I was in the 54th WRS on Guam from Feb 1978 to Feb 1980.
I flew with Steve a few times, and he flew our whole family home, along with 2 or 3 other squadron families, from an R&R in Yokota AB in Japan on a C-130 in early 1979.
Shortly after arriving on Guam in early 1978 I flew with him to Yokota.
In that era it was very difficult for families to fly military air to the Philippines, because the Marcos family had a financial interest in the national airline, and they wouldn't issue entry visas through Clark AB from their consulate on Guam, in order to force more people to buy commercial tickets. But the Philippine embassy in Tokyo or Seoul would grant Clark entry visas. So whenever a crew went to Yokota or Osan, they would take along a number of passports from other people and dependents in the 54th, then ride a train downtown to the Philippine embassy and get the visas.
So we made a "visa run" on that trip, and Steve showed me how to navigate the train system. In the larger stations, they would have signs in Japanese and English, but the smaller stations often didn't have English signs. So he would study the system map in a large station, then memorize the Japanese ideogram (a word I may have learned from him on that trip) for a particular station, and then look for the same ideogram along the way to know where to get off or change trains.
On our R&R a year later, I used his method for our family to ride the trains to town, and it worked well. The only one I can vaguely recall is Tachikawa, where the first character looked sort of like a little birdhouse. Steve may have pointed out that likeness to me. From Wikipedia: 立川市
The squadron offered each family an R&R of about 5 days one time in a 2 year tour. The military airlift routes in the west Pacific changed with the seasons and prevailing winds. In the winter, the routing was normally due north to Yokota, then coming back you would fly to Okinawa, the Philippines, and Guam. So coming back took longer, with possible overnight waits at each stop. And the Clark AB entry visas were another wrinkle.
We took our R&R in February 1979, flying a C-141 to Yokota. On the first few days, I saw one of our squadron planes being towed into a hangar. Steve was the pilot. I found him somewhere on base, and he said they had an oil leak and it would be a few days. He also said that if the airplane was ready when we had to go back, he would hold some seats for us. What he did, which he said was a standard practice, was not tell the passenger terminal that they could take passengers until just shortly before departure. Several 54th families signed up for a flight to Guam, rather than Okinawa, and when he told the passenger terminal that he had room for passengers, we were all at the top of the list.
On the flight, I took our 9 year old son up to the cockpit to look around. Steve explained a lot of things to him, and managed to convey it nicely at a 9 year old level. At one point our son asked about the clock on the instrument panel, and Steve told him, "That's where we keep Zulu time." Our son got very excited, and asked enthusiastically, "What's Zulu time?". Which led to another nice lecture at a 9 year old level. I had to work not to laugh out loud. One more of those things that sticks in memory. (and by the way, "Zulu time" is just Coordinated Universal Time, or what some still call Greenwich time, "Zulu" or "Z" being the military shorthand).
I was flying the day before, getting my annual instrument check from another squadron pilot. Halfway through the check ride, the Joint Rescue Control Center (JRCC) called and asked us to go look for the boat, which we did, without finding anything.
Steve flew the search mission the next day. I was in the squadron operations center when they called in to say they had found the boat. It was quite an emotional rush for everyone.
At the time we had a staff visit from an inspector from MAC headquarters at Scott AFB IL. He flew along with Steve, and authorized the spotters in the back to don nylon harnesses, attach them to the floor, then open the paratroop doors on both sides in back so they could see better.
The guidance for search missions back then was to fly at either 500 or 1,000 feet above sea level, with 1,000 feet preferred to minimize salt spray obscuring the windows. At either altitude, seeing a 15 to 20 foot boat was pretty hard. And most lost boats were painted white with blue or green striping, almost perfect camouflage against the ocean.
The father was a Tech Sergeant. His son was about 7 or 8 years old. They had been on the island less than a week. They had rented a boat to go fishing, and didn't return by nightfall. The day Steve was out searching was two days after they went fishing.
Steve said that the first thing he saw was a flash from the mirror being used by the sergeant. When he saw that, he started a descending turn to try to make visual contact. The mirror flashes continued, and he said that he had made a complete 360 degree turn before he finally saw the boat itself.
After that they called the JRCC, who sent out a Navy UH-1 helicopter from Guam to pick up the sergeant and his son, and later the Coast Guard towed their boat in.
I told that story a number of times in later years to Boy Scouts in our son's troop in California to illustrate how useful a mirror can be in a survival situation.
Steve was one of those people that is pretty unforgettable.
Intellectual may not be the right description, but definitely cerebral or analytical. He knew an awful lot about an awful lot. Which he was happy to pass on.
He was also quite a craftsman. Two of his projects on Guam stick in memory -- he spent nearly a week installing a public address system in the squadron building, with quite a few speakers and lots of wires running along the walls near the ceiling, all connected to a large amplifier in the operations center. Played music from the FM radio most of the time, interrupted by the occasional all hands announcement or paging someone.
The other project involved woodwork. He made several magazine racks and installed them on the walls of the toilet stalls in the squadron restrooms. Then he filled them with safety magazines, since he was also the squadron safety officer at the time. His objective was to increase readership of the safety publications, which did work.
He was also very much into racing bikes. I think he may have bought one on that 1978 trip to Yokota. I remember him explaining that the bike cost around $200 (or maybe even more), at a time when you could buy a decent 10-speed bike for well under $50. But he knew every advantage of the higher priced product, and had clearly done a lot of homework to pick the make and model.
Steve was such a bright person, and such a nice person too.