While stationed in
Misawa Japan, I was called upon to go
to Diego Garcia to serve as a relief technician for someone so they
could go on leave back to the States. He was the only technician
for a particular aircraft tactical navigation system, and I was one of
two technicians in Misawa that worked on that same system. I volunteered
to go down and fill in for a month so he could leave. I made it
back home to Misawa just in time for Patricia to be born.
Diego Garcia is affectionately known to
us Navy people as "Dodge." It is under British rule, and is
therefore known as British Indian Ocean Territory (B.I.O.T.) Dodge
is located just a few degrees south of the equator, in the middle of the
Indian Ocean. The weather is always hot, and it rains a lot.
Diego Garcia is part of an archipelago - which means it is a string of
islands. This particular archipelago is the
Chagos
Archipelago. Diego Garcia is also an atoll which means it is
an island or string of islands made up of a sunken mountain or in this
case, volcano. Dodge is also known as the "Footprint of Freedom" because
the main island is shaped like a foot, and some smaller islands make up
the "toes." We lived in little wooden buildings called "hooches"
but it actually wasn't too bad.
I couldn't find
all of my photos, so I
stole some images from various Internet sources so that you could get a
sense of the island and what it looks like. As soon as I can
locate the rest of my pictures, I'll get them scanned and posted.
Map of Diego Garcia
(Click for full size)
