My Uncle Jake looms large in my life. And not only because he has the build of a defensive tackle on the San Francisco 49ers. When Jake walks into a room he fills the scene like James Gandolfini in the Sopranos. Then the stories begin.
Jolly Green Giant
Jake sets the scene. Imagine he is on a covert mission during the Vietnam War. President Nixon has launched a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia and Laos. From March 18, 1969 until May 26, 1970, code name Operation Menu targeted resupply areas that the North Vietnamese and their allies the National Liberation Front and the Viet Cong were using as bases of attack against the South Vietnamese and their American allies. Heavy B-52 bombers from the US Air Force carpet bombed the Laotian and Cambodian borders in an attempt to interdict North Vietnamese supply lines.
Airman Jacob J Desch (Vietnam Era Photo)
Airman Jake Desch was deployed in Thailand where the massive B-52s were stationed at U Tapao Royal Thai Air Base, and smaller bombers at the secret Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Navy Base on the Thai/Laos border. The story goes that Jake was onboard an aircraft collecting signals intel, possibly a C-123 Provider used for special ops over Laos, when the plane encountered difficulties. Engine failure, enemy anti-aircraft fire, pilot error - all possibilities. Jake is fuzzy on the details, but he definitely wasn't the pilot. Jake assures us that he was adept at airborne insertion and geared up quickly in his parachute gear. Soon Jake was out the door and free from the aircraft. The plane was flying low, so Jake's drop was fast. His parachute barely unfurled before he slammed into the Laotian jungle. Jake blacked out from the force of the descent and his abrupt landing. When he came to, Jake found himself caught high in a forest canopy. Jake was lucky, unlike many airmen whose planes were lost during the war. Jake had survived. Jake was a tech specialist and his quick thinking saved his life. Trapped in the branches, Jake used the serrated edge on his survival knife to cut himself clear from the tree.
A rescue team had taken off from a nearby base, perhaps Nakhon Phanom. Hope was on its way.
Fitting that Jake, a red headed giant of a man, would be rescued by airmen aboard an HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopter from the U.S. Air Force Rescue team. Jake hasn't expressed to me what he said to the rescue team. But, I am sure that as a Jersey boy he would have joked with them and asked - "What took you so long?"
The National Museum of the United States Air Force describes the incredible heroism of the Combat Pararescue teams in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War:
"The blood-red beret, symbolizing sacrifice, has been the pararescueman or "PJ" (for parajumper) mark of distinction since early 1966. The PJ's unique mission in the Southeast Asia War was to ride into a combat zone aboard a rescue helicopter and descend into jungles, swamps, mountains, and forests on a cable and winch. On the ground, they stabilized and helped hoist the injured to safety, often under fire. All volunteers, the PJs earned more decorations per man than any other USAF group in the SEA War."
A U.S. Air Force pararescueman is lowered on a forest penetrator from a hovering 37th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron HH-53 helicopter during a rescue mission in Southeast Asia, June 1970. (U.S. Air Force photo)
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U.S. Air Force air rescue team: Four Nakhon Phanom based A-1 Skyraiders and a Lockheed HC-130P Hercules recovery aircraft refueling a Sikorsky HH-3E Jolly Green Giant helicopter
Jersey Guys
Francis Ford Coppola directs Marlon Brando in the Godfather wedding scene
Like a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s sweeping masterpiece The Godfather, Jake's stories embrace the cinematic moments of life. Jake loves to tell the tale when he encountered a posse of overly friendly gentlemen at a reception in San Francisco. Jake's wife comes from an Italian American family and is proud of her heritage. Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, Jake had met his fair share of the cosa nostra. But that evening at one of the grand old hotels in downtown San Francisco was more than Jake expected.
Linda and Jake Desch 1970s
As Jake tells the tale, the wedding celebration was opulent. Lights, camera, action, The hors d'oeuvres, crudités (as only a Jersey guy would know), antipasti (most likely from Molinari's in North Beach), lasagne, fish (this was San Francisco after all), and freshly carved meats were all spectacular. Champagne flowed freely , the music had swing (Tony Bennett should have been there), and the dancing went on all night. Linda liked to move on the dance floor and Jake eagerly glided along with her. Like most big men, Jake gets hot easily and he needed to take a break to cool off.
At the sink in the men's room, Jake splashed water on his face with his eyes down. He could hear the thumping of the music down the corridor and then heard it grow louder as the restroom door swung open. Jake gathered himself quickly and looked up to see six large, beefy, muscular, no nonsense men gathered in the bathroom with him. Too many to wrestle with Jake thought. So Jake did what was natural to him. He made friends. "How's it going guys?", Jake asked in a Jersey accent he pulled out for these kind of occasions. The six men nodded positively as they looked Jake over. Their internal threat response meters sensed no threat from Jake. In actuality, the men saw Jake as a fellow member of their rare club. "What are you packing?", the lead bodyguard asked Jake in a whisper as he flashed his holstered weapon. The other five Italian guardians followed suit and displayed their handguns.
"What am I packing?"
"These!" - Jake said as he held out his massive hands.
Three Regular Jersey Guys in the Soprano's
The meat market Satriale's created for the show is possibly based on Sacco's Meat Market located at 806 3rd Avenue in Elizabeth, New Jersey which served as the unofficial base of "Uncle Joe" Giacobbe, a veteran made man in the DeCavalcante crime family.
Alaskan Earthquake
I remember sitting in the living room with Uncle Jake at the Desch family residence in Garfield, New Jersey when my Dad was with the 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam. We often stopped by to visit my Grandma and Grandpa and assorted aunts, uncles, nieces, and nephews on weekends in those years, 1965 - 1966, to hang out with family. One Saturday the TV was on playing Attack of the 50 Foot Woman - a low budget sci-fi film from 1958 - and Jake was passing around a stack of photos of the damage from the Alaskan Earthquake of 1964 that he had taken while stationed at a Strategic Air Command Base in Alaska. To me, the film's theatrical release poster appears like a green screened actress in front of Jake's earthquake photos. Worlds colliding indeed.
While Jake was there, on March 27, 1964, a 9.2 magnitude earthquake struck the Prince William Sound region of Alaska. The quake lasted 4.5 minutes and is still the most powerful recorded earthquake in U.S. history. It is also the second largest earthquake ever recorded, next to the 9.5 magnitude earthquake in Chile in 1960. Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson provides an historical account of the military's response to the quake:
"The military in Alaska, from the moment of the disaster, mustered their full strength to assist their neighbors," wrote Air Force Lt. Gen. R.J. Reeves, commander of Alaskan Command, in a letter to Army Maj. Gen. Eugene Salet, commander of the U.S. Army Training Center at Fort Gordon, Ga. 'The military services proved once again that they are ready, willing, and able to cope with emergencies, whatever their origin.'"
Alaska Earthquake March 27, 1964. Collapse of Fourth Avenue near C Street in Anchorage due to a landslide caused by the earthquake. (Photo by U.S. Army)
Jake and his colleagues started working immediately after the earthquake to provide aid to those in need throughout Alaska:
"At dawn the next day, 17 C-123 Providers left Elmendorf's runway carrying equipment and supplies south and east to Valdez, Seward, and Kodiak. During the next 21 days, nearly four million pounds of cargo was flown out in Operation Helping Hand. Massive airlift operations by the Military Air Transport Service shattered records, hauling in two and a half million pounds of cargo - from baby food to heavy equipment - from Lower 48 bases."
Homeward Bound
Gregg Chadwick
Jersey Cantos
16"x20"oil on linen 2016
Private Collection, San Francisco
Northern New Jersey, where Jake grew up, is one of the United States' largest transportation hubs. When Jake was a kid, rail lines, automobile parkways, and air traffic filled the Jersey earth and sky with movement and the possibility of adventure. I remember when I was a young boy, Jake was on leave from the Air Force and brought by a small collection of his old toys to give us. Trucks, trains, and planes were there in miniature. And a red plastic spaceship ready to carry Buck Rogers and Wilma into the stars. I could almost hear the first line in the United States Air Force Song - "Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun"
Jake enjoyed telling me about his childhood playgrounds along the tracks of the Jersey Central rail line that his father rode along as a railway engineer. Jake and his buddies would play ball in a dirt yard next to an auto body shop on the edge of town. The crack of the bat would mix with the sounds of pneumatic air pumps and the hiss of paint guns. Often a train whistle sounded by Jake's Dad would ring out from a Jersey Central engine moving slowly down the tracks next to the field. Jake says that he and the boys would run and jump onto the freight cars as the train rolled on.
One day only Jake made it onto the train. He was actually able to reach up towards the train engine and his dad pulled him up into the cab. "Where are we going Dad?, Jake asked his father as the train pulled away. "Anywhere you want to go Jake.", his Dad said. "Anywhere you want to go!"
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