Richard Clark Interview, 11 July 2003

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TT:Oh, doing targeting?
RC:Well yeah, we'd be on the helicopter, a Huey—the intelligence people helping direct close air support.
TT:Oh on radios.
RC:Yeah. And we'd actually operate one of the side guns too. But a friend of mine, he wanted to go on R&R, so I took his week doing that, he came back the next week and took mine and got shot down and killed. Yeah, but, you know, things like that happened. Then from Vietnam, I was transferred up to Minot, and I spent the last two years in the service up there.
TT:So you did four years.
RC:Three years—eleven months—28 days roughly. [Smiles]
TT:From Vietnam to the Great White North.
RC:Yes, I mean it was cold up there.
TT:Yeah, I know, I've heard some of the stories. Especially back then; it must have been hell in the winter.
RC:Hey, you know, you go up to North Dakota to Minot, and you go to one of the malls and they've got places to plug in your car heaters, because if you don't have a car heater, I mean, its 25 below zero, it's not going to start.
TT:So it was October '67 that you arrived at Minot?
RC:October '67. Yeah, the first part of October.
TT:When you came, were you assigned to fill a position?
RC:Yeah, I was in the intelligence operation for the bomber wing up there.
TT:Now, would that have been the 5th Bomb[ardment] Wing [Heavy]?
RC:It could have been, I can't remember what bomb wing....but I was in the intelligence operation for that, and...
TT:So, essentially you were connected to the B-52s, the KC-135s any of the air traffic?
RC:Right, primarily the 52's, 'cause we did all the targeting for the targets that our 52's were gonna be responsible for if we had to go to war with Russia, so we did all the targeting then.

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