We’ve begun learning about Everett Wallin’s Air Force service to help us better understand the Vietnam War’s impact on our region.

Everett grew up in Willmar, graduating with the Willmar High School class of 1954, but has lived in Marshall since 1975. He began his military service at 17 by joining the National Guard and then enlisted in the Air Force after high school.

Everett completed Basic Training and then learned to generate hydrogen gas for enormous reconnaissance balloons. The trainees learned it was a Top Secret program, so when they deployed in the fall of 1955 to southern Germany, Everett doubted the accuracy of the sign identifying them as a “Meteorological Survey Station.”

He explained what he later learned of their mission.

“We launched reconnaissance balloons with cameras on them. The payload would be on a truck. When they let the balloon go, the truck would take off and they’d launch it off the back of the truck. These balloons were supposed to go over Russia; take pictures; and be recovered on the other side. The Russians recovered some balloons and found the cameras. They were irritated and President Eisenhower wasn’t too happy either that they found them.”

Declassified military records reveal Everett’s detachment at Oberpfaffenhoffen Airfield successfully launched eighty-eight balloons in January and early February of 1956 before President Eisenhower terminated the program in March. Only six of those balloons completed their transit of the Soviet Union and were recovered when they reentered international airspace.

Everett’s detachment explored some of Bavaria during their nine months in Germany.

“We went to Munich quite a bit and went to Garmisch and tried to do a little skiing. There was another base that we would go to because we didn’t have much on our base.”

Everett’s detachment returned to the U.S. by June 1956. Everett’s orders sent him to Arizona where he trained on diesel-powered, oxygen generators for the Air Force.

“I was transferred to Tucson, AZ – Davis-Monthon Air Force Base – and put into producing liquid oxygen for aircraft. The liquid was converted into gas for breathing. It was liquid because you could carry this in a small area and it could expand to create a lot of breathing oxygen.”

Everett married his Willmar sweetheart, Phyllis, after his first year at Davis-Monthon. They lived off-base close to downtown Tucson and became a military family with the birth of their daughter, Laurie.

Davis-Monthon is famous as the site of an open-air aircraft retirement facility that airmen called the “boneyard.” Everett came to know the place well.

“The First Sergeant put me and some other people out in the aircraft graveyard and we went into B-29’s where we took out instruments, and oxygen bottles, and things like that. It was very interesting.”

The Air Force reassigned Everett and his family in January 1960 to Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. He explained his new, Cold War mission.

“They had Atlas-E missile sites there and I had to go to another school in Chanute, IL. This was for a 25-ton liquid oxygen plant – 25 tons a day it produced. We ended up producing oxygen and liquid nitrogen. The oxygen was to boost the fuel and nitrogen was for purging. If you had lines you needed to purge, you would purge them with nitrogen, an inert gas.”

Everett reflected on working in support of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

“I knew that if you had to use them, you had to use them. We were there during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We all went on a stand-by alert. We were not allowed to leave the base for a short time.”

The U.S. and Soviet Union negotiated a settlement of that crisis in November 1962 and Fairchild Air Force Base returned to normal operations.

Everett and Phyllis enjoyed life in Spokane and Fairchild Air Force Base. Their daughter, Laurie, began school and they added a son, Mark, to the family. Everett’s career also expanded into a new field.

“I cross-trained into electrical power production. I went to school in Wichita Falls, TX in the summer of ’64. After cross-training I was put into the missile squadron at Fairchild. These Atlas E missiles actually laid down. They were a coffin-type missile and had to be raised and then fueled to launch. They had two diesel-driven power generators and one ran all the time to produce power for the site. So, that was my job. We’d go out for a 24 hour shift.”

He described the launch sites.

“It was a large area, mostly underground, but the door itself was a huge slab. I think it was 400 tons when it rolled back. You entered in a hall – kind of like a tunnel. Then you had your launch control crew. It was not like a silo. It was more of a big area underground with rooms and the missile. You could get up close to the missile because they had to teach you how to put it in stretch, so it wouldn’t collapse. It was pretty thin-skinned.”

Everett worked in the missile squadron for a year and a half before receiving reassignment orders in April 1965. He had one week’s notice to prepare for overseas deployment to an air base in Thailand supporting combat operations over North Vietnam.

The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the impact of the Vietnam War on Lyon County. If you would like to share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, please contact me at prairieview pressllc@gmail.com or call the museum at 537-6580.