Thurman P. Woodfork
“Woody”

Thurman P. Woodfork: May 14, 2009

Thurman P. Woodfork: IWVPA Bronze Helmet Top Poet Award of Excellent - December 2005

Woody spent his Air Force career as a radar repairman in places as disparate as Biloxi, Mississippi; Cut Bank, Montana; Tin City, Alaska; Rosas, Spain and Tay Ninh, Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was assigned to Detachment 7 of the 619th Tactical Control Squadron, a Forward Air Command Post located on Trai Trang Sup. Trang Sup was an Army Special Forces camp situated about fifty miles northwest of Saigon in Tay Ninh province, close to the Cambodian border.

The radar set, the AN/UPS-1 – “Yoopsie One” – was a small ground transportable Marine radar, about as big as a minute – a far cry from the multistoried behemoths he was accustomed to working on. Elements of three of the major armed services were represented on Trang Sup: a Marine radar set maintained by Air Force personnel on an Army camp. Woody smiles when he says, “Too bad we couldn’t have gotten the Navy in the mix, somehow.”

After Vietnam, Woody remained in the Air Force for nine more years, retiring from the Air Force at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, close to his home in Washington, DC.

Woody states: “I have never worked in electronics since I left the Air Force; I inexplicably developed a strong dislike for anything connected with electronic maintenance, although I will install hardware on my computer.”

Visit Woody’s personal website
Thurman P. Woodfork: Military Travels

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