Honoring Our Veterans – Al Barnett
Author: Matt Nelson
Matt Nelson
Air Force veteran Albert (Al) Barnett, Jr. is a native of Monticello, Minnesota, but has lived near Townsend since 1998.
Al joined the Air Force when he was 21, in 1964. He voted for the first time, and one hour later was on a bus going to St. Paul. From there he had three different flights to go to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for his Basic Training. He had two choices of what he wanted to do. One was air traffic control, and the other was doing some type of drafting. He knew that he wasn’t cut out to be an air traffic controller. After basic training he went to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, where he was trained by the Army to do surveying. The army felt that if he learned to survey, he would know what Longitude and Latitude meant. He also learned photo interpretation and stereo vision so he could look at two photos and see a 3-D relief. He was second in his class, being behind the leader by three hundredths of a point. He chose to go to Barksdale, AFB just out of Shreveport, Louisiana, because his sister lived in Dallas. About every weekend he would visit her, 180 miles away.
He was assigned to the 2nd Resonance Technical Squadron in the building where it was discovered in 1962 that Russian missile launchers were being unloaded in Cuba, which became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. While Al was a Barksdale, the U-2 aircraft were flying all over the world, and the film they gathered was sent there. Al didn’t see any of the actual photos but made charts based upon information and data obtained from the photos that other people supplied. He was very good at his job. During the time he was there, Vietnam was going on hot and heavy. He actually volunteered to go there but was told that he would not be released to go, because his exceptional skills were needed at Barksdale. He stayed there until his Honorable Discharge in 1968.
While there he was given an award called the Pride Airman, because he excelled in his job and nobody else had to do his work.
One night during one of his return visits from seeing his sister he saw a cross about 30 feet tall, and around the cross there was a fire about 3 or 4 high. Near the fire were a bunch of KKK guys wearing white capes, leaving a lasting but negative impression. He said, “That was one thing I saw that was kind of alarming down in the South. I also saw Martin Luther King in one of his parades in Dallas.” I told Al that Rev. King was shot on my birthday in 1968, and Al responded, “Man, that’s really too bad. He was a good man.”
For two years prior to going into the Air Force, Al had worked as a welder and continued for another eight years after his discharge. He met his wife Anita on one of his trips to Dallas. Anita had three children when Al met her, whom Al adopted, and a couple years later they had a son. Unfortunately, he passed away when he was 40.
Al became a coast-to-coast long-haul trucker several years later, hauling mostly refrigerated cargo, and in 1992 Anita started driving with him as a team member. She stopped driving when they moved to Townsend. Sadly, she passed away in 2018. Al retired from driving in 2007.
When he was 13, his sister paid $3.00 for him to get his first plane ride, in a Stinson Voyager, like this reporter used to have. In 1977 Al took flying lessons, eventually earning his Commercial Seaplane Rating, and also became a seaplane instructor pilot. Before moving to Townsend, Al had a check ride for one of his pilot ratings from an instructor in Minneapolis. A few years after arriving here, he went up to Vetter’s Aviation in Helena to get a Biennial Flight Review (BFR). While looking over Al’s log books the instructor at Vetter’s discovered that Al had received his check ride from the same guy that had actually trained the pilots who flew into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. They wanted to learn to fly but did not care about learning how to land. After the attack, the FBI figured out who the instructor was.
Al is a humble guy, but he has had a lot of interesting experiences.
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Image 1 Caption: U.S. Air Force Airman Al Barnett
Photo Credit: Al Barnett
Image 2 Caption: An older Al Barnett, always with his happy smile.
Photo Credit: Matt Nelson
