Blast From The Past – Fall, 1980 – Here we find my on assignment taking information in the field for a caption during a military exercise in Germany called Reforger. Over the years I was part of the Combat Camera team that covered this annual exercise. The acronym stands for Return of Forces to Europe and involved the joint participation by many countries.

According to Wikipedia: Exercise Campaign Reforger (from return of forces to Germany) was an annual exercise and campaign conducted, during the Cold War, by NATO. The exercise was intended to ensure that NATO had the ability to quickly deploy forces to West Germany in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. Although most troops deployed were from the United States, the operation also involved a substantial number of troops from other NATO countries including Canada and the United Kingdom.

The Reforger exercise itself was first conceived in 1967. During the ongoing Vietnam War, the President Lyndon Johnson administration announced plans to withdraw approximately two divisions from Europe in 1968. As a demonstration of its continuing commitment to the defense of NATO and to illustrate its capability of rapid reinforcement, a large scale force deployment was planned that would deploy a division or more to West Germany in a regular annual exercise.

The first such exercise was conducted beginning on 6 January 1969. These exercises continued annually past the end of the Cold War, except for the year 1989, until 1993. Reforger 1975 marked the operational presence of the United States Marine Corps in Europe for the first time since World War I when the 2nd Marine Division’s 32nd Marine Amphibious Unit (32nd MAU) was deployed from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, as part of that exercise. Reforger 1988 was billed as the largest European ground maneuver since the end of World War II as 125,000 troops were deployed.

Reforger was not merely a show of force—in the event of a conflict, it would be the actual plan to strengthen the NATO presence in Europe. In that instance, it would have been referred to as Operation Reforger. Important components in Reforger included the Military Airlift Command, the Military Sealift Command, and the Civil Reserve Air Fleet.

The U.S. Army also increased its rapid-reinforcement capability by prepositioning huge stocks of equipment and supplies in Europe at POMCUS sites. The maintenance of this equipment has provided extensive on-the-job training to reserve-component support units.

Blast From The Past – Summer, 1999 – Those were the days! Here I’m working on shooting on the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railway with my 8X20″ panoramic view camera somewhere around Chama, New Mexico with my godson Dale Grant. He, his dad Norm and good friend Jose Lopez Jr. all met up at Chama for a weekend of chasing the trains.

It was an interesting camera and one of several pan cameras I’ve owned over the years during the film days. The only one I still have left is a 4×10″ Alt View, built by Patrick Alt in Los Angeles, California at the time. Now with the scarcity of film and processing chemicals it too may go up for sale here before long. Now it’s just a nice display piece as I no longer even have a darkroom setup here at home.

I was, like many, was brought up in the film age of photography and I attribute my “seeing” to what I learned over the years of shooting film and having to know what my photo was going to look like as I shot it without looking at it right afterwards, as we do today with digital.

I have to admit we have come a long way from film since the first digital cameras I used in the Air Force back in the late 1970s. In some ways it’s much better and in others not so much, but either way, shooting film I feel has made me “see” pictures better when I’m out shooting digital today.

Blast From The Past – February 2, 1985 – A High angle close-up view of Space Shuttle Enterprise in launch position on the Space Launch Complex (SLC) #6, commonly known as “SLICK 6”, during the ready-to-launch checks to verify launch procedures at Vandenburg AFB, California. – USAF Photo by TSgt. James R. Pearson

Blast From The Past – Summer 1972 – Firefighters practice putting out a fire at a fire training academy at Hurlburt Field, Ft. Walton Beach, Fla. Hurlburt Field, also called Eglin Air Force Base, Aux Field #9, was my first duty station out of basic training where I was assigned to the 25th Special Operations Squadron. I enjoyed my tour here and won Airman of the Year for my volunteer work with the local Boys Club and photography I did for the base paper.

I’ve not found many pictures I shot there, but one of the memorable assignments I had there was to photograph inside the climatic laboratory on the main base at Eglin. It was a huge hanger where they could bring in just about anything from large aircraft, to small parts and create a cold climate for testing purposes. I can recall a time when it snowed in the hanger in the middle of summer in Florida!

According to Wikipedia: The McKinley Climatic Laboratory is both an active laboratory and a historic site located in Building 440 on Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. The laboratory is part of the 96th Test Wing. In addition to Air Force testing, it can be used by other US government agencies and private industry.

On October 6, 1997, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The laboratory was named a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers in 1987.

In 1940, the US Army Air Force designated Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska as a cold-weather testing facility. Because sufficiently cold weather was not predictable and often of short duration, Ashley McKinley suggested a refrigerated airplane hangar be built. The facilities were constructed at Eglin Field.

The first tests started in May 1947. Airplanes that were tested included the B-29 Superfortress, C-82 Packet, P-47 Thunderbolt, P-51 Mustang, P-80 Shooting Star, and the Sikorsky H-5D helicopter. More recently, it has tested the C-5 Galaxy, the F-117, the F-22] the Boeing 787, and the Airbus A350 XWB

On 12 June 1971, the hangar was dedicated as the McKinley Climatic Hangar in honor of Col. Ashley McKinley, who suggested the facility and served at Eglin during its construction.