Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

The JCOC Trip

After the summer trip to Europe with the Navy, a few years later I asked Sen. Humphrey if there were any more trips like that. He came up with a shorter trip but an interesting one. It was called the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference (JCOC).

This was only a week long but it covered a lot of territory. It had a different part of the United States military each day. Most of the people on the trip apparently were business types who had political connections. One that I do recall was Gene Raymond, a movie actor at the time, who was very quiet on the entire trip.

It began with a metering at the Department of Defense at the Pentagon. As I recall the Secretary of Defense at the time was named McElroy. He had been plucked from the business world and proved to be one of the least known and ineffective secretaries of Defense. His remarks to the group were not memorable enough to remember.

On the second day we were supposed to be treated to a mock landing on a beach demonstrated by the Marines at the Quantico Marine base in Virginia. However, it rained that day and the demonstration was given on the floor of an armory.

From there we were flown to Fort Benning, Ga., to have a demonstration of parachute training. It was impressive but consisted mostly of observing from a distance.

Things became more interesting when we were flown to Eglin Air force Base in Florida. There we received some hands-on training by flying jet trainers. I was outfitted in a flying suit and parachute, but not told how to use it. I was put in the front seat of an open cockpit two-seater jet. The instructor was in the back seat and we took off.

I was struck by how quiet the jet plane was. After we were aloft the instructor told me to take control of the stick on the floor between my legs. I certainly didn't try any fancy maneuvers but I did move the control a little bit to see what would happen, confident in the knowledge the instructor was still in control. I had my 16 mm. movie camera with me and I recorded the scenes in the air from that plane.

The last day was at the Naval base at Mayport, Fla., where we went aboard the U.S.S. Forrestal, an aircraft carrier. I was given a single berth below decks and in the morning I was awakened by a loud bang. It was apparent flights were taking off and I was directly beneath a steam catapult. I went up to the main flight deck and watched as planes took off and landed. The landings were quite interesting as a cable strung across the deck was used to snag the planes landing. They came in at high speed and had to be stopped almost immediately to prevent going overboard.

The ship was named after the first Secretary of Defense who later committed suicide. We received service caps at every stop and I still have the cap from the Forrestal.

We were then flown back to Washington, D. C., for our various flights home. From Washington I flew to the Twin Cities and picked up my car. On the way home at 1:15 a. m. with no cars in sight and only the stars shining brightly a state patrol car appeared out of nowhere and I was ticketed for speeding. That was one of only three speeding tickets I can recall ever receiving. What a way to end a great trip.

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