The Shadow
Michael “Mike” Dudley Barnes, the librarian at the Clifton Forge Public Library, gathered intelligence in the U.S. Air Force concerning Russian communications during the War in Vietnam.
After graduating from Clayton Valley High School in 1970, Barnes left Concord, Calif., joining the U.S. Air Force before he could be drafted.
Barnes recalled, “At the time there was the draft lottery, and I had been given a number.”
“After I joined the Air Force, the draft people called my dad to inquire about where I was, and he told them that they were too late because I had joined the Air Force,” he continued.
Mike’s father, Dudley Barnes and his mother, Elizabeth Barnes, bid their son farewell from Concord as he left for basic training at Lockland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
Mike said that after completing basic training he attended two technical schools, one at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Miss. for more than two months and four months at Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, Texas.
While Mike was stationed at Biloxi, the U.S. Air Force was training Vietnamese pilots.
Mike recalled, “I was there for two and a half months during the height of the Vietnam War, and they (U.S. pilots) were constantly busy everyday training Vietnamese pilots.”
He continued, “From there I was sent to my first overseas assignment which was Karamursel Common Defense Installation in Turkey, a joint military base with the U.S.”
Mike added, “Our main focus was monitoring the Soviet Union’s communications.”
After serving at Karamursel, Mike was assigned to Clark U.S. Air Force Base in the Philippines. That was in 1973.
It was at Clark where Mike had one of his most memorable experiences as a member of the military.
Mike noted, “I had just gotten to Clark before the release of the U.S. prisoners of war, and I was there on the tarmac when the prisoners were deplaned while our higher officials waited to greet them.”
He served just under four years in the U.S. Air Force Security Service and then joined the U.S. Air Force Reserves in 1976.
Mike said, “They sent me back to Keesler Air Force Base for cross-training, and I worked on C-5s and C-141s.”
After serving three and a half years in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, Mike was recruited by the U.S. Air Force to serve a second time, and he left the U.S. Air Force Reserves to return to active duty in the U.S. Air Force where he was assigned to gather intelligence again.
“They put me back into my original career field and sent me to Iraklion Air Station on Crete,” Mike observed.
From 1980 through 1982, Mike was stationed there.
Mike said, “Well, I got to do something different there by doing comedy on the radio.”
Mike got to sit at the console that U.S. Air Force Sergeant Adrian Joseph Cronauer (the disc jockey that Robin Williams portrayed in the movie, “Good Morning, Vietnam,”) used, and Mike was given the opportunity to write comedy routines to entertain the locals.
Mike revealed, “I also directed the NCO wives’ fund raising show, and we recorded some of the first music videos with the Surfside Six.”
As a vocalist, Mike sang bass with the Surfside Six that featured a drummer, two guitarists and an electric bassist. He sang with the group for longer than a year.
After returning to Eglin Air Force Base in Fla. in 1982, Mike’s singing was limited to being a member of the choir at the Abundance of Life Fellowship Church.
In 1984, Mike returned to Concord to assist his mother and father who were in poor health, and in 1985, he was hired as the supervisor of a warehouse.
After serving in that capacity for 20 years, Mike decided to go to college. Both of his parents had passed away by 2005. From 2005 till 2011, Mike worked in the library at Regent University in Virginia Beach where he received his Bachelor of Library Science degree.
Mike is married to Catherine Smith of Clifton Forge, and the couple’s son, Xavier Barnes, 15; is a freshman at the Covenant Christian Academy in Alleghany County.
