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Remembering Wally
It is with ultimate sadness that I report the death of a great guy, Walter D. Goss, who gave up the battle on 28 December 2009 after, in the words if son Capt. Patrik Goss, "kicked the hell out of cancer for three years"
I first met Walt in "PreLang" a Kelly AFB a thousand years ago when we were filling out the multipage forms for our initial background security investigations. Every time he completed the form and turned it in it was returned because he refused to put a state for where his mother, Ethel Goss, was born. She was born in the Oklahoma Territory before it became a state and Walt refused to put anything else on the form. I think the clerks eventually gave up and decided to let the investigators try and find the Oklahoma Territory.
Walt was a true folk philosopher who could, upon occasion, be so sarcastic that he would put Andy Rooney to shame. On a more personal note during his visits with my family when my daughter, Kathy, was a toddler she would go up to him and stare at this huge hulk of a man and throw her arms around one of his legs because she adored him. He would, in a pretend gruff voice, say "Go away kid or I'll nail one foot to the floor and you always walk around in circles." Kathy would just laugh and hold on to his leg while he pretended to shake her off.
Walt and I went through Survival School together at Stead. We were partners when we were put out in the Truckee mountains to do our Escape and Evasion (E&E) thing against the instructors pretending to be bad guys. On the first day of E&E Walt badly sprained his ankle. It is not possible for a 260 pounds man who is hurting badly to move quietly on a E&E exercise. I remember it was dark, you did not travel during day time, and we were on a mountain side a bit above one of the roads. Of course the instructors in their vehicle with a spot light spotted us. Not wanting to be caught and have to repeat the E&E portion, Walt came up with a brilliant solution. Hurl soft ball sized rocks at the instructors!!! You never heard such cussing in all your life but they got smart in a hurry and decided to go on down the road and harass other, less violent, students on E&E.
Walt and I also went through the "Resistance to Interrogation" portion of Survival School together. Sorry Walt but I must digress for a moment. While our group was "prisoners" in the compound, Tony Daluz had to stand in a snow bank because one of the oriental instructors, holding the medal that Tony had around his neck, said he bet Tony kissed the Pope's ass to get it. Tony's reaction was predictable. Oli Whittcomb also received some special attention from the instructors. Walt and I were side-by-side in the "little boxes". Every time Walt breathed I could hear the box he was in "creak". His legs were so cramped when he was removed from his box that he could not feel them and fell while trying to stand. Of course this did not help his POW situation.
Walt became rather well known within the intelligence community when was flying a nuke mission over the Pacific Ocean and became irritated when some well meaning Security Service ground pounder kept bugging him to find out if he had any fighter reaction. Finally, in desperation, Walt said "yes"!!! The ground pounder suddenly realized where Walt was flying and asked how this was possible. Walt, not realizing that all of his communications were going to the intelligence community audience world wide, said "Its a Firebar with pontoons". Needless to say this caused a lot of laughs among those who had a sense of humor but, unfortunately, some of the big muckety mucks demanded Walt's head. Good old Capt. John Stanley somehow kept Walt from being court martialed. I am the proud possessor of a photograph made by Walt Goss that depicts a Firebar with pontoons. The Firebar incident did not keep Walt from going to OCS and retiring as a Capt.
After a career as a civilian working in the intel business Walt, and the love of his life, Geraldine, retired to Tennessee.
Please raise your glass to Walt and wish him well in his new assignment. St. Pete you had better be look out because there is a big Cherokee is on the way.
- Kay F. Heilig Former Sham Shopper, Bat 1 and Lucy