Vanderwielen Recalls Military Career

SEELEY LAKE – Seeley Lake resident Adrian Vanderwielen said he is proud to wear a shirt or cap bearing the name or insignia of the United States Air Force. He said he feels even prouder when some stranger comes up to him and thanks him for his service. There weren't many thanks being offered when he returned from Vietnam. Despite his experiences in that war, Vanderwielen is grateful for the training and advantages his military service gave him.

Vanderwielen was born in Germany in the midst of World War II. Though citizens of the Netherlands, his parents had been relocated to Brachelen, Germany, where his father was forced to drive a truck to transport food from the farming town to the German troops. Vanderwielen said the experience made his parents want to move from the war-torn Netherlands to America which they considered the land of opportunity.

Vanderwielen was eight years old and his sister, Rina, was four when the family finally left the Netherlands. The initial move was to Canada. His father needed a guaranteed job and a sponsor who would vouch for him before they could enter the U.S. It took 10 years for that to happen.

When the family arrived in southern California, Vanderwielen had just finished high school and wanted to go to college but couldn't afford it. Further complicating his future, since he was 18 his name was automatically entered into the military draft, even though he was not a U.S. citizen and couldn't apply to become one for another five years. Wait time was cut to three years for someone in the military.

Vanderwielen figured if he was drafted he would end up in the Army or Marine Corp. He thought being an airplane pilot would be more interesting. So three months after arriving in America he enlisted in the United States Air Force (USAF). In the USAF he was trained as an aircraft Fuel Systems Specialist and taught to diagnose and fix fuel problems on a number of different airplanes. Because of his high scores at the tech school, Vanderwielen was sent to Edwards Air Force Base in California, which was a research and test center for new and experimental military aircraft.

Work at Edwards required special security clearance. Vanderwielen said he was instructed to forget everything he knew about certain airplanes whenever he left the flight line. He was told if he wasn't actively working on it, it didn't exist. To talk about those planes would be considered treason, punishable by death.

One of the planes Vanderwielen worked on was the SR-71 Blackbird. Now relegated to aeronautical museums, at that time it was experimental and top secret.

Vanderwielen said, "The Blackbird used a special fuel and the refueling planes would keep leaking all the time. We asked if they could tell us the chemical makeup of the fuel and they said, 'No. Just fix it.' So we'd fix it and it would leak and we'd fix it again and it would leak again. But that's how classified that machine was."

Vanderwielen added, "When the SR-71 cut in the after-burners, which are the big ram-jet engines, the fuel burned green. Because of the height that it could fly – 60,000 feet – plus that green after-burner, I'm sure that it was responsible for many UFO sightings."

Vanderwielen said he enjoyed his time at Edwards because the work was challenging and it was exciting to be around the experimental planes and the test pilots, but he also felt a heavy weight of responsibility. While he was based at Edwards, record-setting pilot Chuck Yeager was one of the test pilots. Vanderwielen was very familiar with the NF-104 Starfighter that crashed and ended Yeager's official flight testing career.

"The night before that happened," Vanderwielen said, "I had been working on that particular airplane. As soon as I heard that he crashed, I thought, I hope I didn't do anything wrong that caused it. I hadn't. The crash had nothing to do with the fuel system but that was a fairly common reaction."

Vanderwielen said Yeager managed to eject safely but suffered oxygen burns because the breathing systems used liquid oxygen and some of it back-flushed into his suit.

"During the two-and-a-half years I was at Edwards," Vanderwielen said, "three test pilots lost their lives in crashes. In one incident the pilot was disoriented and upside down when he ejected. The force drove him straight into the ground."

Throughout the time Vanderwielen was stationed at Edwards Air Force Base he was able to simultaneously take undergraduate classes at neighboring Antelope Valley Community College, working toward the 60 credit prerequisite which would start him on the path to becoming a pilot. His course work abruptly ended in mid-semester when he received deployment orders to the Philippines to take part in Operation Limelight. Though no further details were provided, Vanderwielen said it was all but guaranteed he would then be re-deployed to Vietnam.

Since he still had three months before he was eligible for U.S. citizenship, at his parents' insistence Vanderwielen requested and was granted a deferral of deployment allowing him to remain in the States for those three months. On Jan. 17, 1966 Vanderwielen took the Oath of Allegiance to the United States and became a naturalized citizen. Immediately afterwards he reported to the Philippines and two weeks later he was at Da Nang Air Force Base in Vietnam.

While stationed at Da Nang, his duties included servicing and repairing fuel systems on various aircraft, primarily F-4 Phantom fighter jets, B-57s and C-123s. The C-123s were old cargo planes that had been retro-fitted to carry and spray Agent Orange. Vietnamese pilots were trained to fly them and part of Vanderwielen's job was to train Vietnamese crewmen to maintain and troubleshoot problems with the fuel systems. He said it was difficult trying to teach men who came from an agricultural background and had little or no knowledge of basic mechanics. For them the C-123 was a very complex machine.

Vanderwielen said while he was not in direct combat, it was not unusual for the base to receive incoming fire. However he said one of the most dangerous things to occur happened when an American B-57 pilot forgot to lock the firing button before he came in and sprayed 20mm rounds down the runway.

Though Vanderwielen was aware the Vietnam War was becoming increasingly unpopular in the States, he said he kept a tight focus on the purpose of his job, which was to make sure every pilot came back safely. Though at the time he and the other servicemen were unaware of the health hazards associated with Agent Orange, he now knows he is in a high risk group for cancer, Parkinson's disease, and other health problems associated with the compound. He said he is grateful that his V.A. benefits include health care.

Though Vanderwielen attained the rank of Staff Sergeant while in Da Nang, he decided not to re-enlist when his four-year tour of active duty was up. He said his goal of becoming a pilot seemed impossible to attain if he could be yanked out of his college classes in the middle of the semester to be deployed somewhere else. That and a growing sense of wrongness about the Vietnam War made him realize that to remain in the service meant he would have no real control over his future.

Though he still had two years of inactive duty before he was officially discharged, Vanderwielen immediately went back to college, which he could finally afford thanks to the G.I. Bill. His old high school interest in chemistry resurfaced and led him down paths that had nothing to do with piloting a plane. The G.I. Bill, supplemented by scholarships, eventually took him to a Ph.D. in chemistry. Along the way the path widened to include wife (Betty) and two children (Kristin and Keith).