aircraft.

When the United States entered World War I, NORTH CAROLINA sailed north to escort troop transports plying between Norfolk and New York. Between December 1918 and July 1919, she brought men of the AEF home from Europe. Renamed CHARLOTTE 7 June 1920 so that her original name might be assigned to a new battleship, she decommissioned at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Wash., 18 February 1921. Her name was struck from the Navy List 15 July 1930, and she was sold for scrapping 29 September 1930.

[Pippin]

Good Morning,Linda!

[Pippin]

Bon Matin,Cote!

[tomkow6]

Good morning, Clara! Did you get your new computer?

[Pippin]

Good Morning, LG!