Det 420 Flyer

"What Does Not Kill Us, Makes Us Stronger. . ."
By Bette MacTaggart Kalohi, Major, USAF Retired, Det 420 Class of 1975

   It was a typical, misty, gray day at Rein Main Air Base, West Germany when the caskets started arriving. It was the Fall of 1983.  We waited silently to receive our fallen fellow warriors; 245  killed and 146 wounded in the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.   

   We watched solemnly as the silvery boxes were off-loaded from the aircraft and carefully transported to the mortuary tents at a secluded part of the base. There, young airmen and officer volunteers assisted with the grisly task of turning bodies and searching through the boxes of severed appendages to reunite them with their “owners”. That was important, I learned, to determine if all victims of this horrible event had been accounted for. This event was called “Project I.D.”  

   This was the first time I truly understood what it meant to be a member of the United States military. Our young men and women, victims and volunteers alike, had given a part of themselves unselfishly to America that few will ever know. When the United States needed us, the military was there to do the job.  And some of us, our Marine comrades, made the ultimate sacrifice. When our Marines needed us as Airmen, we were there for them and their families. It is the kind of honor and sense of “family” few people can say they share or understand.

   I’ve been blessed to been born in the greatest Nation in the world.  It’s not perfect but it’s the best available. No history course, no visit to historical monuments or veterans cemeteries, nor the best teachers in the country, could give me what my Air Force career has given me:  a true sense of what it means to be an American.

   Back in 1975, Patty Mankowski Refsdal and I were fortunate.  We were the first women in Minnesota to be accepted and commissioned through Air Force ROTC. At that time, women’s lib was in full swing and Vietnam War protestors and radicals were denouncing the war and the military. It was not a popular career choice. At the University of Minnesota, ROTC cadets couldn’t wear their uniforms for fear of being pelted with bottles or rocks.  However, during our time at UMD, there luckily was only one campus radical and perhaps a more tolerant student body. 

   It was my stubborn Norwegian, Scottish upbringing that kept me going...and those in the Air Force who had the vision and who understood that I could contribute something, and that I should be given the chance. Young women in the military owe these opportunities to those who went before us and we should not take these opportunities for granted. 

Walter and Bette at her AF retirement ceremony

     Since leaving active duty, I’ve been fortunate enough to have been in a few movies and TV series (don’t blink, though). I’ve performed on stage singing with the Air Force band and competed in the World Wide USAF talent competition called Tops in Blue, flown small aircraft, worked with entertainers and international news media representatives, written newspaper and magazine articles and am working on a book...that may or may not ever make it to print. The Air Force gave me the chance to develop self-confidence and perseverance to do all this. You too will find you are capable of amazing things if you make the Air Force a career and give it your best shot. You will not regret any moment of it. Just remember this—when the going gets touch (and it will):  what doesn’t kill us, makes us strong. Aloha!