I spent a year at the top (or near the top) of the globe, at Sondrestrom Fjord, Greenland, while in the United States Air Force from 1975-1976.
I celebrated the Bicentennial in the total daylight of a Greenlandic summer which somehow still didn't compensate for the total night we all endured from around the previous Thanksgiving until shortly before Valentine's Day when the sun actually rose above the horizon and we sort of lost our minds while drinking Jägermeister.
I have NO photos from my time in Greenland and few happy memories of the days and nights I was there.
The last month I was there, we had a C-130 crash on the runway, killing all but one of the passengers and all of the crew. We were still recovering from a tragedy where three people stationed on the base rowed out onto the ice cap, following a river that formed as the ice cap melted but without realizing around the bend they hadn't anticipated was a waterfall down an ice wall.
I don't know how steep a drop the waterfall was just that of the three who fell only two came back to the surface and the third person, Technical Sergeant Jack Perry, drowned and his body was never recovered. Navy divers, with Arctic wet suits were flown in from Keflavik, Iceland, and had no success.
I hadn't realized how much pain those memories had until I saw this.
-bill kenny
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