SMSgt Kim Swearingen, U.S. Air Force (1969-1995)

I was stationed overseas in Turkey in 1970-1971. A lot of things had changed when I made it back home on leave before shipping out to Vietnam: anti-war music, more hippies, bell-bottom jeans, and cars. The Dodges and Plymouths in particular were spectacular—sleek bodies, high-impact colors, and street-scorching big-block engines. A far cry from what I had gotten used to in Turkey, mostly ‘50s-era American cars, big smoke-belching trucks, and Volkswagens that a lot of the NCOs on base had shipped over.

One day in 1970, a friend showed me a brochure he’d picked up somewhere—a glossy, colorful advertisement for the New-for-1971 Plymouths. As I scoured the ad, one car caught my eye and wouldn’t let go: a Duster 340 with Bahama Yellow paint and tires with white lettering. I stewed about that car for a few days until I was handed orders to Vietnam in a flying unit. I was to remain in the United States for four months to attend radio intercept and several survival training courses. Well, I rationalized, I might as well drive to those courses in a brand-new Bahama Yellow Plymouth Duster 340! So I wrote a letter to Arbuckle Motors in Iola, Kansas. Ross Arbuckle had sold a new car to my dad back in the ‘30s, and we had bought, traded, and bartered cars with Ross and his son, Harold, for decades.

The letter went something like this: Dear Harold, I’m coming back from Turkey to Iola, Kansas next April. I’d like for you to order a car for me to pick up on my arrival. Then I listed my model and color requirements, plus available options: four-on-the-floor, Sure-Grip differential, vinyl bucket seats, Rallye instrument cluster, cassette player mounted on the transmission hump, light package, bright bumper guards, and a few other odds and ends.

Harold got the letter. He could have laughed, wadded it up, and tossed it into the wastebasket, squashing a young airman’s dreams. Instead, he called my parents and talked to them about ordering the car. Mom said to Harold, “Kim’s good for it. He has good credit, and getting a loan at the Humboldt National Bank will not be a problem. We’ll co-sign the loan.” So, after a long flight from Istanbul to London to New York City to Kansas City, I boarded a Greyhound bus to Iola. I forget how I got to the Arbuckle Chrysler-Plymouth agency, but I remember this: THE CAR WAS NOT THERE. Not yet. It was still creeping along on the Hamtramck assembly line. Crestfallen, I nonetheless set up a loan at the bank and made arrangements to fly to San Angelo, Texas, for my first three rounds of training.

Six weeks later, after completing Airborne Radio Direction-Finding training and the first two phases of survival training, I flew back home and hot-footed it to Arbuckle’s. THE CAR WAS THERE waiting for me! I wanted to caress it and shed tears on the fender, but it was up on a lift being serviced. Finally, my Duster 340 was ready, and after signing a pile of paperwork, Harold handed me the keys. First stop: insurance agency. Second stop: pick up Mom at Doctor Pee’s office where she worked. It was noon, so she and her friend Fern were waiting for me. Fern sat up front, and Mom sat in the back, where she promptly lit up a cigarette. She couldn’t find the ashtray, so she asked, “What should I do with this cigarette butt?” Fern replied, “SWALLOW IT, BETTY!”

I usually babied my Duster on the street, but one day a girl driving a new Boss 351 Mustang cut me off in traffic and then headed south on the highway to Humboldt. Well, I couldn’t let a chick get away with that! So I followed her and, once we were out of town, started to pass her car. You guessed it—she floored it. So I did the same, and passed her like she was in reverse. I was so proud of that 275 horsepower V-8 that day. I had that car up to 125 miles an hour with pedal left, but I was starting to become airborne on hill crests, so I slowed down and pulled into a gas station ten miles south in Humboldt. About a minute later, here comes Mustang Sally, 80 miles an hour in a 30 MPH zone, with flames leaping out of her nostrils—well, almost. She was going so fast she didn’t even see me at the gas station. That was surely for the best.

I had to leave my beloved Duster behind on the farm when it came time to ship out to Vietnam. Mom drove it to work once a week, and I guess she figured out where the ashtray was. After a year in Vietnam, I came home and joyously reclaimed my car! My next station was at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha. So on weekends when I wasn’t flying on a reconnaissance mission, I would head for home, 240 miles south. Driving that car around the courthouse square was kind of like reeling a hula popper in a lake—I usually caught my limit of junior college girls, that is.

Before long, the odometer was approaching 40,000 miles. One Saturday morning, when the Duster was in Arbuckle’s shop for an oil change, Buck Braswell, the elderly salesman, invited me into his office. Buck had known my family for years, and he was more like an uncle than a car salesman. Before I left that office, I had traded my 1971 Duster 340 for a brand-new, special-order 1973 Roadrunner. I picked it up in February 1973, and the Duster was already sold to a young couple living in Neosho County.

One thing I had loved about my Duster was the factory Goodyear Polyglas tires—the bold white lettering really made a statement. So when I ordered my new Roadrunner, I specified “Raised white lettering on tires.” When I went to pick up my new Roadrunner at Arbuckle Motors, I was both elated and chagrined: the True Blue Metallic paint with red trim was stunning, but the TIRES—gaaaahhhhh—the tires. They were not Goodyears! I was stuck with a set of General Jet-Airs with painfully tiny white lettering on the sidewalls. That would never do.

So again, after tackling the pile of paperwork on Buck’s desk, I drove off in my new car directly to the Goodyear store in Chanute, twenty miles south. I swapped my wimpy Generals for a set of Goodyear Poly-Steels with appropriately giant letters. I also swapped the factory Rallye Road wheels for a set of shiny ET five-spoke mag wheels. What a transformation. Four hours and a lot of money later, I was finally placated.

I really liked my Duster, but I LOVED that Roadrunner. It was larger, rode better, was visible a half-mile away, and, well, it was more befitting of a man about to sew new Staff Sergeant stripes on his Air Force uniform.

Read the Military Memories of our Runner-Ups.