When you received your transfer orders to TUSLOG Detachment 150, your first thought was an "isolated tour."  Well, yes, Sahintepe was isolated, but it had a daily life that was interesting and full of camaraderie.  Here are a few pictures of daily life around the site.

There's an old expression overseas that "where GI's are, dogs are".  No kidding--we had two of our own and the Turkish soldiers had one. 

The brown one on the left was Sally, the brown one in the back was "Abi Khan" (which meant "my friend Khan" in Turkish) and "Barish", the black and grey German shepherd belonging to the Turkish soldiers.  "Barish" meant "peace" in Turkish.  These dogs protected us against the wild dog packs who roamed the hills around us.  Sally liked to sleep at the dining hall door while Abi Khan preferred the Orderly Room, radio building or power plant floors!  Barish laid around a lot near the dining hall where he could keep an eye on the Turkish soldiers walking the perimeter patrol.

You never forgot why you were at Sahintepe--here is our dormitory flag display of a banner which flew over the US Capital including a signed letter from Senator Patrick Moynihan who requested it for us.  (I guess the senator thought our having a mailing address of APO New York was close enough to being a New Yorker for him!) (Does anyone know where this flag went to when the site closed?) 

On special occasions, the Turkish and American flags flew outside the dormitory building.  The Orderly Room is to the right of the American flag.  My room was two windows up from the one next to the Turkish flag.  You can see one of our parabola and one of our billboard antennas behind the dormitory.

The dormitory rooms were small--12 X 15 feet including the closet, a dresser, desk and chair and two bunk beds.  I shared this room with Staff Sergeant Ralph S. Allen.  Staff Sergeants and below roomed two to a room; everyone else got their own room except the Turkish soldiers who had four bunks in their rooms.  We had a community shower, sauna and bathroom.  (I had the top bunk.  You can see the cord for my electric blanket hanging down.  The windows were a joke--on Christmas Morning '81, I found a dusting of snow on the room's floor!)  Don't tell anyone, but I still have my horseblanket of an official US military wool blanket from Sahintepe sitting on my bedroom shelf.  I guess it fell into my boxes when I was packing for home!  (Yes, I had that horseblanket on my bed on top of my electric blanket--I was shivering to death at night!)

Here's my office, the Orderly Room.  The captain's office was on the other side of the wall.  The dormitory assignments were kept on the chart over my desk.  Like that clean desk?  It was sort of typical as my week revolved around the Tuesday and Thursday mail runs to Detachment 184, 150 miles away at Baliekesehir Air Base, where the APO (post office) received mail by air twice a week.

Of course, we ran the place just like any other Air Force unit.  Our lounge was considered part of the Air Force open mess system and issued "club cards" to its members.  Here's my card for "The Top of the Mountain Lounge", Sahintepe Turkey. 

I remember the double-take the mess steward took at the NCO Club at McGuire AFB, NJ when I flashed this one when I passed through on my mid-tour Environmental Morale Leave.  He had never seen one before with that name or location, shrugged and said, "You went a long way to join that club, huh?"