A working visit to Iceland and Brussels,Belgium where I get great news

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Each year I attended the annual SACLANT Infrastructure Conference in Brussels. This would be my second conference. On the way there I decided to kill two birds with one stone and scheduled meetings in Iceland.

1 – 3 June 1977 Wednesday through Friday. My trip to Bermuda was quickly followed by a trip to Iceland, to conduct the acceptance inspection for the NATO fuel pier at Hvalfjordur. On Wednesday, I flew to Keflavik. Thursday and Friday we met at Hvalfjordur to conduct the acceptance inspection, and also did the maintenance and readiness inspection for the rest of the depot.

4 – 5 June 1977 Saturday and Sunday. Saturday I flew to London for the weekend and saw a play that evening. Sunday I toured the town a bit.

6 – 10 June 1977 Monday through Friday. On Monday I flew to Brussels for the NATO Infrastructure Conference. I spent the afternoon walking around the Grand Place and surrounding area and had moules and frites for dinner on one of the side street. Tuesday through Thursday were the meetings. In the evenings I ate in the same area.

By Thursday night I was tired of the rich food and wanted something America. I saw on the menu that they served steak Americain, so ordered that. The waiter brought me steak tartar which is raw meat. I had paid a lot for it, so tried to eat as much as I could. I gave up half way through. My stomach couldn’t take it.

Earlier in 1977, after a year in the States we decided we wanted to live in Europe, so I put my name on the overseas job database. The week I was in Brussels, I received word that the headquarters of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe at Ramstein, Germany wanted to hire me. So upon my return to the States we notified them of my acceptance.

For the next six weeks we prepared for another move. Linda wouldn’t be allowed to move to Ramstein until I was able to find housing, so she went home to New Castle. On August 16, 1977 I was sitting in the transit lounge at McGuire Air Force Base when television programming was interrupted with the news that Elvis Presley had died in his home at Graceland. The next morning my sponsor met me at Rhein Main Air Base.

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Photos

Thingvalir, location of the first parliament
1000 years ago