Special Services

In addition to learning radio operations, my father began working for the Special Services Art Shop at Keesler AFB. He reported to someone named Giovanni, a “good guy who was in charge of athletic events.” I suppose that’s him in the first image, as he was the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC).

Giovanni reported to David Sanders, head of Special Services. David was one of the only Jewish officers that my father knew during his time at Keesler, and my father occasionally attended Friday night services with him on the base. My dad was not brought up very religious—he was never Bar Mitzvahed, and he didn’t join a temple until after my brother and I were born.

Early in my dad’s time at Keesler, when the Korean War was still raging through the first half of 1953, he was told that their top operators would be needed on the ground in Korea, but the war soon wound down and Special Services came calling. They needed a few good artists, and this transfer eventually led to my father’s re-assignment to Erding AF Base in Germany, where he would take his first steps into the world outside the country whose uniform he wore.

Special Services was charged with, among other things, lifting the morale of our guys in uniform, so my father has that in common with Captain America.

Airman Kantz did not go directly from Keesler to Erding. In between he had a holiday furlough when he was able to return home to the old neighborhood. During this time he went out to dinner, took in a show of South Pacific, and saw a few movies with my mother on their earliest dates. But it would be his letters home from overseas that would make him stand apart from her other suitors.