Hawver Named Junior Officer of 1969

SWAN VALLEY –During his six years in the United States Air Force, Condon resident Dennis Hawver gained recognition for his speaking ability and manner of presentation. He even, on occasion, briefed the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

To help pay his was through college, Hawver entered the ROTC program at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Once commissioned, he began graduate work at the WU Law School. Then the 1966 Topeka tornado struck, causing massive damage to the city and the university and leveling the law building. The Air Force sent Hawver to Lowry AFB in Denver, Colo. and his active duty began.

He finished his training at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana as an Intelligence Officer and Photo Interpreter. The job entailed digesting reports from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency and other sources and then briefing air crews and wing Air Force staff as to what was going on in the world. He also was trained to teach courses in escape and evasion to air crews.

With the Vietnam conflict escalating, Hawver was assigned to Nakhon Phanom, Thailand, on the Mekong River. Hawver explained the Vietcong was being supplied by North Vietnam via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. To disrupt the supply chain, Task Force Alpha was mobilized. The first step was to air drop sensors all along the trail. Some sensors picked up ground vibrations from convoy trucks or troop movements, others detected conversations or radio transmissions. An airplane, circling above anti-aircraft range, detected the sensor signals and relayed them to Task Force Alpha's huge computer complex. Hawver and the other Intelligence personnel then analyzed the data and called in air strikes where they deemed appropriate.

Computers of the 1960s era were massive machines. They generated a lot of heat and required air conditioning to keep them functional. Hawver described the Infiltration Surveillance Center complex as about the size of an average high school building. He said he later found out it was the largest computer complex on the Asian continent. [It housed two state-of-the-art IBM System/360 model 65 computers. Each had a core memory capability of up to 48KB (48 hundred bytes). By contrast, laptop computers today often have 8GB (8 billion bytes) or more.]

In 1968, Clark Clifford became the Secretary of State. Without giving advance notice, Clifford flew to Nakhon Phanom to investigate Task Force Alpha and the huge expenditures associated with it.

Hawver related what happened after Clifford spoke with the generals.

"Clifford said, 'All right, now I want somebody in here who really does the work.' Unfortunately," said Hawver "I was working that afternoon and they called me in. I briefed him, and then Clifford said, 'Lieutenant, I am going to ask you one question and I want a one-word answer -- does this thing work?'

So, I told him the truth. I said, 'No.' And I added, "It doesn't work because we're trying to kill these trucks through triple-canopy jungle and we can't see them."

Clifford berated Hawver for expanding on the answer and Hawver said, "But then you wouldn't understand why I said no. The Russians gave the North Vietnamese all of their WWII anti-aircraft artillery - 10,000 pieces of artillery and all the old WWII ammunitions. The Ho Chi Minh trail was lined with 37mm and 57mm automatic anti-aircraft guns. And we lost a lot of airplanes."

Hawver added, "The generals didn't like my answer, but I was fairly well disillusioned [with the war]."

Castle AFB Strategic Air Command in Merced County Calif. was Hawver's next assignment. He related the story of his first meeting with Colonel Bryan Shotts during a general staff briefing. Shotts said he wanted the reports to be quick and concise, so Hawver stood up and said, "The same people are shooting at the same people. Nothing's changed. If anything changes, we'll let you know."

Hawver said his boss "went ballistic," but Shotts liked it. In fact, Shotts later named Hawver Junior Officer of the Year 1969 for the 93rd Bomb Wing Combat Intelligence branch at Castle AFB. Shotts wrote: "Key staff members and combat crew personnel alike are unanimous in their praise of his outstanding speaking ability, his very interesting and thorough manner of presentation, and his sincere and energetic devotion to his job."

Shotts also praised Hawver for the on-the-job training programs he devised and instituted for newly assigned personnel and for volunteering off-duty time to repair and recondition equipment within the Intelligence Division.

Shotts's letter nominating Hawver stated as "most notable" his request that he be allowed to attend the USAF Survival Course. "Captain Hawver believed that he could more effectively instruct crew members in evasion and escape procedures if he had personally experienced the same course which the crew members themselves attend."

The letter added Hawver was the only nonrated Strategic Air Command Combat Intelligence Officer ever to attend the school.

Subsequently, Hawver was named 15th Air Force Junior Officer of the Year. That commendation letter, signed by Major General McLaughlin, stated: "Competition for this award was very keen and selection for this award has distinguished Captain Hawver as one of the finest junior officers in this command."

Hawver said he was completely surprised by the honor because it had never before been given to a non-flying officer. In retrospect, he says he should have suspected something because he was sent around various places to brief people that usually junior officers don't get to brief, like the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Summing up his six and half years, Hawver said, "All in all, my Air Force career was interesting. I had a good time, but I didn't always do things by the book."

He also said that he became more and more disillusioned with the Vietnam War and decided it was time to get out of the military. He returned to Kansas and became a lawyer, a career that he pursued for 38 years. During those years he also "organized and led the largest anti-war march in the history of Kansas," became chairman of the Kansas Libertarian party, ran for congress twice and for governor twice.

After he and his first wife divorced, Hawver moved to Hawaii and then sailed the South Pacific for five years, visiting all the battle islands involved in World War II. He eventually reconnected with his high school sweetheart Jolayne. When she retired from her job as an interior decorator and sold her business, they bought an RV and drove around the country, visiting 41 of the 48 continental states.

Then they drove down the Swan Valley.

Hawver said, "That did it. We just fell in love with the place. The Swan Range on one side, the Mission Valley on the other, the National Forests, it was just beautiful. And we had been everywhere in the U.S."

He laughed and said, "We told each other when we left Kansas, we wanted to be someplace where there was no cold and no snow."

He insists however that, because of the low humidity, the cold here is not nearly as painful as it was in Kansas. The Hawvers love it here, despite the cold and snow.

Hawver concluded, "I've had a fun life. And the Air Force was a part of that."