By Pat McNees
A photo out of the Saturday Evening Post? Arlin Close being inducted into the military in 1957. Standing by are his parents, Walt and Maybelle Scott, and two officers.
This photo surprised me, as I had no memory of Arlin serving in the military, though we were long-time friends and nearly cousins. Arlin Close was born exactly a year before me, after our parents—having fled the Kansas Dust Bowl and the Texas Panhandle for the West in the 30s—got jobs doing ironwork on dams and canals along the Colorado River. Our parents lived in adjacent tents, our mothers lifting up the tent flaps and hosing them down each morning. That was housekeeping. We spent many Saturday nights of our childhood going to the movies, while our parents played cards together.
But Arlin was called into the service while I was away at college and I was oblivious to the next stage of his life, until this year when his wife, Olivia, posted this wonderful photo on Facebook. Then I asked questions.
In 1957, while he was attending junior college, Arlin joined the Navy Air Reserve at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station. “We went once a month for a weekend. At midterm they said ‘Close and Flaherty, step out and go to Personnel. You have to go on active duty.’
They checked it out, went to San Diego, and became sailors.
“I wasn’t happy about it,” says Arlin. “If they’d had enough volunteers we wouldn’t have had to go.”
After boot camp they went to Norman, Oklahoma, for basic airmen school, where they learned the basics of aircraft: how they’re made and how to maintain them. Next, Memphis Engine School, to learn how to keep them flying. After that, Arlin reported to a squadron – a four-man crew in an anti-submarine aircraft S2F. Arlin worked as radar operator and ELM (detecting magnetic fields in earth’s surfaces so you could tell if you passed over a sub or a whale).
“Other enlisted men could fly as well as the pilots. They had me flying private planes, so when I got out of the Navy I was flying helicopters.”
From a base in California, he sailed to Hawaii, Japan, Okinawa, the Philippines, Singapore, Australia, then back to Guam, Hawaii, and Long Beach.
“I liked home best,” says Arlin, “but it was all interesting. I was eighteen, nineteen – it felt so far away. That morning when we were heading home they blew the bugle: “California, here I come.”
His military experience served him well.
After a brief stint in junior college and a few years working as a store manager for Shopper’s Markets, he wanted to do something different and got a job with Douglas Aircraft. In the Navy he had worked on prototypes of the A-4 Skyhawk, a single-seat subsonic attack aircraft, so in 1967 Douglas made him a buyer for the A-4, a job he held for ten years, until they phased the A-4s out.
In 1978 he went over to commercial because they were not building any more military planes in Long Beach. He started working on DC-9s, small commercial jets with engines in the tail. (Northwest still has them and USAir may have a few.) In 1979 Douglas decided to upgrade a DC-9. Meanwhile it merged and became McDonnell Douglas, changed designation, and began to build the MD-80, a larger commercial jet. Arlin put in many hours coordinating all procurement engineering & development on the first three prototype airplanes, working on the MD-80 until about 1989.
“I loved my job. Every day was different. The problems you had one day weren’t the same as the next day.”
McDonnell Douglas was going to build a new Navy trainer, the T-45, in collaboration with British Aerospace, using much of the same staff as worked on the A-4, so he worked on that for a few years, until that group moved to St. Louis. Finally, he worked for ten years on prototypes for the MD-11—that’s the big one, the T11—until they closed production down.
“It was unusual to be in aerospace for 35 years and to stay with one company without being laid off, because it was such a cyclical business. I was able to put my children through school and we had a real good life.”
Ask an old friend what he did for a living and how he got started. There are fascinating stories all around us, if only we ask.
Pat McNees is a writer, editor, ghost writer and personal historian. Read more about her work HERE