Everett Wallin – An overseas assignment supporting the Vietnam War | News, Sports, Jobs
We’ve begun learning about Everett Wallin’s Air Force service to help us better understand the Vietnam War’s impact on our region.
Everett grew up in Willmar, but has lived in Marshall since 1975. He enlisted in the Air Force after high school and began his career in Germany before reassignment Stateside.
While assigned in Arizona, Everett married his Willmar sweetheart, Phyllis, and they began a family with Lori joining the home team in Arizona and Mark arriving while they were assigned to Washington State.
On April 15, 1965, Everett received reassignment orders. He and Phyllis had one week to prepare for his departure to a Thailand base supporting combat operations over North Vietnam.
Since Everett’s family could not join him, they moved back to Willmar.
“(M)y father-in-law came out to get my wife and kids. We had to clean the house, of course. You had to really spic and span those military houses.”
Everett’s out-processing included immunizations for overseas.
“The corpsman asked me, ‘You want them all today or some tomorrow?’ I told him, ‘You might as well give them all at once.’ So, I had five shots at the same time and I left on my oldest son’s birthday, the 22nd of April.”
Everett boarded an airliner in California packed with military personnel heading to Southeast Asia. He stopped at Clark Air Base in the Philippines to in-process his new unit, the 355th Tactical Fighter Wing at Tahkli Air Base, Thailand. Then he flew to Thailand on a C-130 transport.
Everett remembered assessing his new home at Tahkli.
“They were building hootches, trying to get everybody accommodated that was coming in. I had my bunk area and a little bit. We had mosquito nets we slept under. When they got more facilities built, I had one side of a hootch and another guy had the other side. It was a little bigger, a little better.”
He also remembered briefings about area dangers.
“They called it the land of the king cobra. We had cobras, vipers, kraits, and pythons. They told us what they were and to look out for them. I did come close to one, one day, but he was more scared than I.”
Everett’s fighter wing flew F-105 fighter-bombers on missions over North Vietnam. Everett operated the liquid oxygen (LOX) plant that supplied the aircraft. The 355th’s fighter squadrons flew missions pretty much every day, every day, creating demand for LOX.
“We were running 12-hour shifts for about three months before more people coming in enabled us to revert to three, eight-hour shifts. A lot of times I was alone.”
Their plants super-cooled oxygen into liquid form and pumped it into 500 gallon holding tanks, like massive thermos jugs. The plant crew transferred it into a 50-gallon, wheeled tank that flight line crews towed to the flight line and uploaded the LOX to the aircraft, whose on-board systems converted it to breathable oxygen.
Everett recalled the fighter wing’s combat missions took a toll.
“The Air Force had 800 F-105s before the war and lost 400. The F-105s bombed North Vietnam all the time. They would start out early — four o’clock in the morning — and in and out all day. You might see three or four come back. You might see two come back. So you’d know we lost a couple or we lost one because they usually went out in groups of four. It was emotional at times, knowing that a lot of those would not come back; they’d be prisoners or killed.”
Everett enjoyed the Thai people.
“(The) people were very nice. Very easy to get along with. Lots of water buffalo — kids riding on the backs of them. One time we took a cab to Bangkok. We paid him with a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of whiskey. (Everett chuckled) We went all over the place that day.”
Everett described special days at Tahkli.
“We had visitors like Bob Hope, Martha Raye, and Raymond Burr. Raymond Burr sat with people in the Mess Hall. I got his autograph. Bob Hope came in with his troupe. It was a very good show.”
Constant letters to and from Phyllis and his kids helped Everett during his year-long tour.
“When you are away from home, it seems slow. But it could have been a lot worse. I could have been in Vietnam under the guns someplace. My wife wrote letters every day and I wrote every day. The kids drew something to send to me and that was the main thing for Christmas.”
In April 1966, Everett boarded another airliner at Bangkok for the long flight home.
“I reunited with my family in Willmar — where my folks and her folks were. Nowadays, when somebody is overseas and comes back, it’s like one day you are in an area where somebody could be in combat and the next day you are back in the States. It’s such a quick transition. But it was wonderful to get back.”
Everett reflected on a military spouse’s challenges during a deployment reunion.
“I think it’s harder for the wife, in a way, because she’s got all that to do for all that time. For a year, she’s in command of everything and then all of the sudden you’re back and things change overnight.”
The Wallins adjusted to one another and soon had to adjust to Everett’s next assignment.
The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the impact of the Vietnam War on Lyon County. If you would like to share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, please contact me at [email protected] or call the museum at 537-6580.
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