Air Force Hero Tells it like it was By Antoinette May Herndon Glenn Wasson is a true swashbuckler. If you’re old enough to remember the high adventure comic strip, “Steve Canyon,” you’ll spot the resemblance immediately. Glenn is tall, long-legged, has an engaging grin, and walks with unconscious grace. He’s a handsome man but seems as unaware of that as he is modest about his accomplishments. Glenn’s a hero’s hero. Like Steve Canyon, his adventures played on a global arena. Now, a retired air force colonel, Glenn flew more than 300 combat missions in North Korea and Vietnam. His plane was hit many times but he always managed to survive. An air force colleague once called Glenn “The smartest and best officer in the USAF.” Still, the Glenn Wasson had a grim beginning. The Wassons were dirt poor farmers hunkered down in the landlocked state of Iowa. Life during the depression’s darkest days was tough, but young Glenn—only five at the time—gained courage with his parents as they gathered round the radio to listen to President Franklyn Roosevelt’s 1932 inaugural address. “I didn’t understand all the words but the president’s manner gave me courage,” Glenn recalls, I got the message that he was trying to get across. Life was going to get better because President Roosevelt would see that it did.” Glenn had scarcely begun working his way through college when the Korean War erupted. He enlisted and was assigned to the Strategic Air Command, becoming one of the first nuclear bombardiers. “Because I’d had a little college, they made me an officer,” he explains.” “As a very green second lieutenant, it didn’t occur to me to question whether the war was right or not, I was trained to do what I was ordered to do.” Glenn vividly remembers the rivalry between General MacArthur and President Truman. “The general wanted an all out war and was confident that he could win in. But even I could understand the need for political restraint. If there was one thing we didn’t want it was a war on the ground. It would have been hopeless. The enemy had so many more people than we did. The fact that we were able to get in and out without a general war was a major coup that we can thank Truman for.” The end of the Korean War marked a crossroads for many young

men. “Most chose to return to civilian life,” Glenn says, with a gleam in his blue, blue eyes. “For me it presented the opportunity I’d been waiting for. I signed up for pilot training.” After that, the air force decided that he should complete his limited college education. Glenn was offered a variety of colleges to choose from. “I applied to Stanford wish fingers crossed,” he says. “My previous grades hadn’t been that good.” He particularly wanted Stanford because it had a program that enabled students to study for their bachelor of arts and masters degrees at the same time. The work was grueling but Glenn made it and taught for a time at Stanford. But inevitably the, Glenn’s previous aviation training plunged him into the thick of the Vietnam War. “Looking back, it all seems unintentional,” he recalls. “The United States backed in gradually. Then, before we knew it--by1967—we were enmeshed in a full scale war. After a hazardous tour of duty Glenn was assigned to head the ROTC unit at the University of California at Berkeley. For a man used regularly to dodging anti-aircraft fire, that should have been a piece of cake. It was quite the opposite. Public opinion had swung sharply against the war, the academic hierarchy virulent as the students. Men feared to wear their uniforms. Those who did were spat upon and called “baby killers.” Glenn remembers University of California’s Sproul Plaza as a “veritable zoo.” “Imagine bull horns, obscene placards, bare breasted women, naked kids, odiferous, long-haired men. And into this I came with my officer’s uniform and wearing my killer medals.” Glenn spent four years at Cal sparring with the academic senate who refused, among other things, to give academic credit for ROTC classes. Fifteen thousand students marched in protest of the program, effectively shutting down the campus. Finally, then Governor Reagan stepped in. “We’re not paying teachers $60,000 a year to organize protests,” he announced, while ordering in the National Guard to maintain peace while the university returned to business as usual. Glenn’s last duty station, Mather Air Force Base, was tame in comparison. There was time for frequent trips to the Mother Lode area, where Glenn finally deciding to

settle upon retirement. He build a hilltop home in San Andreas, dredged for gold and indulged a love of tennis. It was on the courts that he met his future wife, Joanie, a former probation officer. Glenn’s double degrees at Stanford are in international relations but his real love is writing. “I started concocting stories as soon as I learned to make letters,” he says today. Glenn began publishing his work while still at the Air Force Academy and has since written two books. “Tales Mark Twain Would Have Loved to Steal,” and most recently “Too Much to Swallow.” The author’s work is influenced by Ogdon Nash’s humor (“Candy’s dandy, but liquor’s quicker) and the pathos of Ambrose Bierce (“Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.”) But then Glenn Wasson is pretty quick with a quip himself Consider his definition of a hedonist: “Publicly disdained by nearly everyone. A pleasure loving voluptuary, living only to gratify sensuous appetites, but secretly envied by almost everybody.” Local Author to Be Honored Glenn Wasson will be feted at a book launch and beer tasting Sunday (Oct. 18) from 3 to 5 p.m. at Murphys Hotel. The hosts are Wasson’s publishers, the Manzanita Writers Press, a Literay League member of the Calaveras County Arts Council. Wasson’s book “Too Much to Swallow, the Gold Gastolith of Calaveras County, He is one of the last surviving B-29 pilots. The book is a compilation of war stories, tales of the Mother Lode, poetry and quips. The title was inspired by an historical event that occurred in the 1980s when a patron at Murphys bar swallowed a gold nugget showpiece as large as a quarter. Wesson will regale the audience with poems and stories from his book, including one featuring the nugget swallowing: “The swallower coughed and inhaled but utterly failed To force a timely regurgence So they slapped him in jail without any bail To wait for the nugget’s emergence.” An open mic and beer tasting follows a no-host dinner at the hotel. Attendees are asked to reserve in advance for dinner at the hotel restaurant and mention that they are for the event so special seating can be arranged. Addition information may be obtained from Monika Rose (768- 9021)