Meet Frank Dillon

Anyone who has watched The History Channel’s reality shows Ax Men, Ice Road Truckers, Sand Hogs or Mega Movers has an idea of the struggle of man versus nature as it exists today. But if the calender were flipped back 70 years or so, a day in the life of a natural resource industry professional would depict a very different reality. Alumnus Frank Dillon's (B.S. For. ’41) story attests to “how it was” in the forestry profession in the 1940’s, before the advancements of modern technology.

At the end of his freshman year in 1940, Frank and other students in the Schools of Forestry and Mines began lining up rookie jobs such as fire lookout, smoke chaser, blister rust controller and trail maintenance manager, while the advanced students cruised timber or conducted research in forest and range management or even wildlife surveys.

At this time, students sought summer jobs to gain experience in their chosen fields rather than work for better wages or that were in desirable locations. It was notable, too, that scholarship athletes were not allowed by their coaches to do forestry or mining work because of the inherent risks and the possibility of their being unable to fulfill their commitments due to injuries.

Frank and five others signed up for blister rust control in the Clearwater National Forest in northeast Idaho. Frank and John Hayward, a student who also was from Massachusetts, hitchhiked from campus to a Forest Service Ranger Station near Pierce, then a frontier town. Once there, the pair linked up with four other classmates. All of them were then trucked part way to their destination, a camp reached only on foot about 30 miles from the trailhead off the road.

Their campsite already had been selected and partially supplied by mule pack train. Tents had been set up for crew quarters as well as a cook/mess tent. Fire-fighting packs were delivered for what the students coined as "extra curricular activities."

“My first job was to dig a large latrine because eventually there would be 30 of us plus a camp boss, his assistant and the cook,” said Frank.

Soon, students from several forestry schools arrived from Montana, Oregon, Washington, Florida, Duke University, University of Connecticut and probably a few other states.

After camp was completely established with plenty of available firewood for the cook, the students received several days' training in fire-fighting techniques, each using the tools of his assigned fire pack.

“As a sawyer, I had an eight-foot, two-man saw that could be coiled into a small circle to attach to the pack,” recalls Frank. “There was room for extra socks, a jacket and a light meal. The camp was connected to the outside by a hastily strung telephone line over which the cook ordered supplies and we received fire calls. Mail came and went with the occasional pack train.”

The students’ main task was to protect the valuable western white pine stands from a devastating disease called white pine blister rust. This pine species is an easily milled soft wood that brought handsome prices for interior wood trim. The rust that eventually girdles and kills the tree is a fungus that appears as a small and then larger blister, hence the name. The life cycle of this fungus requires two alternate hosts: the white pine and the Ribes (gooseberry) plant. Thus, the trees are protected from this disease by removing the alternate host, the Ribes plant, which varies in size from one inch to six-feet.

To control the spread white pine blister rust, the crews had to physically remove the Ribes plant. Without the benefit of modern harvesting equipment, controlled coverage began when a project supervisor laid out a base line of cotton string several miles long. From that base line, one man, called a stringer, (Marshall Spencer who later trained with Frank as a smoke jumper) laid out parallel lines of string 15 feet apart for a distance determined by the supervisor.

Divided into four-man teams, the crews worked eight-hour days with 30 minutes for lunch made from simple but ample Forest Service food and filled their canteens from nearby streams or springs.

“Often, we could walk from camp to our work area on a crisscross of huge fallen trees for hundreds of yards without touching the ground,” recalls Frank. “Regular crewmembers were paid 50 cents per hour while the crew chief received 55 cents. We worked 44 hours each week but were paid for 48, or double time on Saturdays.

The students rigged a shower, but hot water was provided only once a week. The rest of the time, baths were taken in the cold water of a nearby stream. Horseshoes and volleyball or various card games were the only recreational acitivites as there was no place to spend money.

After graduating in 1943, Frank was called to active duty with Enlisted Reserve Corps. He graduated from Infantry Officer Candidate School, Fort Benning, Ga. He completed parachute school in 1945 and served as a paratrooper in an airborne division in Europe. Over the next two years, he volunteered to stay in Army until post-war plans firmed.

Upon the advice of School of Forestry Dean Dwight Jeffers who said "Forget refresher courses; go for a master's degreem," Frank entered Yale’s School of Forestry, graduating in 1948. He began work on a U.S. Department of Agriculture project on rubber research in Haiti. The U.S.’s goal of that project was to collaborate with Latin American countries to, re-establish natural rubber industry in the western hemisphere to preclude shortage of rubber in future national emergencies.

“Our object was to breed high-yield clones found in the Far East with disease-resistance trees of Amazon Valley,” said Frank.
 
In 1951, Frank was recalled to active duty for Korean War. When he returned from Korea, having attained a rank of major and becoming involved in military intelligence work, he decided to make a career in the Army.

Over the next four years, he was selected to train as a South Asia specialist in India, Nepal, Afghanistan, West Pakistan, East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He studied Hindustani language and academic subjects at the University of Pennsylvania. He also served as India desk office in the Army Intelligence Division in the Pentagon.

Frank attained many career accomplishments in the 1960s and 70s including:

• 1963 served with U.S. intelligence unit in cooperation with Pakistan Army.
• 1966 commanded the Intelligence Unit,in Washington, D.C. and was promoted to colonel.
• 1968 graduated from Army War College, Carlisle, Pa.
• 1969 commanded intelligence unit in Vietnam with operations throughout country and in contiguous areas.
• 1970 became chief of Counterintelligence and Security, Defense Intelligency Agency, Pentagon.
• 1971 Commanded intelligence unit with operations in Latin America, Far East, Middle East and Europe.
• 1973 served as staff officer, Army Intelligence, Pentagon.

Frank retired in 1974 after 31 years of military service. He continued to volunteer as adult leader in Boy Scouts over a 25-year period; taught boating safety for 10 years and served on church building and finance committees. In 1988, he initiated the first reunion of forestry classmates at McCall and has been involved in subsequent reunions at McCall and Moscow.

Frank and Martha celebrated 62 years of marriage in 2009. They have seven sons and 21 grandchildren, including Tim Dillon, currently a freshman in forest resources, and one great grandchild.