Chief Master Sergeant, Frank Millen, US Air Force (Ret), a Post 160 member, was guest speaker at Veterans Day Ceremony in Smyrna in 2015. Somehow, a C-130 just happened to fly over as he was making his presentation - what an introduction! After Basic and Tech school at Sheppard AFB, Texas he was assigned to Forbes AFB, Kansas to work on RB-47Ks. When he reenlisted, he asked for an assignment to Pease AFB, New Hampshire. While there he worked on the flight line doing BPO inspections on B-47Es. During this time he was injured in a civilian plane crash. Shortly after being released for full duty, in 1963, he asked for and received an assignment to Naha Air Base, Okinawa where he served as a flight line assistant crew chief and refuel team member on C-130A's. Frank had his first trip to Vietnam in 1964 which was during the beginning of the hostilities in Southeast Asia. He also served a couple of years at Mactan AB and Clark AB in the Philippines. Most of his time, during 1967-1969, was spent on TDY to Vietnam working on C-130s, where he did all types of maintenance and repair on those aircraft. He was stationed at Pope AFB, North Carolina in late 1969. Frank volunteered to attend Flight Engineer School at Sewart AFB in Tennessee and after graduating he returned to Pope where he did extensive follow-on training. He also did a 90-day TDY tour to Rhein Main AB in Germany and visited several countries while he was there. Upon returning to Pope AFB, he volunteered for overseas duty and was stationed at Ching Chuan Kang AB, Taiwan, better known as CCK. It was from there that he began most of his flying duties on TDY into Southeast Asia, primarily to Tan Son Nhut AB, Vietnam, Utapao RTAFB, Thailand, and to Nakhon Phanom RTAFB, Thailand (also known as NKP). He accumulated 800 hours of combat flying time in Southeast Asia from 1970 - 1973 and was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, six Air Medals, and the Silver Star. In 1970, we flew the Bob Hope show from Thailand to Vietnam; we also did air drops at An Loc. I lost a lot of friends there during the Easter 1972 Offensive. On the last day of the war, just before the cease-fire was announced in Paris, Frank was on a mission to the Dalat/Cam Ly Airfield in Vietnam to pick up some South Vietnamese cadets. We were to take them to various bases around South Vietnam so that they could spread the word about the upcoming cease-fire. Shortly after landing at Dalat-Cam Ly Airfield doing an engine running on load of the cadets, the field came under heavy mortar attack. Our plane was hit and received severe shrapnel damage. After a few hours on the ground, having replaced one main tire, we took off in a badly wounded plane. The Army folks said that if we had not gotten the plane out of there when we did that they would have been overrun during the night. We flew back to NKP on three engines with a heavy loss of the main hydraulic system and many holes in the fuselage. The entire crew was later awarded the Silver Star for our actions. Forty eight hours later, on 29 January 1973, Frank became the flight engineer on the first aircraft to land in Hanoi after the cease-fire became effective; that mission had a high “pucker factor,” but it was completed without any incident. This was a very memorable incident for him, to say the least. "The Air Force matured me, trained me, and made me realize how great it is to wake up every day and enjoy all of the freedoms that our military has preserved for us over all of these years." Frank served from 1958 - 1985..
