[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
They were. So my host mother was a trader and she ran a little store in the village. And once a week, she would take a four hour bus ride, four or five hour bus ride to Accra. She would get up at like 3:00 a.m., take the bus to Accra to trade for goods and bring them back to the village. And so they called her Auntie Makola. Makola meant store, store or market. And she was this really rather shy, intelligent woman who spoke no English and was constantly asking me questions through my host family sister. And the way she would ask questions, what she would say, be sa no. Be sa no. Ask her. Ask her this. Ask her that. Ask her this.

So she had this very, very intelligent curiosity. And that would lead to long talks at night over dinner where I was, where it was, it was great. You know, you were constantly being interviewed. And of course, every Peace Corps volunteer understands that you're constantly being studied and interviewed and observed. So but for her, it was more than that. And that made for some good conversations.

[Assistant] Was there any especially hard times during training as you were adjusting to?

[User] Yes, there were. I mean, I went into Peace Corps. I weighed 108 pounds. And after training, I was 98 pounds.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] And that was because I was just feeling a bit sick a lot of the time because the mefloquine didn't agree with me. Mefloquine is a malaria medication that you take weekly and they didn't really adjust the dose for size. So if I had been a little more observant, I probably would have cut my tablet in half. I didn't really need that much, but I went along with it because I wanted to follow the rules and.

[Assistant] Do the right thing.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And do the right thing and get through training because it was rigorous and it was not easy. But when I did tell the Peace Corps nurse that it was giving me trouble sleeping, I was having trouble sleeping from the drug, she took me off it immediately. So they were very helpful in that way.

[Assistant] Good.

[User] Wouldn't make you do anything unhealthy. But at the same time I was weak and tired and all of that from not sleeping.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But I got through it and yeah.

[Assistant] And did you guys like socialize together on the weekends? Did you do anything special?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But I got through it and yeah.

[Assistant] And did you guys like socialize together on the weekends? Did you do anything special?

[User] The two, so it's interesting. When you first get there, you're just so overwhelmed by everything that you don't even realize that you have some autonomy and you could go out for a walk at night or something like that. So after a couple of weeks I thought, wait a minute, I could go out for a walk at night if I want. So I went out for a walk and I found my other volunteer friends. And the funny thing was that one of them was very, I mean, they were both 22 at the time or 23, but one of them looked very young. She looked like a baby, and her family treated her that way. So they didn't want her out walking at night. But I assured them me being the advanced age of 35 could serve as some sort of escort chaperone. So she and the other volunteer and I would go for walks around the football field in the moonlight. It was just beautiful, you know, quiet because there was no electricity and you had moonlight that you don't see here.

[Assistant] Yeah. Yeah.

[User] So that was really helpful for us because we were, you know, you're a bit overwhelmed by the cultural change.

[Assistant] And then you got assigned to a school?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. And then I was assigned to my school. And the interesting thing about the school that I was assigned to was that it was an elite school in this, in the capital city, called Achimota. And this, it's a big school. It was a colonial school that had been established by the British. And then over the years, it had just evolved into an elite high school. And a few years previous Bill Clinton, president at the time, had visited Ghana and met with the president, Jerry Rawlings. And Jerry Rawlings said, you know, I was taught by a Peace Corps volunteer when I was a kid and I want a Peace Corps volunteer at my alma mater, which is Achimota High School. So he said, you will have one. And from that year forward, there was always a Peace Corps volunteer at that fancy high school, which was a really cool experience for me.

[Assistant] Yeah, which probably needed it the least in the country but still.

[User] You know, they did need it. They really did need.

[Assistant] Did they?

[User] A volunteer because the teachers there were as unpaid as the teachers out, almost as unpaid as the teachers out in the villages. Their pay, their weekly pay or monthly pay, was as tenuous as those who experienced in the villages.

[Assistant] So when you moved to Accra after training, did you have your own apartment? What was your living situation then?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] A volunteer because the teachers there were as unpaid as the teachers out, almost as unpaid as the teachers out in the villages. Their pay, their weekly pay or monthly pay, was as tenuous as those who experienced in the villages.

[Assistant] So when you moved to Accra after training, did you have your own apartment? What was your living situation then?

[User] So I went from this little room in a quiet little village to a palatial house in a suburb of Accra. It had three big bedrooms. Pipe water in the kitchen.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User] Doors and screens on the windows and all that. So you can imagine me being in the capital, right outside the capital city, with three extra, two extra bedrooms, that I had other, I had visitors.

[Assistant] Constantly, I imagine.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, at first, constantly. But that, it was interesting because it was a big city, relatively big city, and there was some crime. And at the time there was a rapist on the loose.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User] And it was very scary to be alone in this big house in a suburban sort of town, suburb of Accra. But they took good care of me and, you know, always checked on my safety and.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But still, it was just a little scary at first. But Peace Corps was extremely vigilant about safety, so they made sure I was okay.

[Assistant] Were you the oldest one in your group?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And it was very scary to be alone in this big house in a suburban sort of town, suburb of Accra. But they took good care of me and, you know, always checked on my safety and.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But still, it was just a little scary at first. But Peace Corps was extremely vigilant about safety, so they made sure I was okay.

[Assistant] Were you the oldest one in your group?

[User] I was, yes. At 35. It was a young group, and the second eldest was maybe 29.

[Assistant] And what did you do like for cooking, for shopping, for just ordinary life things?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But still, it was just a little scary at first. But Peace Corps was extremely vigilant about safety, so they made sure I was okay.

[Assistant] Were you the oldest one in your group?

[User] I was, yes. At 35. It was a young group, and the second eldest was maybe 29.

[Assistant] And what did you do like for cooking, for shopping, for just ordinary life things?

[User] My kitchen had a propane stove, so I cooked indoors and had a gas tank. And so that was, uh, that was pretty state of the art. But there was a, there was a stand down the end of the road where I could get everything I needed.

[Assistant] And what did you cook? Did you cook local food? Did you cook?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I would. I learned to, well, you learn to cook local food in training, so you develop a taste for that. And so I would just cook maybe. Well, I would actually make food from home because I had so much local food that I wanted something from home. So I would bake a lot.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] I would bake things. But the funny thing is about the school where I was was that they would bring me dinner from the cafeteria every night.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User]
A big dinner. And so someone would come to my door at night with this tray, with a cover, with a fancy cloth on top of it, and hand it to me. And I would bring it in and put it down and say, OK, I have dinner. And after a while it just felt a little odd. It just felt weird that I was treated so royally, you know, and there are people around you who didn't have enough to eat. So after a while, I started giving most of it, or at least half of it, to the guard who lived next door. Next door, the people, there was a doctor who lived next door to me, and she also had some chicken coops and she had a guard who watched over them. It was a pretty big chicken operation. So he was paid a guard's salary. I imagine that wasn't much. So he would get half of it pretty much every night. So I felt a little better about that.

But the food was fine. Very different from home. There wasn't the kind of roughage that you normally eat at home. So if I wanted to find raw vegetables, that was always a bit of a treasure hunt, at least in my neighborhood. But I could always go into the city, take the tro tro into the city or a taxi into the city and go to the big markets and get vegetables there, raw vegetables there.

[Assistant] Hmm. That's interesting that you didn't have many raw vegetables around.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I would bake things. But the funny thing is about the school where I was was that they would bring me dinner from the cafeteria every night.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User]
A big dinner. And so someone would come to my door at night with this tray, with a cover, with a fancy cloth on top of it, and hand it to me. And I would bring it in and put it down and say, OK, I have dinner. And after a while it just felt a little odd. It just felt weird that I was treated so royally, you know, and there are people around you who didn't have enough to eat. So after a while, I started giving most of it, or at least half of it, to the guard who lived next door. Next door, the people, there was a doctor who lived next door to me, and she also had some chicken coops and she had a guard who watched over them. It was a pretty big chicken operation. So he was paid a guard's salary. I imagine that wasn't much. So he would get half of it pretty much every night. So I felt a little better about that.

But the food was fine. Very different from home. There wasn't the kind of roughage that you normally eat at home. So if I wanted to find raw vegetables, that was always a bit of a treasure hunt, at least in my neighborhood. But I could always go into the city, take the tro tro into the city or a taxi into the city and go to the big markets and get vegetables there, raw vegetables there.

[Assistant] Hmm. That's interesting that you didn't have many raw vegetables around.

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Did you eat mostly meat and starch?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was mostly beans. I mean, there was the, there was fufu, which is the main starch. And fufu is pounded yams or pounded yams and plantains, which at first I didn't like and by the end of the two years I craved more than anything. So even if I were not fed by the cafeteria, I could walk just a short distance down the street to the local seller and get fufu. Or I could get beans and rice, something called waakye or red red, which was beans and fried plantain, and it was delicious. So there was plenty of all that. I gained all the, I gained more than my weight back and I gained it in fat instead of muscle because I wasn't running like I had been when I was at home. But eventually that all went back to normal.

[Assistant] Were you ever scared?

[User] I was in the city, yes. In the villages? Well, OK, in the village. It was so dark that when I would walk home at night from, say, the other volunteers house or someone's house, it was so dark you really could not see in front of you. You needed a flashlight. And one night I was walking home in the village and I heard this incredible sound next to me. Maaa. And it's just a large goat, Billy goat. But I didn't even see it next to me. That's how dark it was. So I was startled, but not afraid.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But in the city, you have all of the city things to be afraid of.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell me about your job.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, I did. And she was a math teacher. So we quickly ended up not working together. And I ended up working with this teacher in the computer lab who had this little, little business. But it ended up being OK, I mean. Uh, I really ended up pretty much running it myself. And then I got another, I hired another teacher, a Ghanaian teacher, to help me and he was pretty savvy so.

[Assistant] And you could do that?

[User] Mm hmm. I hired a couple of teachers, um, who had some computer background.

[Assistant] Nice.

[User] Yeah. So that helped a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah. Nice. Nice. Did you go on any trips? Did you have any adventures while you were over there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. So that helped a lot.

[Assistant] Yeah. Nice. Nice. Did you go on any trips? Did you have any adventures while you were over there?

[User]
Oh, lots. But when you have a demanding job, you kind of don't want to. When you have something that, OK, so the whole culture, a lot of the Peace Corps culture is exploration and traveling with your friends and doing these outreach programs around the country. But at first I was so overwhelmed that I felt that I had to really, really buckle down at my school and, you know, understand everything that was on me. But eventually I did get to travel some, but I traveled really on vacation and then we went to the surrounding countries just for pure travel, not to do any programs. But the fun thing about it was that there were all of these outreach programs like Guinea worm education, HIV education, outreach programs that were, you know, these sort of allowed junkets that you could do.

And a lot of Peace Corps volunteers took advantage of that and said, hey, we're going on a bike trip around the country to educate kids about HIV. Well, it was as fun for us as it was, you know, as it was hopefully useful for the communities. But I didn't do a lot of that because it was a little too party for me. And the other volunteers were different. They were on average, 13 years younger than me. So that's when I really felt the age difference.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] So I didn't do much of that, but I did get to travel.

[Assistant] So they could bike around the country?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
Oh, lots. But when you have a demanding job, you kind of don't want to. When you have something that, OK, so the whole culture, a lot of the Peace Corps culture is exploration and traveling with your friends and doing these outreach programs around the country. But at first I was so overwhelmed that I felt that I had to really, really buckle down at my school and, you know, understand everything that was on me. But eventually I did get to travel some, but I traveled really on vacation and then we went to the surrounding countries just for pure travel, not to do any programs. But the fun thing about it was that there were all of these outreach programs like Guinea worm education, HIV education, outreach programs that were, you know, these sort of allowed junkets that you could do.

And a lot of Peace Corps volunteers took advantage of that and said, hey, we're going on a bike trip around the country to educate kids about HIV. Well, it was as fun for us as it was, you know, as it was hopefully useful for the communities. But I didn't do a lot of that because it was a little too party for me. And the other volunteers were different. They were on average, 13 years younger than me. So that's when I really felt the age difference.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] So I didn't do much of that, but I did get to travel.

[Assistant] So they could bike around the country?

[User] One of the programs was biking around the country. I think that was, not the whole country, but a section of the country, doing Guinea worm education. You know, how to keep your local water supplies clean so that you don't contract diseases.

[Assistant] And would you do those in English or would you do those in Twi?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So I didn't do much of that, but I did get to travel.

[Assistant] So they could bike around the country?

[User] One of the programs was biking around the country. I think that was, not the whole country, but a section of the country, doing Guinea worm education. You know, how to keep your local water supplies clean so that you don't contract diseases.

[Assistant] And would you do those in English or would you do those in Twi?

[User] I think they would do them in English because it was in a school. And our schools, in our schools, we spoke English. Yeah, even in primary school, you were, you were started on English in primary school. So it was pretty easy for us.

[Assistant] And you taught high school level?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] One of the programs was biking around the country. I think that was, not the whole country, but a section of the country, doing Guinea worm education. You know, how to keep your local water supplies clean so that you don't contract diseases.

[Assistant] And would you do those in English or would you do those in Twi?

[User] I think they would do them in English because it was in a school. And our schools, in our schools, we spoke English. Yeah, even in primary school, you were, you were started on English in primary school. So it was pretty easy for us.

[Assistant] And you taught high school level?

[User] Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] So did you use your Twi a lot when you got out of the?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

[Assistant] So did you use your Twi a lot when you got out of the?

[User] Yeah. I use it in the market. I use it when I traveled. And then I continued Twi lessons after training just to stay with it, you know. So it was nice to be able to hire a retired woman from the town.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I had moved. The second year I had moved to a smaller town and that was because of crime in the city. And that's where I hired a local woman to tutor me.

[Assistant] And did you still teach at the same school or did you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. I use it in the market. I use it when I traveled. And then I continued Twi lessons after training just to stay with it, you know. So it was nice to be able to hire a retired woman from the town.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] I had moved. The second year I had moved to a smaller town and that was because of crime in the city. And that's where I hired a local woman to tutor me.

[Assistant] And did you still teach at the same school or did you?

[User] No. So then my second year, I was moved out completely because of the crime wave in Accra, and they sent me out to the western part. They gave me a choice of two schools and I ended up in Berekum, which is in the western part of Ghana, near Kumasi, the capital city. Kumasi, I think, is the colonial capital city and Accra is the capital city or something like that. But so I got to experience the big city and a small town.

[Assistant] And what were the differences for you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No. So then my second year, I was moved out completely because of the crime wave in Accra, and they sent me out to the western part. They gave me a choice of two schools and I ended up in Berekum, which is in the western part of Ghana, near Kumasi, the capital city. Kumasi, I think, is the colonial capital city and Accra is the capital city or something like that. But so I got to experience the big city and a small town.

[Assistant] And what were the differences for you?

[User] Well, the small town was much easier to navigate. But you don't have all the advantages of the big city. Like people are not as educated, so you can't have the same level of conversation. You know, less people have traveled, so your friendships are going to be colored by that. But at the same time, I taught at a, I was again at a school. This time it was a nurses training college. So the people around me, I felt that I could make friends with and have stimulating conversation with.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So even though it was a smaller town and your interactions were much more basic, at least at my school, I had people that I could talk to.

[Assistant] Yeah. And did you still teach computers there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So even though it was a smaller town and your interactions were much more basic, at least at my school, I had people that I could talk to.

[Assistant] Yeah. And did you still teach computers there?

[User] Yes. Yeah. So my lab was much, my computer lab was much smaller. Everything was much easier to handle. My classes were 8 to 10 students.

[Assistant] Nice.

[User] Yes. Everything there was easier. Much, much easier. And the students were older. So they were in college and a lot of them were even older than college age. They had decided to become nurses. So I was very glad to get, to have that experience.

[Assistant] What was your living situation there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So my friends from the farther villages would come and stay with me in Berekum, which was a pretty, you know, sort of big, big town compared to where they lived out in the bush. So the funny thing was, in the beginning, we all wanted to be out in the bush. Every, when I was stationed in the big city, people felt sorry for me and I felt sorry for myself because we all had these dreams of, you know, living that stereotypical Peace Corps experience of living in the bush.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So yeah, but I at least got to experience some of that in training.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] The idyllic countryside thing.

[Assistant] What was, what would you say was your biggest challenge in Peace Corps?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] It was a challenge to stay cheerful when that happened. But then you learn to joke about it. And there was one time when I passed a group of men, this was back in the city in Accra. I passed a group of men just sitting around and they said something about the obroni girl who walked by them. And it was just one of those days where I was really tired of it. So I actually grabbed my butt and shook it. And they fell out laughing like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen. It was just the one time where this slight, this somewhat raunchy action got such a laugh. So it just proved that they were playing. And I was meant to play back, you know?

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah.

[User] I don't know how well that would have gone over. Well, it depends on the person, obviously, but that is one of the things that, you know, is considered culturally inappropriate. There's so much cultural inappropriateness that you can fall into and you're constantly aware of it and constantly trying to do the right thing and be culturally sensitive. But that day I was all done with that, but it ended up working out.

[Assistant] Did you ever just blow it culturally?

[User] Well, like one time a woman was calling to me and saying, ocosia, yeah, why are you not greeting me? And she was really mad that I was not greeting her. And I just, I was on my bicycle. I was always on my bike. And I just kept riding by because I was tired and I just didn't want to greet everybody. And that's the culture. You greet. It's rude not to greet, especially at an older person. You least, at least.

[Assistant] So whether you know them or not you greet them?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I don't know how well that would have gone over. Well, it depends on the person, obviously, but that is one of the things that, you know, is considered culturally inappropriate. There's so much cultural inappropriateness that you can fall into and you're constantly aware of it and constantly trying to do the right thing and be culturally sensitive. But that day I was all done with that, but it ended up working out.

[Assistant] Did you ever just blow it culturally?

[User] Well, like one time a woman was calling to me and saying, ocosia, yeah, why are you not greeting me? And she was really mad that I was not greeting her. And I just, I was on my bicycle. I was always on my bike. And I just kept riding by because I was tired and I just didn't want to greet everybody. And that's the culture. You greet. It's rude not to greet, especially at an older person. You least, at least.

[Assistant] So whether you know them or not you greet them?

[User] Yes, absolutely. And in training, you know, in our village, in training, the trainers, our host country national trainers, had told the people in the village help our volunteers practice their chi. You know, greet them on the road, make sure they greet you too. They took that to a very serious degree, and that was really hard at first. But it was beautiful to be able to fit in. Once you finished training, you got your autonomy back and you were, you could go about your day the way you wanted.

[Assistant] Did you have any secondary projects that that you did?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, like one time a woman was calling to me and saying, ocosia, yeah, why are you not greeting me? And she was really mad that I was not greeting her. And I just, I was on my bicycle. I was always on my bike. And I just kept riding by because I was tired and I just didn't want to greet everybody. And that's the culture. You greet. It's rude not to greet, especially at an older person. You least, at least.

[Assistant] So whether you know them or not you greet them?

[User] Yes, absolutely. And in training, you know, in our village, in training, the trainers, our host country national trainers, had told the people in the village help our volunteers practice their chi. You know, greet them on the road, make sure they greet you too. They took that to a very serious degree, and that was really hard at first. But it was beautiful to be able to fit in. Once you finished training, you got your autonomy back and you were, you could go about your day the way you wanted.

[Assistant] Did you have any secondary projects that that you did?

[User] Yes, um, my, another volunteer and I started a girls club where we just talked, you know, met once a week and just chatted, which was really fun.

[Assistant] And how old were the girls?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, absolutely. And in training, you know, in our village, in training, the trainers, our host country national trainers, had told the people in the village help our volunteers practice their chi. You know, greet them on the road, make sure they greet you too. They took that to a very serious degree, and that was really hard at first. But it was beautiful to be able to fit in. Once you finished training, you got your autonomy back and you were, you could go about your day the way you wanted.

[Assistant] Did you have any secondary projects that that you did?

[User] Yes, um, my, another volunteer and I started a girls club where we just talked, you know, met once a week and just chatted, which was really fun.

[Assistant] And how old were the girls?

[User] They were high school, early high school age.

[Assistant] This was in Accra?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
This was in Berekum, the smaller town. And another thing was I started a scholarship program for girls. With Americans. So after a while, maybe after a year, I had a couple of visitors. And one thing that they were very struck by was the whole, was the, um, the social status of women and girls, which remains low today. And they, and I would. And it was also something that I was very interested in. It was difficult to see how girls were treated as second class. So it was important to me that my girls got computer education and were given all the, or at least told that they could do anything the boys could.

But after a while, I thought, let me formalize this into a program. So I wrote a letter home to people who had visited me previously and to everybody I knew, mostly women, and told them two stories about two girls that I had taught. And they were pretty moving stories. And I said, you want to help some girls in Ghana? Send some money and we'll pay their school fees to get them through high school, which is a feat in a lot of small villages.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] So that ended up working out pretty well. It was toward the end of my second year, so I didn't get to see the fruits of all of it, but I handed it down to another volunteer who stayed a little longer than me.

[Assistant] Cool.

[User] So that worked out beautifully. That was, that was something I was really happy to do.

[Assistant] Did you go home at all?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So that ended up working out pretty well. It was toward the end of my second year, so I didn't get to see the fruits of all of it, but I handed it down to another volunteer who stayed a little longer than me.

[Assistant] Cool.

[User] So that worked out beautifully. That was, that was something I was really happy to do.

[Assistant] Did you go home at all?

[User] I did. My first year, at the end of my first year, for vacation I went home to the States. And it was a bit of a mind bend and I don't recommend it. It was just too strange, the cultural shift. So if I could do that again, I would say just travel around Ghana. And I did get to travel around West Africa in my second year vacation, which was a wonderful experience to see the other countries and how different they were. But going home to the United States after a year was not a good idea. Plus, it was so expensive to fly and I just blew so much money and it was such a weird experience that I thought, oh, I would not recommend this to other volunteers.

[Assistant] Did you have any health scares or any need for doctoring while you were in Ghana?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So that worked out beautifully. That was, that was something I was really happy to do.

[Assistant] Did you go home at all?

[User] I did. My first year, at the end of my first year, for vacation I went home to the States. And it was a bit of a mind bend and I don't recommend it. It was just too strange, the cultural shift. So if I could do that again, I would say just travel around Ghana. And I did get to travel around West Africa in my second year vacation, which was a wonderful experience to see the other countries and how different they were. But going home to the United States after a year was not a good idea. Plus, it was so expensive to fly and I just blew so much money and it was such a weird experience that I thought, oh, I would not recommend this to other volunteers.

[Assistant] Did you have any health scares or any need for doctoring while you were in Ghana?

[User] It's funny, a lot of people got sick. Gastrointestinal distress. I had none, which was amazing. Once I got Giardia, which was relatively common, and got over it. Once I had malaria and I got over it. I mean, a lot of people get malaria. So it wasn't a big deal there. I mean, it was a big deal because we'd not been exposed to it before. So it was taken very seriously and I was sent to a hospital to recuperate. But I mean, it came and went like any, like any infection.

[Assistant] And you never had a second episode?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And had learned only much later that it was a lactose intolerance.

[Assistant] Oh, wow.

[User] Because I didn't have any cheese or dairy in the first year of Ghana.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] And I didn't even know it. So it was very good that way, to take me completely out of my world. But as far as that goes, no, I really didn't have any illness. But it was, it was the psychological distress of the mefloquine and the insomnia that it produced. That was a little difficult in training, but they were great about it. They gave me Ambien to help me sleep, and they took me off the mefloquine when I said that it was serious. So it was fine.

[Assistant] Good. Good, good, good. How about friendships while you were over there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I didn't even know it. So it was very good that way, to take me completely out of my world. But as far as that goes, no, I really didn't have any illness. But it was, it was the psychological distress of the mefloquine and the insomnia that it produced. That was a little difficult in training, but they were great about it. They gave me Ambien to help me sleep, and they took me off the mefloquine when I said that it was serious. So it was fine.

[Assistant] Good. Good, good, good. How about friendships while you were over there?

[User] So culturally, you know, when someone is that culturally alien to you, there's a lot to get over to become friends. And I am I guess what you call a social introvert. I really like my time alone. So I spent a lot of time alone to write and did not go out much. And when I did go out, I was kind of really just wanted to see other Americans. Just wanted to hang out with other Americans. But later, oh, I developed a crush on the headmistress' son. So that was, that was good. Although he didn't feel the same about me. So that didn't go anywhere. But I thought, well, here's a good way to really connect culturally.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But I never had, I did not have a Ghanaian boyfriend at all while I was there. But I think that would have been a really nice way to bridge the cultural gap. But as far as close friendships, the closest friendships I developed were with my students, and there was one in particular who was my buddy, and I helped her through a hard time and we were close. Yeah.

[Assistant] Do you want to share any of the stories about what you discovered about the girls there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So culturally, you know, when someone is that culturally alien to you, there's a lot to get over to become friends. And I am I guess what you call a social introvert. I really like my time alone. So I spent a lot of time alone to write and did not go out much. And when I did go out, I was kind of really just wanted to see other Americans. Just wanted to hang out with other Americans. But later, oh, I developed a crush on the headmistress' son. So that was, that was good. Although he didn't feel the same about me. So that didn't go anywhere. But I thought, well, here's a good way to really connect culturally.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But I never had, I did not have a Ghanaian boyfriend at all while I was there. But I think that would have been a really nice way to bridge the cultural gap. But as far as close friendships, the closest friendships I developed were with my students, and there was one in particular who was my buddy, and I helped her through a hard time and we were close. Yeah.

[Assistant] Do you want to share any of the stories about what you discovered about the girls there?

[User] So the one student who I became close with, her name is Sakina. She was just a sweetheart and wanted to become a fashion designer. But her mother worked at the school, so therefore she was going to become a nurse because she got free education going to the school. So it was, it was nice to be friends with her. She reminded me what it was like at that age, you know, and it was nice to be a mentor. But what was the main? What was your question again?

[Assistant] Just you had talked about stories that it inspired you to set up the scholarship or your friendship with some of your students. I just didn't know if you had any stories you wanted to share about any of that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So the one student who I became close with, her name is Sakina. She was just a sweetheart and wanted to become a fashion designer. But her mother worked at the school, so therefore she was going to become a nurse because she got free education going to the school. So it was, it was nice to be friends with her. She reminded me what it was like at that age, you know, and it was nice to be a mentor. But what was the main? What was your question again?

[Assistant] Just you had talked about stories that it inspired you to set up the scholarship or your friendship with some of your students. I just didn't know if you had any stories you wanted to share about any of that.

[User] Yeah, well, Sakina was one of those, one of those girls. Her mother was poor, you know, she was a single mom, and she had three kids and she worked at the school and she spent her free time selling toiletries to the other teachers. So she would bring a basket of things, soaps and things, and sell them just for extra money. But her kids would not have been able to go to school if she had not been working there. I had decided that I would help Sakina with her schooling once I left Ghana. And so I told her that. And the next day I met with her mom, sat down with her mom, who I was also friends with. And she took my hands and she cried. She said nobody ever cared. So it was like just right there, you know? That was worth it right there.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And then just being able to tell other people that story in that letter, I think they got it. I told it well enough that I think I got other people to cry too. And that helped, I'm sure. And just meeting, I didn't meet other girls who were, who, I didn't personally talk to other girls who had gone through that. But I knew enough about the whole situation.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And then just being able to tell other people that story in that letter, I think they got it. I told it well enough that I think I got other people to cry too. And that helped, I'm sure. And just meeting, I didn't meet other girls who were, who, I didn't personally talk to other girls who had gone through that. But I knew enough about the whole situation.

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[User] That it was just. It was, it was the norm.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So yeah.

[Assistant] And did you keep in touch with her?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] That it was just. It was, it was the norm.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] So yeah.

[Assistant] And did you keep in touch with her?

[User] I did, yeah, for a couple of years. But then we lost touch after a while. Well, I do have her phone number, and I've been meaning to call her, but it just hasn't happened in over the last 18 years.

[Assistant] Well, you said it was hard to come back for a vacation. What was it like when you were ending your service and coming back to the States?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] So yeah.

[Assistant] And did you keep in touch with her?

[User] I did, yeah, for a couple of years. But then we lost touch after a while. Well, I do have her phone number, and I've been meaning to call her, but it just hasn't happened in over the last 18 years.

[Assistant] Well, you said it was hard to come back for a vacation. What was it like when you were ending your service and coming back to the States?

[User]
That was the hardest part of all, coming home and reentry. The reentry was harder than anything because it was. It was American culture. It wasn't just a drastically different culture, you know? The excess and the level of wealth and the waste and the rampant, the sort of destructive capitalism that you see here was over was difficult to face. I remember going for a walk. I was staying with my brother when I'd come home and I went for a walk in his neighborhood and it was trash day and there were these bicycles put out in the trash. And I thought, wow, what people wouldn't do for these bicycles back in Ghana, you know?

So it was difficult. Reentry was difficult. Here I am, a 37 year old woman. All my friends are either married or, you know, far along in their professions with real estate and spouses and all that. So that was kind of weird.

[Assistant] I was wondering what it was like for you to come back kind of mid-career?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I did, yeah, for a couple of years. But then we lost touch after a while. Well, I do have her phone number, and I've been meaning to call her, but it just hasn't happened in over the last 18 years.

[Assistant] Well, you said it was hard to come back for a vacation. What was it like when you were ending your service and coming back to the States?

[User]
That was the hardest part of all, coming home and reentry. The reentry was harder than anything because it was. It was American culture. It wasn't just a drastically different culture, you know? The excess and the level of wealth and the waste and the rampant, the sort of destructive capitalism that you see here was over was difficult to face. I remember going for a walk. I was staying with my brother when I'd come home and I went for a walk in his neighborhood and it was trash day and there were these bicycles put out in the trash. And I thought, wow, what people wouldn't do for these bicycles back in Ghana, you know?

So it was difficult. Reentry was difficult. Here I am, a 37 year old woman. All my friends are either married or, you know, far along in their professions with real estate and spouses and all that. So that was kind of weird.

[Assistant] I was wondering what it was like for you to come back kind of mid-career?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Starting over again. Yeah.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
That was the hardest part of all, coming home and reentry. The reentry was harder than anything because it was. It was American culture. It wasn't just a drastically different culture, you know? The excess and the level of wealth and the waste and the rampant, the sort of destructive capitalism that you see here was over was difficult to face. I remember going for a walk. I was staying with my brother when I'd come home and I went for a walk in his neighborhood and it was trash day and there were these bicycles put out in the trash. And I thought, wow, what people wouldn't do for these bicycles back in Ghana, you know?

So it was difficult. Reentry was difficult. Here I am, a 37 year old woman. All my friends are either married or, you know, far along in their professions with real estate and spouses and all that. So that was kind of weird.

[Assistant] I was wondering what it was like for you to come back kind of mid-career?

[User] Right.

[Assistant] Starting over again. Yeah.

[User] Yeah, yeah. But I luckily landed a job where, in a, at the Center for Language Study at Yale, where everyone was also had lived in other places and spoke other languages. And so I fit in there. That was pretty, that was pretty great. But getting used to America was really tough. I remember being afraid of elevators. And driving in a car over 50 miles an hour was just freaky. So I can only imagine what it's like for a Ghanaian to come here and see it.

[Assistant] Now can you imagine?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, yeah. But I luckily landed a job where, in a, at the Center for Language Study at Yale, where everyone was also had lived in other places and spoke other languages. And so I fit in there. That was pretty, that was pretty great. But getting used to America was really tough. I remember being afraid of elevators. And driving in a car over 50 miles an hour was just freaky. So I can only imagine what it's like for a Ghanaian to come here and see it.

[Assistant] Now can you imagine?

[User] How overwhelming it must be. But the teacher I worked with Berekum had gotten to go to the States while we were working together. He had gotten some sort of fellowship to go to the States, and I sat him down to give him some advice before he went to the States. And I said, you know what race relations are like in the United States, right? Things are not all peachy. I mean, you'll be in academia, so things will be much, much easier for you. But I would suggest if you're in a city to wear your traditional Ghanaian clothing. So that everyone recognizes you as an African and not an African American.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And I don't know if he understood it, and maybe he did when he came back, you know?

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Have you ever been back?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] How overwhelming it must be. But the teacher I worked with Berekum had gotten to go to the States while we were working together. He had gotten some sort of fellowship to go to the States, and I sat him down to give him some advice before he went to the States. And I said, you know what race relations are like in the United States, right? Things are not all peachy. I mean, you'll be in academia, so things will be much, much easier for you. But I would suggest if you're in a city to wear your traditional Ghanaian clothing. So that everyone recognizes you as an African and not an African American.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And I don't know if he understood it, and maybe he did when he came back, you know?

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Have you ever been back?

[User] No, not yet. But I will. I'd like to see all of it, the whole country and the western, and the other West African countries that I got to visit.

[Assistant] What? What's the meaning of all this in your life? What did you take out of being in Peace Corps? What has been important to you as you reflect back on that, on that time?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I don't know if he understood it, and maybe he did when he came back, you know?

[Assistant] Mm hmm. Have you ever been back?

[User] No, not yet. But I will. I'd like to see all of it, the whole country and the western, and the other West African countries that I got to visit.

[Assistant] What? What's the meaning of all this in your life? What did you take out of being in Peace Corps? What has been important to you as you reflect back on that, on that time?

[User] The most important thing was the, uh, culture, the expansion of my awareness of people and history and geography and everything. It changes your brain in ways that you don't even expect. It doesn't just change your brain to understand another culture. It changes you in a way that you understand so much more about the world, about every aspect of the world. The history, history, economics, relationships, politics. And it was a gigantic educational benefit to me and I wish everyone could get that opportunity because the world would be so different if everybody did.

[Assistant] How have you shared your experience or with this change that's happened, how has it affected as you've gone forward in life? You said you got a job, for example, with a language center that had other people who kind of understood that viewpoint.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No, not yet. But I will. I'd like to see all of it, the whole country and the western, and the other West African countries that I got to visit.

[Assistant] What? What's the meaning of all this in your life? What did you take out of being in Peace Corps? What has been important to you as you reflect back on that, on that time?

[User] The most important thing was the, uh, culture, the expansion of my awareness of people and history and geography and everything. It changes your brain in ways that you don't even expect. It doesn't just change your brain to understand another culture. It changes you in a way that you understand so much more about the world, about every aspect of the world. The history, history, economics, relationships, politics. And it was a gigantic educational benefit to me and I wish everyone could get that opportunity because the world would be so different if everybody did.

[Assistant] How have you shared your experience or with this change that's happened, how has it affected as you've gone forward in life? You said you got a job, for example, with a language center that had other people who kind of understood that viewpoint.

[User] Mm hmm. Ah. Well, what I try to do is when I give presentations about Ghana is to present it. It's easy to, for a lot of people who travel to other countries to present those other countries as if you're looking at them in a National Geographic issue. And instead, I try to show it from the point of view as these were my friends. These are my colleagues. They're not Africans. They're just my colleagues, you know? This is John. This is Victoria.

[Assistant] They're not the other.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Mm hmm. Ah. Well, what I try to do is when I give presentations about Ghana is to present it. It's easy to, for a lot of people who travel to other countries to present those other countries as if you're looking at them in a National Geographic issue. And instead, I try to show it from the point of view as these were my friends. These are my colleagues. They're not Africans. They're just my colleagues, you know? This is John. This is Victoria.

[Assistant] They're not the other.

[User] They're not the other. And even Peace Corps, returned Peace Corps volunteers tend to romanticize or talk about their former colleagues in that sort of objectified way. I don't think they mean it, but it ends up coming out like that.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] And I try to encourage people to go and visit. And I really like to talk to kids about it, to try to encourage them to do it.

[Assistant] So you've continued to do presentations?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] And I stay, I stay involved in the culture because I love West African music. So, you know, as much as I can go to cultural events and all that stuff.

[Assistant] Mm hmm.

[User] But my goal, and it aligns with that third goal of Peace Corps, is to bring, is to bring the world to back home, you know, bring your country back home. And so the more, as many presentations as I can give, I will, especially to kids to encourage them.

[Assistant] Cool.

[User] Do it.

[Assistant] What place do you think Peace Corps has in the world now?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But my goal, and it aligns with that third goal of Peace Corps, is to bring, is to bring the world to back home, you know, bring your country back home. And so the more, as many presentations as I can give, I will, especially to kids to encourage them.

[Assistant] Cool.

[User] Do it.

[Assistant] What place do you think Peace Corps has in the world now?

[User] Well, anyone who's been in Peace Corps will say that we desperately need more Peace Corps volunteers going out and spreading goodwill about the United States, especially after 9/11. I mean, it's not even just 9/11. We are known, Americans don't realize how feared and hated we are in so many countries for our behavior over the years. At the same time, loved and admired. So if we don't send as many people out there as possible on goodwill missions, it's only going to get worse for us. And it's not going in a good direction. So we need, we need these cultural ambassadors. Going to as many countries as possible.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you want to share about your experience before or after, in Peace Corps? Anything that we haven't talked about that you want to share?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, anyone who's been in Peace Corps will say that we desperately need more Peace Corps volunteers going out and spreading goodwill about the United States, especially after 9/11. I mean, it's not even just 9/11. We are known, Americans don't realize how feared and hated we are in so many countries for our behavior over the years. At the same time, loved and admired. So if we don't send as many people out there as possible on goodwill missions, it's only going to get worse for us. And it's not going in a good direction. So we need, we need these cultural ambassadors. Going to as many countries as possible.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you want to share about your experience before or after, in Peace Corps? Anything that we haven't talked about that you want to share?

[User] There are endless stories that Peace Corps volunteers start telling once they're in, once they're going. But I think the biggest thing I would share is to encourage people to, if they themselves are not thinking of it, to encourage other people to do it. Because they, people look at it like this two years, it's so long. What a long time to be away. Two years is a blip. Two years is not even long enough to understand the culture you're living in. So. It's enough to understand it in a cursory way and get by, but not to really live it. So if there's a way to encourage more people to join Peace Corps. That's kind of the biggest thing I would, I would want to do. Or the biggest thing I take out of it.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] But as far as anecdotes, I have a hundred. And they'll, they, they're always ready to come up in the right context but.

[Assistant] What's your favorite?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But as far as anecdotes, I have a hundred. And they'll, they, they're always ready to come up in the right context but.

[Assistant] What's your favorite?

[User] I like the story of grabbing my butt in front of those guys. Uh. I got to interview what even the Ghanaians called a witch doctor.

[Assistant] Oh.

[User]
So early in training you have a project that you are assigned and mine was local religions. And I wanted to understand the old- fashioned local religion or the indigenous whatever. And the thing is, is that Ghana has become so, such a target of missionaries. It has become so Christianized that almost everyone I encountered was a Christian of some sort. And that's not a bad thing. But what I wanted to study was the pre-Christian religions there.

So I got to interview this local fetish priest, is what he is called. And you would think the fetish priest would be an old guy, you know, living in a cave or something. It was a very young, handsome guy. He had to be 24. And I think it was handed, that position had been handed down. And he was now it. And so meeting with the fetish priests involved a bit of politicking and a bit of gift giving. It wasn't that easily given up because here you have cultural secret, you have something precious, and you're not just going to let it go that easily. If it's something of that much value to you and you could get something for it, like a bottle of gin, I don't see anything wrong with exacting that from the volunteer, and they did, happily, so. And I think I gave a little bit of money just sort of as a tip for his time.

But the funny part was at the end, he had a, he had some interlocutor come to me and ask me for more money. And that ended up being a bit of a quandary. And I remember my host country trainers saying, oh no, you don't give him more money. He's trying to rip you off. But anyway.

[Assistant] It will never stop.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] But the drumming would always come from the village, the adjoining village, far away, where people would use drums more.

[Assistant] Interesting.

[User] Yeah. And drumming was actually part of the school schedule. When it was time to change classes, one of the boys would, you know, play something to indicate it was time to change classes. And I was sad to see that change into some electronic bell.

[Assistant] Bell, yeah.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] What did you bring home with you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah. And drumming was actually part of the school schedule. When it was time to change classes, one of the boys would, you know, play something to indicate it was time to change classes. And I was sad to see that change into some electronic bell.

[Assistant] Bell, yeah.

[User] Yeah.

[Assistant] What did you bring home with you?

[User] As far as my attitude or things?

[Assistant] Well, as far as anything, things.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, the attitude I already talked about.

[Assistant] Yeah.

[User] The change in perspective. This huge shift in perspective I already talked about, but I brought a few. I didn't bring much as far as souvenirs, but I brought some art home. I brought a painting of Mami Wata home. And I knew an artist who, I had asked, I had commissioned him to paint Mami Wata for me. And when he looked for an image to use for Mami Wata, he used the Old Testament. He used, uh, I forget what slave girl in the Old Testament, but she ended up having these big earrings, big slave girl earrings and long brown hair and light skin just like the Mami Wata of the fetish priest.

[Assistant] Wow.

[User]
So I still have that painting. The type of art that was really common was sign art there in Ghana. In fact, they've been art books published about the sign art in Ghana. And the style of the painting that he did was in that sign art. It's sort of almost very bright colors with a type of script in English. And if I had had more money, I would have bought a lot more sign art. You will go to exhibits of sign art in the United States about Ghanaian sign art and they're, friends of mine had bought me when they had traveled north. They came home with a snake for me and this snake was coiled and ready to attack. It's sort of like a guardian snake, and I still have that.

But, you know, I didn't bring. I brought some mud cloth home from Mali when we traveled in Mali, which is a very beautiful kind of painted cloth. And a mask for my sister. But as far as, you know, bringing. You know, that was, those were the material things that I brought home. But the love of the music was the biggest thing I brought with me. Yeah. I brought a drum, a djembe drum, home but.

[Assistant] I was wondering if you brought a drum home.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User]
So I still have that painting. The type of art that was really common was sign art there in Ghana. In fact, they've been art books published about the sign art in Ghana. And the style of the painting that he did was in that sign art. It's sort of almost very bright colors with a type of script in English. And if I had had more money, I would have bought a lot more sign art. You will go to exhibits of sign art in the United States about Ghanaian sign art and they're, friends of mine had bought me when they had traveled north. They came home with a snake for me and this snake was coiled and ready to attack. It's sort of like a guardian snake, and I still have that.

But, you know, I didn't bring. I brought some mud cloth home from Mali when we traveled in Mali, which is a very beautiful kind of painted cloth. And a mask for my sister. But as far as, you know, bringing. You know, that was, those were the material things that I brought home. But the love of the music was the biggest thing I brought with me. Yeah. I brought a drum, a djembe drum, home but.

[Assistant] I was wondering if you brought a drum home.

[User] Yeah, I had to get a djembe drum. The nice thing about the drums is that the local artist, the local drum maker, would sculpt whatever you wanted in the image on the side of the wood drum. And you got to see it.

[Assistant] It was art too.

[User] It is, yeah. I gave it to my brother. He still has it. But the music is, I mean, the artists, the musical artists, are what I, stay with, that stayed most with me. So if there's any Ghanaian or West African music playing, I have to go and hear it because it's one. It's the best music in the world, I think.

[Assistant] Great. Well, thanks. Very interesting.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yeah, I had to get a djembe drum. The nice thing about the drums is that the local artist, the local drum maker, would sculpt whatever you wanted in the image on the side of the wood drum. And you got to see it.

[Assistant] It was art too.

[User] It is, yeah. I gave it to my brother. He still has it. But the music is, I mean, the artists, the musical artists, are what I, stay with, that stayed most with me. So if there's any Ghanaian or West African music playing, I have to go and hear it because it's one. It's the best music in the world, I think.

[Assistant] Great. Well, thanks. Very interesting.

[User] All right, thank you.

[Assistant] Anything else you want to add?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I became interested in aviation in high school with my first airplane ride. I thought it was exciting, and it got me to thinking about aviation. After high school, I went to college at Texas A&M [College Station, Texas] and got a degree in aeronautical engineering. I went directly into the Air Force via ROTC [Reserve Officer Training Corps] and reported to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards, California. I had a great career there, five years, if you can call five years a career. It was a wonderful place to be, exciting, educational, and it was a good experience because they work your tail off out there.

[Assistant] What kind of work were you doing?

[User] Flight test engineer, flying as the test director, so to speak, on test flights. In my five years, I spent almost five years of that time working on the [Convair] B-58 [Hustler], which is a strategic nuclear bomber, very latest thing at that time, mach 2. I was flying mach 2 in 1958.\n\n That led directly—indirectly, I guess it sounds like—but directly into my wanting to come to NASA, because although I felt like what I was doing was very important, there had to be a better thing to do than develop nuclear bombers. There had to be a better answer, and I got this crazy idea that the space program was an alternative way to compete with other countries such as Russia. Interestingly enough, the last program I worked on at NASA, I was working with the Russians.

[Assistant] That’s an interesting turn of events during the whole range of the space race, as you went from the beginning in competition to the end where now there’s some cooperation going on.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] About the same time you had graduated from college or were getting in the Air Force was when the Russians launched Sputnik, starting this whole event. What do you remember of some of these early happenings of the space race?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I remember it was very frightening and disturbing that the Russians could beat us at something like that, that Sputnik. That was in college, I guess. I was in college when Sputnik flew.\n\n My position in flight test gave me an interesting perspective on the manned space program because all the test pilots that I worked with thought the manned space program was a weird thing. They described it as a monkey in a cage, because the early space program, Mercury, the pilot was very much a passenger, and the test pilots that I worked with didn’t like that aspect of it. Some of them did become astronauts. I knew Deke [Donald K.] Slayton at Edwards. I knew Leroy [L. Gordon] Cooper. We called him Leroy. He’s Gordo here. Tom [Thomas P.] Stafford, Frank Borman, and probably some more that would come to mind. Ted [Theodore C.] Freeman.

[Assistant] Edwards, being the center of Air Force flight testing, is really the training ground for a lot of these people who came to the astronaut program. Were there any particular skills or experiences you developed there that you found useful in your later work?

[User] You mean at Edwards?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Mostly how to work hard. I did learn a great deal, I think, about flying and the crew's role in flying. In fact, much of my career at NASA was spent in crew integration, crew training, things like that, flight control. Not mission control, but flight control, piloting.

[Assistant] As you had mentioned, with Sputnik there was a kind of shock that the Soviets could beat us at something, and this was really sort of a national phenomenon in things like the missile gap and such. As someone who was working in the Air Force and with some high-tech things, what impact did this sort of negative publicity about the American technical community have on you?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] You mean at Edwards?

[Assistant] Yes.

[User] Mostly how to work hard. I did learn a great deal, I think, about flying and the crew's role in flying. In fact, much of my career at NASA was spent in crew integration, crew training, things like that, flight control. Not mission control, but flight control, piloting.

[Assistant] As you had mentioned, with Sputnik there was a kind of shock that the Soviets could beat us at something, and this was really sort of a national phenomenon in things like the missile gap and such. As someone who was working in the Air Force and with some high-tech things, what impact did this sort of negative publicity about the American technical community have on you?

[User] Oh, I don’t recall any reaction except I had to work harder. It was a fearful time. Nuclear holocaust seemed not very far away, and there were several instances when I was in the Air Force where the strategic arm of the Air Force went on high alert. The Berlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis, it was a fearful time.

[Assistant] Certainly the space program is a less overt way to do some of this competition in a less threatening fashion, in the manned space program, anyway.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Mostly how to work hard. I did learn a great deal, I think, about flying and the crew's role in flying. In fact, much of my career at NASA was spent in crew integration, crew training, things like that, flight control. Not mission control, but flight control, piloting.

[Assistant] As you had mentioned, with Sputnik there was a kind of shock that the Soviets could beat us at something, and this was really sort of a national phenomenon in things like the missile gap and such. As someone who was working in the Air Force and with some high-tech things, what impact did this sort of negative publicity about the American technical community have on you?

[User] Oh, I don’t recall any reaction except I had to work harder. It was a fearful time. Nuclear holocaust seemed not very far away, and there were several instances when I was in the Air Force where the strategic arm of the Air Force went on high alert. The Berlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis, it was a fearful time.

[Assistant] Certainly the space program is a less overt way to do some of this competition in a less threatening fashion, in the manned space program, anyway.

[User] Well, I felt like it was a necessary thing that we ultimately move out of the Earth into other worlds. I still feel that. The picture we saw from the Moon on Apollo 8, when they took the picture of Earth from the Moon, had a lot of play at the time in the press and people saying, “We can now see the Earth as one rather than as different countries.” That’s very important, very, very important to me.

[Assistant] Getting that picture was close to the end of what President [John F.] Kennedy had pledged in 1961, that NASA send someone to the Moon and bring them back by the end of the decade. But when he made that pledge, you weren’t yet with NASA. Do you remember that having any particular significance to you, or did you think it was something even feasible?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, I don’t recall any reaction except I had to work harder. It was a fearful time. Nuclear holocaust seemed not very far away, and there were several instances when I was in the Air Force where the strategic arm of the Air Force went on high alert. The Berlin Wall, Cuban Missile Crisis, it was a fearful time.

[Assistant] Certainly the space program is a less overt way to do some of this competition in a less threatening fashion, in the manned space program, anyway.

[User] Well, I felt like it was a necessary thing that we ultimately move out of the Earth into other worlds. I still feel that. The picture we saw from the Moon on Apollo 8, when they took the picture of Earth from the Moon, had a lot of play at the time in the press and people saying, “We can now see the Earth as one rather than as different countries.” That’s very important, very, very important to me.

[Assistant] Getting that picture was close to the end of what President [John F.] Kennedy had pledged in 1961, that NASA send someone to the Moon and bring them back by the end of the decade. But when he made that pledge, you weren’t yet with NASA. Do you remember that having any particular significance to you, or did you think it was something even feasible?

[User] At that time and for many years thereafter, I thought it was wild. I think in the early years here at, then MSC [Manned Spacecraft Center] it was an exciting goal, but it seemed so unreachable. We had to have so much luck. We did have a lot of luck. We had government support. Kennedy and [Lyndon B.] Johnson were certainly an important factor in giving us the support we needed to do this, and we had some great leaders like Walt [Walter C.] Williams and Bob [Robert R.] Gilruth.

[Assistant] It’s certainly because of the hard work of people like yourself that we did get there within the time frame President Kennedy had established.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, I felt like it was a necessary thing that we ultimately move out of the Earth into other worlds. I still feel that. The picture we saw from the Moon on Apollo 8, when they took the picture of Earth from the Moon, had a lot of play at the time in the press and people saying, “We can now see the Earth as one rather than as different countries.” That’s very important, very, very important to me.

[Assistant] Getting that picture was close to the end of what President [John F.] Kennedy had pledged in 1961, that NASA send someone to the Moon and bring them back by the end of the decade. But when he made that pledge, you weren’t yet with NASA. Do you remember that having any particular significance to you, or did you think it was something even feasible?

[User] At that time and for many years thereafter, I thought it was wild. I think in the early years here at, then MSC [Manned Spacecraft Center] it was an exciting goal, but it seemed so unreachable. We had to have so much luck. We did have a lot of luck. We had government support. Kennedy and [Lyndon B.] Johnson were certainly an important factor in giving us the support we needed to do this, and we had some great leaders like Walt [Walter C.] Williams and Bob [Robert R.] Gilruth.

[Assistant] It’s certainly because of the hard work of people like yourself that we did get there within the time frame President Kennedy had established.

[User] A lot of people worked very hard for many years. I’ve heard people say, “We missed the sixties,” and I think in a way we did. We were very insulated here from the rest of the world, not just at work, but the communities we lived in. It was very rare to have a neighbor who wasn’t involved in the space program. I’m not saying we worked all the time, but even in your recreation, you were dealing with and you were talking about the space program.

[Assistant] Did you personally have a lot of awareness of these other things going on once you had become enmeshed in the space program?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] At that time and for many years thereafter, I thought it was wild. I think in the early years here at, then MSC [Manned Spacecraft Center] it was an exciting goal, but it seemed so unreachable. We had to have so much luck. We did have a lot of luck. We had government support. Kennedy and [Lyndon B.] Johnson were certainly an important factor in giving us the support we needed to do this, and we had some great leaders like Walt [Walter C.] Williams and Bob [Robert R.] Gilruth.

[Assistant] It’s certainly because of the hard work of people like yourself that we did get there within the time frame President Kennedy had established.

[User] A lot of people worked very hard for many years. I’ve heard people say, “We missed the sixties,” and I think in a way we did. We were very insulated here from the rest of the world, not just at work, but the communities we lived in. It was very rare to have a neighbor who wasn’t involved in the space program. I’m not saying we worked all the time, but even in your recreation, you were dealing with and you were talking about the space program.

[Assistant] Did you personally have a lot of awareness of these other things going on once you had become enmeshed in the space program?

[User] Other things, like what?

[Assistant] Either civil unrest or Vietnam, these kinds of large issues?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] A lot of people worked very hard for many years. I’ve heard people say, “We missed the sixties,” and I think in a way we did. We were very insulated here from the rest of the world, not just at work, but the communities we lived in. It was very rare to have a neighbor who wasn’t involved in the space program. I’m not saying we worked all the time, but even in your recreation, you were dealing with and you were talking about the space program.

[Assistant] Did you personally have a lot of awareness of these other things going on once you had become enmeshed in the space program?

[User] Other things, like what?

[Assistant] Either civil unrest or Vietnam, these kinds of large issues?

[User] Yes, we were aware of it, but I don’t think we involved ourselves in it very much.

[Assistant] Bringing you back to Edwards, how did you find out about an opportunity to come work at the new Manned Spacecraft Center they were going to build down here?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Other things, like what?

[Assistant] Either civil unrest or Vietnam, these kinds of large issues?

[User] Yes, we were aware of it, but I don’t think we involved ourselves in it very much.

[Assistant] Bringing you back to Edwards, how did you find out about an opportunity to come work at the new Manned Spacecraft Center they were going to build down here?

[User] NASA was getting a lot of publicity. Aviation Week, which I read faithfully because it was what I was interested in, was full of stuff on NASA. As a native Texan, I guess that was part of it, too. I was interested in coming back to Texas.

[Assistant] Can you describe for me how you applied and whatever interview process was going on, how you came to work here, specifically?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, we were aware of it, but I don’t think we involved ourselves in it very much.

[Assistant] Bringing you back to Edwards, how did you find out about an opportunity to come work at the new Manned Spacecraft Center they were going to build down here?

[User] NASA was getting a lot of publicity. Aviation Week, which I read faithfully because it was what I was interested in, was full of stuff on NASA. As a native Texan, I guess that was part of it, too. I was interested in coming back to Texas.

[Assistant] Can you describe for me how you applied and whatever interview process was going on, how you came to work here, specifically?

[User] Wrote them a letter, got a response asking me to come down for the interviews. I remember my first interview was with this character named Gene [Eugene F.] Kranz. I don’t know if you know him. You've probably met Gene. He is a character. He’s a good friend of mine, and I’ve grown to respect him and like him over the years, but he was very different to me at that time.\n\n I decided I didn’t want to be a flight controller in places like Guaymas, Mexico and so forth. So I looked elsewhere and interviewed some people in the Apollo Program Office. I guess it was called the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office [ASPO] at that time. They thought my flight test background was very useful, so I did go to work in November of ’62 in the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. I think it was the Flight Technology Office.

[Assistant] In 1962, you were one of something like 2,000 people that NASA brought in to the Manned Spacecraft Center. It was really expanding in size tremendously. Can you describe for me what it was like to be a new person down there, what the atmosphere was, the kinds of facilities they had, and the other kinds of people that were there?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I was working on trying to make sense of a test program, and it was hard to get my teeth into that. I never did very well at it. I spent a few months in that job and moved to a different job that I thought was better suited for my experience. It was called Crew Integration Branch, still in the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office. There we were worrying about crew training and crew procedures and crew controls and displays and crew equipment like spacesuits and so forth, from a program office standpoint, you know. What are our requirements and how are we going to pay for it? Working with the various offices throughout Johnson Space Center on developing those things.

[Assistant] Is there anything else you remember from this first job in working out these tests and things like reliability and all of that?

[User] Nothing comes to mind at the moment, worth talking about.

[Assistant] Crew integration was something that obviously you had a little bit more interest in, at least.

[User] Well, there were more things happening at that time. The flight-test program was awfully far away, and I wanted something that I could get my teeth into at the time. I got more than I could deal with.

[Assistant] What kind of issues were you looking at? What were the first problems that you encountered?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] ’67, February of ’67. Probably in 1966, then, early on, the boss of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office was Joe [Joseph F.] Shea. He had received a question about fire, and he asked me to go talk to the Gemini Program Office, get their view on the fire hazard, which I did. They were like we were; they were thinking of it from the point of being in space. They weren’t very much concerned about it. A big mistake on our part.\n\n I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to interview a man named Howard [John H.] Kimzey. I think his first initial is J, but his name is Howard Kimzey. He was the one that was raising the flag of the fire hazard. But it just didn’t come across to anybody at that time that it could be as bad as it was. So we spent a hard year recovering from that. A year and a half, I guess.

[Assistant] What were some of the changes then, aside from the hatch, which you already mentioned, that were made?

[User] Mostly in materials, getting rid of flammable materials, and in testing. We tested every material. I wasn’t personally involved in that, but several of my friends were personally involved in selecting and developing new materials. Of course, we weren’t actually developing them. We were developing for this application. We had a lot to learn about things like beta cloth and how we could really use it. But getting rid of a lot of flammables and running tests on all the nonmetallic materials, and in the full-up spacecraft, boilerplate spacecraft flammability tests.

[Assistant] Certainly the command module they ended up with was very successful in all respects, I guess, without any of these sorts of significant issues.

[User] Yes, it was astounding how well things went after that.

[Assistant] One thing we haven’t talked about at all is the lunar module and any work you might have done with that.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Mostly in materials, getting rid of flammable materials, and in testing. We tested every material. I wasn’t personally involved in that, but several of my friends were personally involved in selecting and developing new materials. Of course, we weren’t actually developing them. We were developing for this application. We had a lot to learn about things like beta cloth and how we could really use it. But getting rid of a lot of flammables and running tests on all the nonmetallic materials, and in the full-up spacecraft, boilerplate spacecraft flammability tests.

[Assistant] Certainly the command module they ended up with was very successful in all respects, I guess, without any of these sorts of significant issues.

[User] Yes, it was astounding how well things went after that.

[Assistant] One thing we haven’t talked about at all is the lunar module and any work you might have done with that.

[User] Yes. I worked somewhat less with Grumman than with North American. For example, on the malfunction procedures and on the spacecraft schematics, we did those for the LM [lunar module] as well as for command module. Early years, I was deeply involved with Grumman on setting up the engineering simulation program for the lunar module and crew requirements, crew equipment, crew integration for the LM as well as for the command module, but just somewhat less than command module.

[Assistant] Did you find significant differences between working with Grumman and working with North American?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, it was astounding how well things went after that.

[Assistant] One thing we haven’t talked about at all is the lunar module and any work you might have done with that.

[User] Yes. I worked somewhat less with Grumman than with North American. For example, on the malfunction procedures and on the spacecraft schematics, we did those for the LM [lunar module] as well as for command module. Early years, I was deeply involved with Grumman on setting up the engineering simulation program for the lunar module and crew requirements, crew equipment, crew integration for the LM as well as for the command module, but just somewhat less than command module.

[Assistant] Did you find significant differences between working with Grumman and working with North American?

[User] Oh, yes, they were different. Grumman, their entire history had been working with Navy aircraft. They were very good engineers. They had less experience in what they’d started out to do than North American did. But their big handicap was weight. The numbers are not real sharp in my mind, but it seemed to me that when we let the lunar module contract, we had a weight budget for the LM of 11,000 pounds, and before seven or eight months were out, the weight estimate was 22,000 pounds. Whoever had done that was just severely optimistic.\n\n Of course, Grumman had another problem. They started perhaps a year and a half or two years after North American did. But that job was underestimated, and I don’t think it was Grumman’s fault. I don’t think the delays were Grumman’s fault. I think the job was just underestimated, the time, the schedule, the weight. That cost a lot of money to get weight out of the [lunar] module, and, of course, we never got back to that 11,000-pound budget.

[Assistant] Some people have suggested that the lunar module design or the concept for the lunar module was underestimated from the very beginning. As soon as they chose the lunar orbit rendezvous method, that the weight estimates were optimistic.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. I worked somewhat less with Grumman than with North American. For example, on the malfunction procedures and on the spacecraft schematics, we did those for the LM [lunar module] as well as for command module. Early years, I was deeply involved with Grumman on setting up the engineering simulation program for the lunar module and crew requirements, crew equipment, crew integration for the LM as well as for the command module, but just somewhat less than command module.

[Assistant] Did you find significant differences between working with Grumman and working with North American?

[User] Oh, yes, they were different. Grumman, their entire history had been working with Navy aircraft. They were very good engineers. They had less experience in what they’d started out to do than North American did. But their big handicap was weight. The numbers are not real sharp in my mind, but it seemed to me that when we let the lunar module contract, we had a weight budget for the LM of 11,000 pounds, and before seven or eight months were out, the weight estimate was 22,000 pounds. Whoever had done that was just severely optimistic.\n\n Of course, Grumman had another problem. They started perhaps a year and a half or two years after North American did. But that job was underestimated, and I don’t think it was Grumman’s fault. I don’t think the delays were Grumman’s fault. I think the job was just underestimated, the time, the schedule, the weight. That cost a lot of money to get weight out of the [lunar] module, and, of course, we never got back to that 11,000-pound budget.

[Assistant] Some people have suggested that the lunar module design or the concept for the lunar module was underestimated from the very beginning. As soon as they chose the lunar orbit rendezvous method, that the weight estimates were optimistic.

[User] Yes, I suppose that’s so.

[Assistant] Out of curiosity, were you around when they still hadn't yet made this mode decision or was that before you came?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Oh, yes, they were different. Grumman, their entire history had been working with Navy aircraft. They were very good engineers. They had less experience in what they’d started out to do than North American did. But their big handicap was weight. The numbers are not real sharp in my mind, but it seemed to me that when we let the lunar module contract, we had a weight budget for the LM of 11,000 pounds, and before seven or eight months were out, the weight estimate was 22,000 pounds. Whoever had done that was just severely optimistic.\n\n Of course, Grumman had another problem. They started perhaps a year and a half or two years after North American did. But that job was underestimated, and I don’t think it was Grumman’s fault. I don’t think the delays were Grumman’s fault. I think the job was just underestimated, the time, the schedule, the weight. That cost a lot of money to get weight out of the [lunar] module, and, of course, we never got back to that 11,000-pound budget.

[Assistant] Some people have suggested that the lunar module design or the concept for the lunar module was underestimated from the very beginning. As soon as they chose the lunar orbit rendezvous method, that the weight estimates were optimistic.

[User] Yes, I suppose that’s so.

[Assistant] Out of curiosity, were you around when they still hadn't yet made this mode decision or was that before you came?

[User] The lunar orbit rendezvous was before my time. I’m sure that was a very traumatic decision. I don’t think anybody ever second-guessed it, though, after the decision was made. I think it was the right one. It proved to be.

[Assistant] Certainly the fact that it got us to the Moon and back seems to validate the decision that was made then.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes, I suppose that’s so.

[Assistant] Out of curiosity, were you around when they still hadn't yet made this mode decision or was that before you came?

[User] The lunar orbit rendezvous was before my time. I’m sure that was a very traumatic decision. I don’t think anybody ever second-guessed it, though, after the decision was made. I think it was the right one. It proved to be.

[Assistant] Certainly the fact that it got us to the Moon and back seems to validate the decision that was made then.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You’ve mentioned both North American and Grumman, the major contractors, but earlier on you had suggested that working with support contractors was a little bit of a learning experience as well. Can you share some of your thoughts on that?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] The lunar orbit rendezvous was before my time. I’m sure that was a very traumatic decision. I don’t think anybody ever second-guessed it, though, after the decision was made. I think it was the right one. It proved to be.

[Assistant] Certainly the fact that it got us to the Moon and back seems to validate the decision that was made then.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You’ve mentioned both North American and Grumman, the major contractors, but earlier on you had suggested that working with support contractors was a little bit of a learning experience as well. Can you share some of your thoughts on that?

[User] Well, the first thing we had to learn was that we were going to do it. I think a lot of us thought, “We don’t need any help.” Certainly we learned how to work with support contractors just as though they were civil servants. There were very many valuable people, very many good friends came out of the relationship. It was a way to overcome our shortages when we needed somebody, some skill we didn’t have, we could usually find it through a contractor.

[Assistant] Like what kind of work, for instance?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes.

[Assistant] You’ve mentioned both North American and Grumman, the major contractors, but earlier on you had suggested that working with support contractors was a little bit of a learning experience as well. Can you share some of your thoughts on that?

[User] Well, the first thing we had to learn was that we were going to do it. I think a lot of us thought, “We don’t need any help.” Certainly we learned how to work with support contractors just as though they were civil servants. There were very many valuable people, very many good friends came out of the relationship. It was a way to overcome our shortages when we needed somebody, some skill we didn’t have, we could usually find it through a contractor.

[Assistant] Like what kind of work, for instance?

[User] Well, for example, the schematics that I was talking about. I didn’t have anybody in our shop that could have done what those people did, that six- or seven-man group did.

[Assistant] A lot of the original Space Task Group members and people that became the core of MSC were these people who would come out of the NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] and were research engineers who they, themselves, didn’t have a whole lot of experience working with contractors, so it was kind of a new experience overall. Did you find yourself fitting in with these groups of people?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Well, the first thing we had to learn was that we were going to do it. I think a lot of us thought, “We don’t need any help.” Certainly we learned how to work with support contractors just as though they were civil servants. There were very many valuable people, very many good friends came out of the relationship. It was a way to overcome our shortages when we needed somebody, some skill we didn’t have, we could usually find it through a contractor.

[Assistant] Like what kind of work, for instance?

[User] Well, for example, the schematics that I was talking about. I didn’t have anybody in our shop that could have done what those people did, that six- or seven-man group did.

[Assistant] A lot of the original Space Task Group members and people that became the core of MSC were these people who would come out of the NACA [National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics] and were research engineers who they, themselves, didn’t have a whole lot of experience working with contractors, so it was kind of a new experience overall. Did you find yourself fitting in with these groups of people?

[User] In that same way, yes. My background, I didn’t need support contractors, and they had come out of the same kind of environments. I may be overstating this, but we had a hard sell. After a couple of years, no one would have thought to go back to trying to do the job without them. They were too much ingrained in everything.

[Assistant] I guess, for them, both Mercury and Gemini were steps towards Apollo in this respect, getting the larger and larger programs where you get more activity that you need these kind of contractors to do support.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] No.

[Assistant] Just the commanders?

[User] Yes. Originally, it was planned that they would fly it, but we had a hard enough time meeting the requirements for one man per mission. [While we did not let LM pilots fly the LLTV, all backup commanders did receive LLTV training.]

[Assistant] That was then sort of a maintenance and upkeep issue and time scheduling rather than a safety concern?

[User] I think safety was a big part of it, too. The risk, if you’re flying the lunar module pilot, is the same. The payoff is not as great because he’s not that likely to get that call to take over the LM.

[Assistant] Several times you’ve mentioned how scary this program was. Could you imagine something that could have improved the program or perhaps an alternative flying machine that would have given a similar experience?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] Yes. Originally, it was planned that they would fly it, but we had a hard enough time meeting the requirements for one man per mission. [While we did not let LM pilots fly the LLTV, all backup commanders did receive LLTV training.]

[Assistant] That was then sort of a maintenance and upkeep issue and time scheduling rather than a safety concern?

[User] I think safety was a big part of it, too. The risk, if you’re flying the lunar module pilot, is the same. The payoff is not as great because he’s not that likely to get that call to take over the LM.

[Assistant] Several times you’ve mentioned how scary this program was. Could you imagine something that could have improved the program or perhaps an alternative flying machine that would have given a similar experience?

[User] We could have started over and redesigned it and improved it. But that’s true of anything, isn’t it?

[Assistant] Yes, I suppose so.


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] I think safety was a big part of it, too. The risk, if you’re flying the lunar module pilot, is the same. The payoff is not as great because he’s not that likely to get that call to take over the LM.

[Assistant] Several times you’ve mentioned how scary this program was. Could you imagine something that could have improved the program or perhaps an alternative flying machine that would have given a similar experience?

[User] We could have started over and redesigned it and improved it. But that’s true of anything, isn’t it?

[Assistant] Yes, I suppose so.

[User] But that’s totally impractical. There was some things about the design and the electronics that I never agreed with, and we seriously talked among ourselves about a major redesign, but never could convince myself that the improvements we would make would really pay for the development risks of going through it.

[Assistant] You had mentioned that there was a third crash, and you were left with one LLTV for the rest of the training. What happened in that third instance?


[System] Act as an information elicitation agent for oral history.

[User] We had some glitch which we could not identify, and it could have been anything. A short somewhere in the system caused an electrical pulse that kicked the generator off line, which is fine because now we can switch the backup battery and bring the vehicle in for a safe landing. However, what we finally learned was that when you cut the exitation power to the generator, the generator is still turning because it’s being driven by the jet engine. The residual magnetism created enough electricity to keep the relay that was supposed to drop out from dropping out and switching to the battery.\n\n Once we hit on that "eureka," we ran the test, demonstrated that that would create exactly the symptoms we saw, redesigned the vehicle again, and got back in operation in time. I can’t remember if that was before Apollo 16. Probably. Probably before Apollo 16, maybe 15.

[Assistant] I guess I hadn’t realized that you guys did have telemetry from these yet. Was that something for all the flights, too?

[User] Yes, we had real-time telemetry. We had a little control van with a five-man flight control team monitoring the thing, controlling what happened.

[Assistant] Is this something they had from the very beginning, so they had it for previous accidents as well?

[User] They had it from the beginning, yes.

[Assistant] In retrospect, it seems like a good thing to have included in the program.