|
During the Cold War, American troops
stood watch at many places on earth including one very remote
mountaintop in Turkey which was the home of The United States
Logistics Group (TUSLOG) Detachment 150, U.S. Air Force, at
Sahintepe, Turkey.
The next few pages contain some
pictures and interesting items from my year there while I was a very
young staff sergeant in the Air Force.
Believe it or not, that's me, a few
months past age 23, leaning against the one and only sign that
pointed the way towards Sahintepe (pronounced "shon-tep-ee or
"shawn-tep-ee").
We're on the Kumla to Gemlik road and
the dirt road to the right led to Detachment 150. This
seven and a half mile dirt road was totally rebuilt by the US Air
Force during my August 81 - August 82 tour of duty. The TUSLOG
general called the resulting gravel road his "TUSLOG highway" upon
his visit in early 1982!
We were located about 25 miles
north/northeast of Bursa, a city of half a million people and 10
miles north/northeast of the town of Gemlik, population about
20,000.
The next few pages provide you some
idea what life was like at Detachment 150, virtually on the frontier
of the Cold War, 3 minutes by air from Bulgaria and Romania and
about 10 minutes from the USSR.
* * * * *
I would be remiss if I did not point
out the heroism of the men of TUSLOG Detachment 150 who performed
their duties without fail during an early 1982 22 day terrorist
threat by Carlos the Jackal and his gang of thugs.
Any of us there would be lying
to say we weren't scared, especially after the Turkish gendarma
(military police) arrested two of the thugs down in Gemlik. We
were left unarmed except for a Turkish soldier with 20 bullets in a
Sten gun. I know many of the guys kept baseball bats,
pipes or clubs handy with the idea we would go down fighting no
matter what if the terrorists struck on site or on the site
road. (Yes, my choice was an aluminum baseball
bat!)
Through it all we
kept the radios up and running, generated our electrical
power, and made our twice-weekly 300 mile round-trip mail and
classified materials runs to TUSLOG Detachment 184 at Balekesehir
Air Base. Such quiet devotion to duty tells you why our motto
was "Proud To Be On Top" !
* * * * * MAY 2004
UPDATE * * * * *
Click on this link to the current weather
at Sahintepe from Calle.com.
(The report is for Sahinyurdu, the
village about 3 miles down the southern face of our hill, so it's
generally the same weather as at Sahintepe.)
* * * *
* 
 | 
