Citation:
a. Terry Stark Interview, History 150 Spring 2016, Conducted by Cassie Stark, Experience in the Air force and Vietnam, March 7, 2017.
Transcript:
a. I interviewed my Grandpa, Terry Stark, over the phone as he was in Texas when I conducted this interview and I was in Virginia. I recorded the interview with a Samsung recorder. I called my grandpa and interviewed him on speaker phone and recorded it with the device. Once I had done this I put the mp3 file onto my computer and edited it in Garage band. I conducted this interview over spring break in my room with the door closed to block out noise from other parts of the house.
b. My grandpa’s name is, Terry Stark. He is 80 years old and is married to my grandma, Sterline Stark. They have been married for over 50 years. They own a farm in Rosebud, Arkansas; they live there in the summer months. In the winter they go to their house in Texas to avoid the cold. My grandma and grandpa have two sons, being my dad and Uncle. My grandfather served in the air force during the Vietnam War and was an engineer, however at this time the war was referred to as a conflict. His rank was a Lieutenant Colonel. He served from 1968-69.
c. The Vietnam War took place between 1955-1975. The war started to prevent the spread of communism. The Cold War between the US and Soviet Union was happening around the same time as the Vietnam War. The US decided to enter the Vietnam conflict in 1965. The war was primarily about the fate of North Vietnam. The Soviet Union and China supplied North Vietnam with weapons; this is because they wanted them to become communist. President Nixon pulled the US out of the war in 1972, and the Paris Peace Accords was signed in 1973.
Apollo Thirteen was a spacecraft on a mission to land on the moon. Due to electrical and design problems the spacecraft was not able to land. The Apollo Space craft was made of a combination of two aircrafts called: Odyssey and Aquarius.
References
Spector, Ronald H. “Vietnam War.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica, inc., 09 Mar. 2017. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
History.comstaff. “Nixon declares Vietnam War is ending.” History.com. A&E Television Networks, 2009. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
Howell, Elizabeth. “Apollo 13: Facts About NASA’s Near-Disaster.” Space.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
e. Transcription:
(…) Banter
Cassie Stark (C): So, you were in the air force, and when did you enter the air force?
Terry Stark (T): I was in the air force, that’s for sure.
C: How long?
T: For 21 years
C: 21??
T: 22. Well, they paid me for 22 with my retirement pay.
C: Umm okay and what were you ranked?
T: What was I ranked? I started out as a Second Lieutenant and ended up as a Lieutenant Cornel.
C: Okay, sweet, so why did you choose the air force?
T: Because they flew airplanes and I wanted to fly some.
C: Did you have any prior experience with airplanes before you joined the air force?
T: Well, I went to ROTC at University of Arkansas.
C: To be an engineer though
T: And before that I graduated from that, they let ROTC guys fly small planes and get their private license.
(…)
C: Cool, and that’s how you started. Okay, how do you think the military impact your life?
T: Impact my life? They’re impacting it now.
C: *laughter* they pay you??
T: They send me good retirement pay.
(….)
***Sarcastic remarks from Grandpa***
C: Okay tell me what you had to do with Apollo thirteen, grandma said you had something to do with that.
T: Well, I was uh, stationed in the electronic systems division, in Bedford MA, and uh I was in a systems program office that was running a test of satellite communications.
C: Okay.
T: And we had an army, navy, an air force joint test things. And one of the things we did, we had big terminals, well that’s just means like a radio.
C: You put the radios on the satellites??
T: Well, we accessed the satellite with this terminal and sent messages up and they sent them back from other places around the world. So what we were doing was testing this equipment for use in airplanes and ground units and things like that where you can talk to people from long distances away.
C: Right.
T: And pretty clear.
C: Cool.
T: So we put this, we put one of these terminals in an airplane that people down in Florida flew, called ARIA, that’s Apollo Range Instrumented Aircraft I guess. So when we put our terminal in there were testing and using it. So, these guys were going out on Apollo thirteen cause we had our terminal in it, and I got to go with them.
C: Cool! So you were there when it happened?
T: Well, I was somewhere around there. What the range implemented means is that we have stations around the world that they use to keep constant communication with the spacecraft Apollo Thirteen. And there’s a lot of big oceans out there.
C: True.
T: And there were some places where you didn’t have enough ground stations to cover the orbits of the spacecraft. So they developed this airplane to fill these holes where they’re out of range of any ground station. They’re C135s with a big snout nose on it. Which had radar in it and they could aim that and get communications from the satellite and forward it to Houston or whoever is commanding the thing.
C: Cool.
T: So that’s what we were doing. Normally, to complete the communications to the command center we used high frequency in those days. That just means a frequency that will travel far distances. Depending on the frequency used, there’s range on the signal. It’s like a FM radio station.
(…)
T: And this high frequency went longer distances. You could hear it all they way around the world. Well when we put our terminal in there we got the chance to hook up our home board communication set up to the aircraft… we could go a satellite up or a satellite down which gives you a very long range with a lot less problems with the weather and things like that which sometimes mess with the reception on high frequencies.
C: Right.
T: So, that’s what we were doing. We were out their testing this.
(…)
T: After that, we took off and went down to TDY and went down to Patrick’s air force base and I was on the airplane with them. That’s where they were stationed. And then we went off to Hawaii and then when they launched Apollo thirteen we had a spot on the south east side to cover our spot out there so they couldn’t converse while they were on their exits.
C: Alright.
T: We went over there for the launch. And then we went to uh, I guess we went back to Hawaii, at least that was the plan. Your grandmother was supposed to meet me over there but they had a problem up there and if you’ve seen the movie you know what it was.
C: I haven’t seen the movie.
T: Huh?
C: I haven’t seen the movie.
T: You haven’t seen the movie? You oughta look at that.
C: Alright.
T: Anyway, when that happens they jerked us off and sent us to uh, well we went to Guam… and then later we went from there down to Australia. And there were some holes around there… and they finally decided where they were going to land, which was between Samoa and Fiji. Actually, we went to Fiji before that when were on the way to Australia.
(…)
T: When our turn came taking the VHL or the VHA that the astronauts talk through for line of sight and ground stations. And our terminal was hooked up the satellite and back down to Houston.
(…)
T: When they landed and were in the water they talked to us directly right through the satellite in Houston. So that’s what I was doing with Apollo Thirteen.
C: That’s cool Grandpa!
C: Was that your favorite thing that you did?
T: Well, I don’t know. It was kind of nice to do something worth wild.
C: What was your day to day life like?
(…)
T: Well I had several of jobs… once I went to the Air force Institute of Technology there in Dayton I got a Masters Degree. I didn’t want to piddle around do 52s anymore, because they did things like send me over to Guam or Vietnam and drop bombs. So I went to school. And then, I went to Headquarters Air Command.
C: Okay
T: And while I was there I did studies and analysis and projections and studied what kind of airplanes we wanted in the future… I got deeply involved in how many and how much. And what kind of defenses to put our weapons… I spent four or five years doing that.
(…)
T: Oh, I forgot to tell you right after I got out of school they sent me to Vietnam for a year.
C: Really?
T: I was at Saigon and at the air force headquarters.
(…)
T: So I was there for a year and what I did was liaison with the uh, air force. They actually had me there because the section that I was in was because I knew things and how they work.
(…)
C: Do you have a favorite place you went?
(…)
T: Well mostly, I drove B52 and I didn’t go anywhere. Took off from the place we landed and flew 10, 12 sometimes 25 hours and came back.
(…)
C: Well, okay.
T: I had a good job flying. Mostly because I only had to work 3-5 days a week.
(Editing)
(…)
T: Whenever we have any news like that we send an officer and a Chaplin, and the worst job I ever had, you only had to do it once, to go out and tell some family… we got there and knock on the door and oh they’re so happy to see us, and then we had to tell them their son had been killed. That’s the hardest job I’ve ever had.
C: That’s horrible.
Conclusion:
f. I thought that the interview went really well. My grandpa was easy to talk to and had a lot to say. I also found it to be interesting to learn about other parts of his life. I mainly went off script and just had a conversation. However, I found it helpful to have the list of questions in front of me to use when the conversation stopped.