Keep in mind that being in TUSLOG Detachment 150 was like belonging to a large family.  There were only 35 people assigned there at any one time, namely one officer and 34 enlisted personnel, all male.  After a few months there, you were so familiar with each other you could read moods, tell when someone was sick or withdrawn, and razz each other like older and younger brothers.  Since my office was in the dormitory, I got to see a lot of folks when they first got up, especially when they came down the hall to say good morning to me before they said good morning to Mother Nature! 

Surprisingly, even with this level of personal familiarity, from living, working and sleeping in eight buildings on the top of our mountain, we never had a breakdown in military discipline, customs or courtesies, something that always struck our visitors as a very special thing.

But when people left, it was still hard on those remaining behind.  Here we are in March of 1982 when my boss, the site commander, Captain Samuel G. Edgar III, and the medic, "Doc" Feaster, rotated home.  It was a tough day for me when we took this last picture together.  Doc was heading back to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio and Captain Edgar, after stopping off in Denmark to marry his fiancee, Petra, was heading to Tyndall AFB in Florida.

While it was tough to say goodbye in the morning, the night before someone left was always a heck of a celebration called a "card burning" where your lounge membership card was burned in front of everyone.  The bright spot was when someone left, your card was moved up one notch, eventually reach the "two digit midgets' board" and then the short timer's board.  The "two digit midgets' board" held the cards of those with 99 or less than days left in their assignment.  The "short timers' board" held the cards of the next person to leave. 

Sometimes we would have two cards on that board as happened with my friend, Sergeant Tony "Lips" Lewis, and me.  "Lips" was leaving Sahintepe to go to the Communications Squadron at Eglin AFB, Florida while I was heading to the Ballistic Missile Office, Norton AFB, California.  Staff Sergeant Ray Margettin, sitting behind us, was the lounge's bartender that night.

Oh, the card burning?  That was a difficult act to perform, especially if you had been celebrating like I was--I was rotating home plus just I came out on the promotion list to technical sergeant the day before my departure celebration! 

I don't look too bad, do I?  More than a few folks helped me finish off that bottle of Irish Mist that day that Lt. Kirby Foster, the new site commander, gave me to celebrate my promotion before I left the site.  (Lips had to half-carry me to the truck the next day and then drag me through customs at Yesilkoy Airport in Istanbul.  He told the customs officer I was "cok dili", Turkish for "very crazy".)