by Jim Carter
While the flying weather in Cyprus was unbeatable, our non-flying activities were just as good. The Brits had an active social calendar of parties and dinners. They treated us like family and we all got along wonderfully as long as we didn’t talk about work. Our social philosophy was a variation on the Russian peasants’ lament about their communist overlords: “They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.” Ours was: “ We pretended not to be there and they pretended not to see us.”
When I wasn’t flying or acting as mobile, I spent my time exploring the island (only the Greek side). Looking back after years of travel, I still feel it was the most beautiful place I’d ever seen. I spent days exploring the Roman ruins on the island. One scene I recall with clarity is sitting in a Roman amphitheater, perched above the beautiful blue sea as I watched the setting sun. I roamed through the streets of Paphos and visited the rock where Aphrodite appeared from the foam of the sea. It was a truly magical place.
No description of Cyprus is complete without discussing its food. All the food was fresh, local, delicious and very healthy. The lamb dishes were simple but exquisite. The local fruits and vegetables sold at the small farmer’s stands just off base made healthy eating a pleasure. At the time we didn’t even think about the obvious health benefits of eating fresh, local produce, or salads drizzled with olive oil produced from trees right down the road from us. We just ate it because it was delicious.
The two and one half months on the island raced by. It was one of the few places where I wanted to remain rather than go home. My time in paradise had come to an end, however, and it was back to the real world.
Chapter 14
When I had completed my medical evaluation at Brooks Army Medical Center in 1977, I was told that if I wanted to continue flying, I would have to return every two years to Brooks and repeat the entire process. I’d have to do this in spite of having a clean bill of health. As long as that initial doctor’s assessment of coronary artery disease was in my record, I had to go back there if I wanted to continue flying.
My supervisors at Beale encouraged me to seek a position at Strategic Air Command’s headquarters at Offut AFB, Nebraska. They advised me that for my own “career progression,” I needed to move to a staff position, a non-flying job. The logic of their argument escaped me. All of the time, training, and experience required to get me into the U-2 would be wasted. The Air Force believed in career advancement achieved through broadening your experience by holding command positions. If a pilot wished to remain flying, his career advancement was dead. USAF was willing to invest countless dollars into a pilot’s training only to remove him from the cockpit and place him behind a desk. One of the problems with the military was, and still is, that it was not cost effective. Money was meaningless. A good example of this is the yearly budget. If an individual Wing didn’t spend as much as the previous year, their budget would be cut the following year. As the fiscal year came to a close, outfits would schedule additional flights to ensure that they didn’t come up short.
This happened to me in the C-130 while on rotation in Europe. We weren’t scheduled to fly but ops told us to take an airplane and put 15 hours on it in the next three days. This was done to bring our spending up to the level of the previous year. So we went off to Rota Spain, Athens, and Aviano Italy.
When I returned to Beale in February 1979, these two issues — the medical re-evaluation, and the push to move to a desk job — dominated my thinking. I had the best flying job in the world but in order to continue flying I had to consider something duller but better paying — an airline job.
I wasn’t the only one faced with this dilemma. Seven of my fellow U-2 pilots put in their separation papers. The airlines in the spring of 1979 had started hiring again. They had cut back over the past ten years but now the hiring boom was in full swing. I interviewed with several airlines and chose Eastern Airlines.
After leaving the Air Force we headed back to Philadelphia to see family and friends. I visited with my mom and we discussed the decision to separate from the service. I told her that it was a painful decision and that I would miss the exciting life I had for the past ten years. She helped me put it all into perspective by recalling our time together in that small apartment behind the hardware store in Germantown. She talked about those nights on the roof and how I told her that I wanted to reach the stars. She reminded me that I was able to follow my dream and achieve the goal I had set so many years ago. I realized she was right.
I considered the Air Force a flying fraternity, a family to me. I’ll always treasure the memories of the people I met in the service. We dedicated ourselves to this great nation and I believe that we did our part to keep freedom alive.
P.S. My mom died peacefully on Thanksgiving Day, 2014.
