Dr. Crutchfield visits childhood home 38 years later

During the late 1960s (1968-1969), my father had been drafted into the Vietnam War. My father was an obstetrician/gynecologist, and we lived on Fairchild Air Force Base in Spokane, Washington. He was the chief of the Ob/Gyn department at the base hospital. He delivered many, many children of the families living on the base.

When I was a small child, my father and I planted a tree in our front yard and I had always wondered what had happened to that tree. It was a Crimson King Maple. We also had a huge apple tree in the back yard that I remember climbing.

Recently, my family and I took a trip to Seattle and we were fortunate enough to contact the public relations department at Fairchild Air Force base. They allowed us to visit my childhood home almost 38 years later. The home was still there but it had been upgraded tremendously. New siding and a second floor had been added. The tree that my father and I had planted was no longer there, but I am sure it had a wonderful life. Instead, a new pine tree was in its place. It was very nice to visit my old home, and it brought back a flood of memories from my childhood of living in the 1960s on a military base during the Vietnam War.