Mike Gillespie's Sinop Page Click HERE to Email Mike.
JFK Airport, August 15, 1969. Am about to embark on the great adventure. You can tell I hadn’t yet been to Sinop because I didn’t even give the woman on the far left a second glance. Of course, we were authorized to travel in civilian clothes so as not to give the impression that we were lightning fast chicken pluckers. I think the disguise worked very well—I look like a used car salesman.
Main gate--The entrance to home, sweet home. Whether we were on the bus from the beach or walking back from town, this was the portal we all passed through. I recall that the bus always stopped to let the MPs check for proper identification of all the Turks coming on base. I never knew exactly how many Turks worked on the hill, but it must have been a sizeable number. They were KPs, houseboys, maintenance men, firemen, PX clerks, and groundskeepers.
Overlooking Sinop--The obligatory picture for the folks at home. I'm sure everyone who was stationed at Det 4 has a similar photo. Sometimes we would wake up and find Sinop completely enshrouded in fog while we enjoyed bright sunshine. It was like looking down from an airplane. And on a very clear day you could see snow-capped mountains away inland. I have to admit that the view from the hill was a sight to behold.
Sinop main drag and Sinop street scene--You can see our hill in the background. I was never much impressed with the Turks or their way of life. Sinop, close up, was dirty, smelly, and impoverished. Most buildings in town were constructed of concrete blocks and stucco. I don't remember seeing any steel beam construction. Walking through town with a Polaroid camera was an invitation for every kid and most shopkeepers to tag along and beg for a photo of themselves. In return for taking his picture, one shopkeeper invited us into his shop and served us chi. I like tea, but chi was like no tea I ever tasted. It is STRONG! I believe a thimble full of chi poured into a jar of sugar would still come out bitter. Anyway, we were civil; we drank his chi and thanked him for it, and browsed his shop--and got the heck out of there to hunt up a Coke.
March 15, 1970. No, I am not auditioning for KBOK; I’m making a cassette tape to send home. The upper bookshelf is mine. Note the model of the Dodge Charger. I bought one—the real, full-sized version—when I returned home in August 1970. The books are mostly Peanuts and Dennis the Menace paperback comics—heavy reading.
Our room in HQ Company where we sweated out (literally) the water shortage. The KBOK speaker is prominent on the window sill.
We were quartered three to a room, but when the zoomies took over these rooms in late 1969 they were assigned two to a room...and they could decorate the rooms any way they liked - - which usually meant curtains, rugs, and playboy wallpaper.From: "Michael Gillespie" <borderstar@hotmail.com>
Subject: Sinop stories
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 15:29:39 PSTThe photo was taken in November 69. I was 19 years old, and that smudge on my upper lip was supposed to be a mustache. I think I gave up and shaved it off the next day. You could entitle the photo "All Dressed Up and No Place to Go."
My first glimpse of Det 4 was from the Otter mail plane.
I remember thinking that it looked small and awfully isolated down there. It had been about a week since I had left Fort Meade; I was tired of traveling and just about out of clean clothes. I was assigned to HQ Company and informed that there was a water shortage.
There was enough water for cooking and we could drink all we wanted, but the shower room and the laundry room were locked tight. I spent the last of my travel allowance buying clean underwear at the PX. That particular water shortage (there were others) lasted about two weeks. Since it was August we were allowed five-minute showers every other day. Some E-5 stood outside the shower room door timing everyone. It was strongly recommended that we make use of the beach if we got a little too gamey in the meantime.Mike Gillespie
Lone Jack, Missouri
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