So after a follow-up appointment with the Doc (had to make sure all the screws were still tight) I decided to stop at Santa Barbara Ducati to look for a light weight helmet. I figured they would have what I needed; light = fast, fast = Ducati. Seems logical.
Anyway… I start talking with one of the folks behind the counter and telling him about my Sidetrak'n project which leads him to tell me about his Grandfather and how he started racing motorcycles after he moved here during the Korean War.
Ah Ha!! another thread to pull and see where it leads. Well I find out his grandfather was stationed at Camp Cooke which is now Vandenberg AFB. The next thing I know we are on the phone with his grandfather talking about his Army days. We make arrangements for him to come out to Vandenberg for a tour and to tell his story.
A couple of weeks later AJ and his Grandfather show up at the front gate for their tour of the base along with AJ's mother. She hadn't actually known anything about her dads military history so this story was all new to her as well. So off we go with the first stop at the Korean War Memorial. To our surprise his unit was not listed. I checked our records and his unit wasn't listed in any of them. Thankfully Mr Collins saved his unit history yearbook or we may have never known about his units story.
We traveled to different areas to see how much it had changed while he regaled us with stories of his time stationed at the base. Eventually, our travels took us to the northern most point of the base boundary known as Point Sal. He told us all about how they trained with amphibious tanks and conducted landings in the frigid surf along the cold foggy coastline.
He laughed and remarked at how difficult it was for the unit because the unit had been activated from a National Guard Unit in Florida. That is when it hit me. I kept thinking that the unit number seemed familiar but I couldn't figure out why. Well, the guard unit had been activated from Gainesvile Fl. The town I grew up in as a teenager. THATS IT! I used to ride past the armory everyday on my way to school. Talk about a 6 degrees of separation or following the red thread of destiny. I had been working at the base for years and had it not been for meeting his grandson I may have never have known the connection. It is also very possible that his units history may have been lost forever. Now my curiosity was peaked and I wanted to know more which leads me to Part 3 of this story.
