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Show Hilltop HILLTOP TIMES WAC From page 7 would be proud of me," she said. Basic training was Des Moines, Iowa, where she trained for mail delivery. Cahill ran into the usual ribbing. "We'd pass the boys on the street as we were drilling." She said the boys would call out, "Be kind to that web-footed WAC, because that WAC might be somebody's mother." That would make them mad, so they would call back, "Oh, blow it out your B-bag." WACs carried two bags, an Abag for their uniforms and a B-bag for other items. It was their way of telling the boys they'd better respect them. Cahill was sent to McClellan AFB where she served as cadre for her group. It earned her a nomination to sergeant but that never caught up with her. She was told about it as she left for Australia with a battalion of 1500 men and 500 women. She remained private first class throughout her service. Her group traveled on a cruise liner that had been stripped down and recommissioned the USS America. Tokyo Rose called it the "Grey Ghost" and reported a few times it had been sunk but the crew just laughed at Tokyo Rose's entreaties to leave and join the Japanese with humor because she played Benny Goodman and music they liked. It was 20 WACs to a stateroom, SAVE From page 7 of people waving their hands during this walk, trying to get their attention. One of the women ran up to Messer crying and screaming frantically and asked him if he could swim when they reached the group. She then told him her son was drowning while pointing out past the surf. According to Messer the child must have been playing in the shallow part of the water before he was pulled out by a riptide. Both Messer and Casey leapt into the ocean without hesitation and swam toward what they presumed was the drowning child approximately 120 meters out. "You really don't know what to expect when seeing someone drowning," Messer said. "From what you see in the movies, people are usually flailing their arms and yelling." What they saw was someone just bobbing and floating around in the water. "As I entered the water my main concern was getting to the boy before he went under," said Casey. "The boy was being pulled out pretty fast and his head was bobbing up and down below and above the surface of the water." "I was screaming to Lieutenant Colonel Messer as I ran through the waves and pointing to where the boy was," said Casey. "Then he spotted him and we both tracked to the boy's direction." Messer said, once he was in the water, he couldn't really see where the boy was due to the waves. "I'm 6 feet 3 inches tall, and the waves were definitely going way over me," he said. He recalls at one point while swimming out to the drowning child, that his friend Casey was rolled up in a wave and pulled back toward shore by the currents. As Messer reached the last 30 meters, he could see exhaustion in the child's eyes as his face bobbed in and out of the water in what he estimated were six foot waves. The 7th WPS commander started yelling to the child he was coming and told the boy to try and swim toward him. He was doing everything he could to keep the child fo- where three or four people normally berthed. "They double-bunked our beds so we could get 20 (in there) and we were issued a helmet," Cahill said. They were carrying gas masks and their two bags. They got a helmet full of fresh water a day. "(That) was to bathe in and to wash our clothes in," she said. Halfway to Australia at sundown, the klaxon on deck started sounding. "It just started banging away, banging away and we looked, and I said, `Uh, oh, something's wrong,' and then the guys came down and talked to us," Cahill said. They all assembled on deck. The crew said there was a ship on the horizon and it was not answering them. She and the others turned to go below and just as they did, the light signaled from the ship they were friendly. "I slept in my clothes that night," she said. "I got such a scare ... I didn't want to be around running in my teddies looking for a lifeboat." They arrived in Australia the day before Mother's Day. The American boys and Australian boys were all lined up for their arrival. Her future husband, Jack, had traded another boy to get the duty of carrying off the bags. When he saw her name and numbers on her bag he knew he recognized her. He had gone to school with her in Utah and came up and gave her a great big hug. "Wow, he's so good looking," she said the girls said. "If you ever get tired of cused. "I was really afraid in those last 30 meters as I was swimming to him; he might go under the water," Messer said. "Then it would be even more difficult to find him." As Messer reached the child, he noticed that the boy was no longer trying to keep his face from falling in the water. "It was obvious he had pretty much given up," Messer said. Casey caught up to him as Messer grabbed ahold of the child and kept the boy's head above the water and pulled him back into shore. "A couple of times, all three of us were getting rolled by the waves as we were heading back to the beach," said Messer While out in the water, both Messer's and Casey's daughters had run to grab a lifeguard from one of the nearby pools. Due to cutbacks, the lifeguards' shifts at the beach didn't start until noon. The child's mother grabbed her son and hugged him tight once they were back on shore. According to Messer, the child was completely worn out but still breathing so they did not have to perform CPR. The Messer and Casey families decided to leave and give the lifeguards room to help the child once they arrived. It was on the walk back to their rooms when they realized how easily things could have ended differently, and they could have walked in the other direction. Messer was later told by Colby Young, one of the lifeguards who responded that day, that the child they saved was around one to two minutes away from death and things, "would not have ended as it did without their help." According to Messer, his military training made the difference during his rescue of a drowning child. "I honestly attribute a lot to our training," Messer said. "All the training we are given helps us realize what the objective is and just focus on it." His friend Casey added, "I guess an overall level of fitness and previous water survival training helped (us) to have the confidence to make it through the waves and swim out to get him." (Material contributed to this article by 75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs.) TIMES Jan. 2, 2014 him, we want first choice." "So there it was, a little romance in this terrible, terrible war," she said. The implications of war weren't long in coming as before a big dance that night, the girls were asked to visit the local hospital and cheer the wounded. The hospital was so full of wounded, she couldn't believe how many Americans and Australians, but later she realized this must have been as a result of the recent invasion of Guadalcanal and the naval battle in the Coral Sea. While in Brisbane, she agreed to marry Jack Whitlock. "I was the first WAC to get married in the South Pacific." It took awhile for the Australians to figure out how to do the paperwork as before it had only been American boys marrying Australian girls. She was then assigned to ship out to Port Moresby where Cahill said that the WACs learned to pull together and the green recruits grew up. Their duties at Port Moresby consisted of microfilming the mail and putting the letters on reels. It was then sent by aircraft to the States and then later reproduced and sent on its way. Once, as she rode with a group of WACs their vehicle hit a wallaby. They made the driver stop. A baby peeked out from its dead mother's pouch. They made the driver wait so they could take it back with them. With the help of milk and five WACs he recovered but one day she reported Remaining top 4 he looked a little droopy. "I told them maybe he's homesick," she said. "They looked at me like I was crazy." She explained they needed to make him a "mother" so she assembled a gunnysack pouch and hung it from the side of the barracks they were in. He seemed really happy with the new digs. But the commander said they had to let him go because of the mischief he was creating. The natives caught him the next day for dinner. The WACs were none too happy about losing "Wilber" the wallaby. Cahill found herself pregnant after two or three months in New Guinea. Upon hearing she faced difficulty because of a tipped uterus, she went on bed rest. Her husband, Jack, had been sent to the Philippines and she was determined to carry that baby. Her sick call extended many months as she waited to be sent home, giving priority to the wounded boys. Another nurse with a bad case of jungle rot also waited, but died one day after getting home. Cahill got on a plane and joined family in San Gabriel and delivered a boy on April 1, Easter. Of that time, Cahill proudly recalled that women stepped in and helped make bullets and weld aircraft, leaving their kids in the nurseries when it was needed during the war. But she made it clear: "I think the heroes are the ones who didn't make it home," she said. news stories Courtesy photo Converted from a three-story dormitory, Building 349 now houses the Main Fire Station. The eight stall apparatus bay has been completed and holds the fire engines. y) Relocated fire station fulfills L7_,( service requirements BY JEFF BECK USAF AFMC 775 CES/CEF The average American citizen will call 911 and activate an emergency response once in their lifetime. Odds are it will be a very bad day for someone. A personal tragedy occurred and someone decided the fire department, police and medics are needed. Once 911 is called, people have certain expectations. Those expectations drive deployment and planning for fire protection operations. The Hill AFB Fire Department was moved from the 71-year-old Headquarters Fire Station in Building 9 to the newly converted Main Fire Station in Building 349 in May of 2013. The move changes the way the fire department deploys its resources to meet service expectations. Meeting the "fast and professional" emergency response expectation requires the use of four fire stations. The new Main Fire Station is centrally located in a three story dormitory and office with an unattached eight stall apparatus bay. This station provides medical and structure fire protection assets and support for hazardous materials, rescue and aircraft firefighting opera- tions. It also houses the Training Section and Logistics Office. The Main Fire Station is first response for the main installation and industrial area. Fire Station 2 is located in Building 1151 near the 1200 area. It houses medical and structure firefighting assets and support equipment for hazmat, rescue and aircraft firefighting operations. Fire Station 2 is first response for the northwest portion of the base. Fire Station 3 is located at the Little Mountain Test Annex, 25 miles north of the base. It houses medical and structure firefighting assets as well as support equipment for hazardous materials and rescue operations. Fire Station 3 is first response for the annex. Fire Station 4 is located on the east side of the base. The station houses primary aircraft rescue and firefighting assets and supports medical, structural firefighting and hazardous materials operations. Headquarters and administrative functions moved to Building 593N. This consolidates the office of the chief and the office of the Base Fire Marshal. The Fire Prevention section is housed in Building 133. Fire code consultation, fire inspection and public education services are provided from this facility. 9 |