Quote:
Originally Posted by Commander Wallace
Edit : As I remember, one of Commander Chester "Whitey" Mack's Favorite crew members on Lapon was Tommy Cox. Tommy was a crew member not on the official manifest or part of the crew but that didn't stop him from earning his " Dolphins. " Whitey Mack was a big man in more ways than one.
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Just to start off, I'm starting to feel guilty about hijacking some threads, but please bear with me.
Tommy Cox and his sidekick, Jesse James (not making this up) were like the god fathers of what became the more modern ET's. Basically, they wrote the book on how to stand an ESM watch even though they weren't ETs.
Tommy came from a town called Limestone, Me which was across the street from Loring AFB. My folks lived about 50 miles to the south.
When we de-commed the Barbel, I wound up with a small box of junk souvenirs. Mostly old valve nameplates and Plexiglas doo-dads that either wound up in a pocket after a duty day or I rescued before the boat was scrapped. The rumor was that Tommy or Jesse had ridden the Barbel, but they had been assigned to a LOT of fast attacks over the years.
Later, I found out Tommy moved back to northern Maine after he retired and I was really tempted to just knock on his door one day and hand him the box of junk but it didn't work out.
