Once of things things you discover during basic training is that people often behave in unusual ways when they are stressed. There are lots of examples, but I'm going to focus on two that were particularly strange (and they each require a bit of background).
The first one involves a recruit whose name I've forgotten, so I'll refer to him as airman Freak.
Aside: "Freak" was a term many people with long hair used to describe themselves during the late 60s. Freaks differed from hippies in that hippies were kids who were rebelling against their well-to-do parents by pretending to be poor, whereas freaks really were poor... Yeah - I considered myself to be a freak. But I digress:-)
Airman Freak was one of the guys from Oregon I'd flown down to San Antonio with and I don't think he said a single word the entire trip. He just stared at everything (and everyone) as if he were both confused and amazed at the same time... A couple of days into basic someone finally asked him why he always looked so puzzled and he said he had been on hallucinogens for most of the past 3 years (the military didn't test for that) and being "straight" was kind of freaking him out :-)
He ended up bunking across the aisle from me in the dorm and over time he opened up a bit. When we were finally allowed to receive mail he got some highly entertaining letters from all the members of the commune he'd lived on near Eugene before enlisting... As I recall he was going to be an Air Force "historian" (yes, that's a real career field) - apparently he had a degree that qualified him for that... He was an interesting guy :-)
But that's not the story. This is the story:
At some point during basic a guy named Airman Barnes (who bunked to my left) began spending all his "down time" lying under his bed growling, and when anyone got too close he'd grab their ankle and try to bite it... So, one day a few of us were seriously debating whether Barnes was truly disturbed or just being weird, and airman Freak (who had hardly said anything to anyone up to that point) overheard the conversation and said "If you see him out on the window ledge with a dead pigeon in his mouth, that's the time to start worrying"... I don't know if it was the image of Barnes squatting on the ledge drooling all over a dead bird, or if it was the fact that the "silent one" had unexpectedly spoken, or if it had just been so long since anything struck us as funny, but that remark had us all pretty much rolling on the floor :-) ... BTW: Although Airman Barnes was a bit strange around the edges he made it through basic just fine.
Another aside: I couldn't mention this earlier without giving away the punch line, but Lackland was so overrun with pigeons at that time that the droppings were damaging the buildings so the Air Force had started poisoning them (hence the dead ones all over the window ledges). The sad part was that you can't selectively poison a single species so there were sick and dying birds of every kind around us the whole time we were in basic. (I'm certain that even in 1973 Federal laws were being violated.) Yeah - it added sort of a "Hitchcock" dimension to what was already a pretty surreal experience.
And on to the second story:
The airman who bunked to my right was nicknamed "Touche" (pronounced too-shay) after "Touche Turtle" (a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character from the early 1960's), and if you saw him you'd know exactly why :-)
BTW - Touche had made an epic blunder: During a "TI party" (a bunch of drill sergeants burst into the dorm in the middle of the night and started throwing our stuff everywhere and terrorizing us) he had revealed that he joined the Air Force because a judge had given him a choice of enlisting or going to jail after he punched the New York state trooper who responded to his drunk driving accident... Now - Touche couldn't have weighed more than 115 lbs and the thought of him punching a cop was almost laughable (I suspect it didn't really hurt), but the TIs were not amused at all :-) Yeah - Touche had it pretty rough from then on but still made it through... I mean, seriously - when a drill sergeant asks you why you enlisted how hard is it to say "Because I love my country, sir"?
Another aside: One of my favorite moments from that "TI party" was when one of the sergeants walked up to a random bed post, yanked off the metal cap and pulled out a rolled up Playboy centerfold (obviously planted there).... You should have seen the look on the airman's face. I never could figure out why he (in particular) was targeted for the prank, but the interrogation that followed ("Yes, sir", "No, sir", "I don't know, sir") was pretty darn hilarious... BTW: The TIs asked me some things we were supposed to have memorized and I knew them cold so they moved on... But back to the story:
The other character involved was airman "Beau" (once again, I don't remember his real name) who bunked on the other side of Touche... He was a "good-ole-boy" from a small town in Arkansas, and despite being a total redneck he was a really likable the guy... After a couple of weeks of basic he'd say things like "Y'all are my buddies now and after we all get out if you're ever in my town y'all need to stop by and see me... When you git there just ask anyone where Beau lives and they'll tell ya, cause everybody knows Beau!"... Now - Beau wasn't exactly what you'd call a "big guy", but he was pretty buff - definitely not somebody you'd want to mess with...
And now - the "main event":
One evening Beau was on his way back to his locker after taking a shower when Touche stepped in front of him and asked to see one of his flip-flops (we weren't allowed to go barefoot in the dorm)... Beau was highly suspicious and asked Touche what he wanted it for and Touche said something like "I'm not going to do anything with it. I just really need to see it. Trust me!". And after a bit of back and forth Beau finally took off one of his flip-flops and handed it to Touche.
Touche proceeded to examine the flip-flop for a few seconds (turning it over repeatedly), then he whacked Beau square on the forehead with it as hard as he could and took off the opposite direction...
It took Beau a moment to process what had happened before he went after Touche, and I remember thinking that Touche was in deep shit. (Like I said, Beau was seriously ripped and Touche was a tiny little guy)... Touche was still a few steps ahead of Beau when he got to the end of the aisle, and I was wondering how the heck he was going to make the left turn into the other room at the speed he was going - but he didn't even try. He ran full tilt into the cinder block wall at the end of the dorm. (I don't even know how to describe how hard he hit it)... I was afraid that Beau was still going to beat the snot out of Touche but he was laughing way too hard to do anything...
After Touche recovered from knocking himself stupid (it took a couple of minutes) he apologized to Beau (who had a big red welt on his forehead), but could offer no explanation for why he did it. (I honestly don't think he knew)... There was never a problem between Beau and Touche after that, and Touche never did anything else even remotely" odd" again... It remains one of the most bizarre and inexplicable things I have ever seen a human being do :-)
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
The Stupid
It's time to take a step back and discuss some of the characters I encountered during my 6 weeks in basic training at Lackland AFB back in 1973. Only a handful of them have really stuck in my memory, and I'll start with the "stupid" category:
A few posts back I talked about how stressful the plane trip from Portland to San Antonio was because there were two guys in our group (the moron twins) who kept running off every time we deplaned somewhere. Well one of them was even dumber than I thought... He had signed up to be a cryptographic equipment repairman (which requires a Top Secret clearance), and it had (apparently) never occurred to him that during the course of the investigation they might find out that he had been convicted of selling drugs (a fact he had not disclosed when he joined the Air Force). Yeah - a few weeks into basic training a couple of security people came to the dorm, told him to grab his stuff and escorted him out. We were all sitting there wondering what the hell was going on until the drill sergeant explained... I never found out what became of him - I assume he was given a dishonorable discharge...
Then there was the guy (whose name I no longer recall) who got set back a week. (That rarely happened.) He had "attention span" issues. Whenever we had to stand at attention for more than about 30 seconds he'd forget what we were doing and start looking around - total space cadet...
Aside: I haven't mentioned the whole "341" thing yet. Those were the little forms that were used to document your "boo-boos". You had to keep a certain number of them (with your name and unit number written on them) folded up in your shirt pocket with the ends sticking out. That way the TIs could yank one and fill it out whenever you screwed up... I don't really remember much about them because I only got written up twice during basic (both in the first week). One was for turning the wrong direction during a marching drill (I never did that again) and the other was for not shaving under my chin... Yeah - it truly hadn't occurred to me that I needed to do that. You almost had to have a magnifying glass to see the fuzz I had growing under there :-)
But (as I recall) "Airman Inattention" went through a bunch of 341s. Finally, after about 4 weeks the inspection team came through and his boots were all scuffed and there were cigarette butts in the pocket of his khaki pants. That was the final straw. He get set back the same day, and I have no idea if he ever made it though...
Another aside: The first few weeks of basic training were especially tough on smokers. There were no breaks, no mail call, no "downtime" in the evenings or on weekends, and definitely no cigarettes. Those privileges were added over time (assuming nobody screwed up too bad)... By the time smoking was allowed some of the guys were in pretty bad shape - I'm sure the first few weeks of basic were hell for them (even more so than the rest of us)... BTW: That reminds me of one of the more subtle lies my recruiter told me. He said to be sure and bring a lot of change with me so I could grab a pop from the machines during breaks... Except there were no breaks - and no machines :-)
And one last story from the "stupid" column:
When you were issued your uniforms most of the pockets contained those little "inspected by" tags, and one of the first things you were told to do is make sure you got rid of all of them... Then periodically the TIs would let us know there was going to be an inspection and they would tell us to check our pockets for tags again. And every time they said that I found tags in places I know I had already checked multiple times. (It didn't take much brainpower to figure out the TIs had been planting them)... And sure as heck, there would always be a couple of bozos who didn't bother to check and got everybody into trouble... Yeah - those are the guys you don't want maintaining your aircraft...
A few posts back I talked about how stressful the plane trip from Portland to San Antonio was because there were two guys in our group (the moron twins) who kept running off every time we deplaned somewhere. Well one of them was even dumber than I thought... He had signed up to be a cryptographic equipment repairman (which requires a Top Secret clearance), and it had (apparently) never occurred to him that during the course of the investigation they might find out that he had been convicted of selling drugs (a fact he had not disclosed when he joined the Air Force). Yeah - a few weeks into basic training a couple of security people came to the dorm, told him to grab his stuff and escorted him out. We were all sitting there wondering what the hell was going on until the drill sergeant explained... I never found out what became of him - I assume he was given a dishonorable discharge...
Then there was the guy (whose name I no longer recall) who got set back a week. (That rarely happened.) He had "attention span" issues. Whenever we had to stand at attention for more than about 30 seconds he'd forget what we were doing and start looking around - total space cadet...
Aside: I haven't mentioned the whole "341" thing yet. Those were the little forms that were used to document your "boo-boos". You had to keep a certain number of them (with your name and unit number written on them) folded up in your shirt pocket with the ends sticking out. That way the TIs could yank one and fill it out whenever you screwed up... I don't really remember much about them because I only got written up twice during basic (both in the first week). One was for turning the wrong direction during a marching drill (I never did that again) and the other was for not shaving under my chin... Yeah - it truly hadn't occurred to me that I needed to do that. You almost had to have a magnifying glass to see the fuzz I had growing under there :-)
But (as I recall) "Airman Inattention" went through a bunch of 341s. Finally, after about 4 weeks the inspection team came through and his boots were all scuffed and there were cigarette butts in the pocket of his khaki pants. That was the final straw. He get set back the same day, and I have no idea if he ever made it though...
Another aside: The first few weeks of basic training were especially tough on smokers. There were no breaks, no mail call, no "downtime" in the evenings or on weekends, and definitely no cigarettes. Those privileges were added over time (assuming nobody screwed up too bad)... By the time smoking was allowed some of the guys were in pretty bad shape - I'm sure the first few weeks of basic were hell for them (even more so than the rest of us)... BTW: That reminds me of one of the more subtle lies my recruiter told me. He said to be sure and bring a lot of change with me so I could grab a pop from the machines during breaks... Except there were no breaks - and no machines :-)
And one last story from the "stupid" column:
When you were issued your uniforms most of the pockets contained those little "inspected by" tags, and one of the first things you were told to do is make sure you got rid of all of them... Then periodically the TIs would let us know there was going to be an inspection and they would tell us to check our pockets for tags again. And every time they said that I found tags in places I know I had already checked multiple times. (It didn't take much brainpower to figure out the TIs had been planting them)... And sure as heck, there would always be a couple of bozos who didn't bother to check and got everybody into trouble... Yeah - those are the guys you don't want maintaining your aircraft...
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Mornings
The six weeks I spent in basic training at Lackland AFB in 1973 would have been a lot less stressful if I hadn't been the last one out of the dorm almost every morning... Yeah - having a drill sergeant screaming at you on a daily basis for something that really wasn't your fault isn't very enjoyable :-)
But first, some additional background info (more "informative" than relevant):
As I mention in earlier posts, every recruit's personal space had to be maintained in "inspection" order, and that included personal hygiene items. You were required to have a single (used) bar of soap in your drawer and there could not be a single soap bubble, trace of scum or stray hair anywhere on it... Similarly, your razor had to be completely spotless and your shaving cream can could not have a hint of foam residue (even in the nozzle). The same goes for the toothbrush and the toothpaste tube... Obviously, getting it all perfectly clean every day would be time consuming so we all took shortcuts (some of us more than others):
On the first day of basic we rinsed our bar of soap enough to make it look used, then we got it totally clean (some people shaved it, but that seemed kind of silly) and never touched it again - we used "Head and Shoulders" shampoo instead. (It works great as a "body wash" and the tube is easy to rinse off.) Also, most of us used razors with disposable blades because they were the easiest to clean, and I didn't use shaving cream (yeah - that was painful) so I wouldn't have to mess with the can. Furthermore, I rarely used toothpaste because it took too long to get every trace of it out of the toothbrush... And... you get the idea...
Those "time savers" helped a lot, but it was still a challenge for the entire flight to get downstairs in formation in the amount of time allotted, mostly because of everything else that had to be done to get the dorm in "inspection order" before we headed downstairs to get in formation for breakfast.
So to summarize:
At 6 AM we were awakened by a screaming drill sergeant (I have a vague recollection of a trash can lid being banged), we'd jump out of bed, shave and brush our teeth, get dressed, make our beds, straighten up our locker and drawers, then set about doing whatever additional jobs we were assigned to get the dorm in order before heading downstairs...
I won't elaborate on what all the jobs were, but the "final touches" were aligning the beds in perfect rows, and then aligning the shoes (which were stored under the beds) with the bed posts. Each squad (row of 12 beds) had "dedicated" bed and shoe aligners, and I was the shoe aligner for my squad: Basically, after the beds were done it was my job to go from bed to bed with a long stick and make sure the toes of the shoes and boots were inline with the bed posts (and in the correct order with the laces tucked in).
Ordinarily, "shoe aligner" would be a cushy assignment (especially compared with "latrine queen"), except our squad's bed aligner (I'm almost certain his name was Fleming) was not exactly a "morning person"... Actually, he wasn't much of an "afternoon" or "evening" person either. He was just slow in general :-)
Now, I never had a problem getting ready in time. That's because during my year at Aloisiuskolleg (the German boarding school) we'd had to wake up at 5 AM and be ready in less time than the drill sergeants gave us - I'd done it hundreds of times. But Airman Fleming just wasn't "wired for speed"... One of my most vivid memories from basic training is being ready to go and seeing Airman Fleming sitting on his chair in his skivvies staring off into space with his mouth hanging open... Yeah - I almost came unglued :-)
So that was the daily routine... I'd sit there and wait, and wait, until Airman Fleming was ready to start aligning the beds (I usually helped him) and by the time he finished we'd be the last two guys in the dorm, then he'd leave and I'd have to align the shoes with Sergeant Wilkerson breathing down my neck. (Almost literally.)
I tried everything I could think of to fix it, but apparently some things just can't be fixed... I guess the point is that sometimes you have to take the heat for things you had nothing to do with, and getting all "whiny" about it doesn't really accomplish anything :-)
It was a lesson that has served me well in the 40 years since...
But first, some additional background info (more "informative" than relevant):
As I mention in earlier posts, every recruit's personal space had to be maintained in "inspection" order, and that included personal hygiene items. You were required to have a single (used) bar of soap in your drawer and there could not be a single soap bubble, trace of scum or stray hair anywhere on it... Similarly, your razor had to be completely spotless and your shaving cream can could not have a hint of foam residue (even in the nozzle). The same goes for the toothbrush and the toothpaste tube... Obviously, getting it all perfectly clean every day would be time consuming so we all took shortcuts (some of us more than others):
On the first day of basic we rinsed our bar of soap enough to make it look used, then we got it totally clean (some people shaved it, but that seemed kind of silly) and never touched it again - we used "Head and Shoulders" shampoo instead. (It works great as a "body wash" and the tube is easy to rinse off.) Also, most of us used razors with disposable blades because they were the easiest to clean, and I didn't use shaving cream (yeah - that was painful) so I wouldn't have to mess with the can. Furthermore, I rarely used toothpaste because it took too long to get every trace of it out of the toothbrush... And... you get the idea...
Those "time savers" helped a lot, but it was still a challenge for the entire flight to get downstairs in formation in the amount of time allotted, mostly because of everything else that had to be done to get the dorm in "inspection order" before we headed downstairs to get in formation for breakfast.
So to summarize:
At 6 AM we were awakened by a screaming drill sergeant (I have a vague recollection of a trash can lid being banged), we'd jump out of bed, shave and brush our teeth, get dressed, make our beds, straighten up our locker and drawers, then set about doing whatever additional jobs we were assigned to get the dorm in order before heading downstairs...
I won't elaborate on what all the jobs were, but the "final touches" were aligning the beds in perfect rows, and then aligning the shoes (which were stored under the beds) with the bed posts. Each squad (row of 12 beds) had "dedicated" bed and shoe aligners, and I was the shoe aligner for my squad: Basically, after the beds were done it was my job to go from bed to bed with a long stick and make sure the toes of the shoes and boots were inline with the bed posts (and in the correct order with the laces tucked in).
Ordinarily, "shoe aligner" would be a cushy assignment (especially compared with "latrine queen"), except our squad's bed aligner (I'm almost certain his name was Fleming) was not exactly a "morning person"... Actually, he wasn't much of an "afternoon" or "evening" person either. He was just slow in general :-)
Now, I never had a problem getting ready in time. That's because during my year at Aloisiuskolleg (the German boarding school) we'd had to wake up at 5 AM and be ready in less time than the drill sergeants gave us - I'd done it hundreds of times. But Airman Fleming just wasn't "wired for speed"... One of my most vivid memories from basic training is being ready to go and seeing Airman Fleming sitting on his chair in his skivvies staring off into space with his mouth hanging open... Yeah - I almost came unglued :-)
So that was the daily routine... I'd sit there and wait, and wait, until Airman Fleming was ready to start aligning the beds (I usually helped him) and by the time he finished we'd be the last two guys in the dorm, then he'd leave and I'd have to align the shoes with Sergeant Wilkerson breathing down my neck. (Almost literally.)
I tried everything I could think of to fix it, but apparently some things just can't be fixed... I guess the point is that sometimes you have to take the heat for things you had nothing to do with, and getting all "whiny" about it doesn't really accomplish anything :-)
It was a lesson that has served me well in the 40 years since...
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Off Limits
Before I start on today's topic I wanted to mention that I recently found an Air Force website with a vast collection of basic training graduation pictures. My flight's isn't there yet (I have the "yearbook" somewhere), but I glanced at a number of other pics from the same year and found the names (and faces) of some drill sergeants that (even after 40 years) still make chills run down my spine. Specifically: Caceres, Granderson, Moran and Muna... Yeah - we shared a lot of activities (like Physical Training) with the other flights in the squadron so we got harassed by all of the TIs - and I remember those four as being particularly terrifying :-)
Also, while poking around I found a picture of sergeant Wilkerson. He didn't come across as particularly intimidating - he was more of the "sneaky mean" type. (BTW: You rarely saw a TI without shades. Even at night...):
Aside: I recently found a card my sister sent me while I was at Lackland and the address indicates I was in the 3723 BMTS (Basic Military Training Squadron), Flight 278 (in 1973). I found a map (online) that shows which building we were in. I'd never been able to figure it out because I never had a clue where I was during basic training. (When we were in formation all I ever saw was the back of Zippy's head.) It's at the intersection of Selfridge and Walker down on the south end of the base (which explains why we had to march so far to get anywhere).
And on with the story:
It is common knowledge that the center aisle (between the beds) is strictly off limits in any military barracks. That's because that aisle is the first thing the "Stand" (short for Standards) Team sees when they come to inspect, so it has to be perfect.
But that wasn't the only thing off limits. The latrine was huge, but we were only allowed to use four of the sinks, three(?) of the urinals and two or three of the toilets. The reason was that the dorm had to be completely cleaned before we left in the morning and it would have taken way too long to do the whole thing.
Another aside: I don't think most recruits ever figured out the extent to which the TIs worked together. Wilkerson acted like he hated the Stand Team, and he claimed he was in competition with the TIs from the other flights (and that might have been true to some extent), but there were just too many times when people's weaknesses were targeted by other TIs for me to think it was a coincidence...
And that leads me to one of the games the TIs played:
Very early during basic sergeant Wilkerson told us that it was against regulations for anything in the dorm to be off limits so if anyone on the Stand Team asked about it we had to lie. Then he asked if anyone in the flight had a problem with lying (even when ordered to do so), and (of course) there were a handful of devout types who were dumb enough to claim that they could not lie under any circumstances.
So the first time the "Stand Team" came through one of TIs went right up to the airman who was the most adamant about not lying and asked him what was off limits, and the airman answered (not surprisingly) "Nothing, sir!"... Then the TI did the whole "I know you're lying!" routine and threatened severe consequences if he didn't tell the truth. And once again (not surprisingly) the airman stuck to the lie.
I guess there are a couple of points here:
The first is that serving in the military is kind of synonymous with doing things that are morally reprehensible. (Death and destruction are part of the job description.) So the whole "I cannot tell a lie" thing is pretty silly given the context :-)
And the other point deals with how little most of us know about ourselves: You hear stories about people confessing to crimes they didn't commit, and you read about things like the "Stanford Prison Experiment" and everyone wonders how that could happen to "ordinary people"...
But anyone who's been through basic training knows how it happens. When you are placed in a completely foreign environment and you are sleep deprived and physically and mentally stressed you will do almost anything to adapt to the expectations placed on you. It's really that simple...
So in case anyone thinks they are somehow "immune" to it... You'd be surprised :-)
Also, while poking around I found a picture of sergeant Wilkerson. He didn't come across as particularly intimidating - he was more of the "sneaky mean" type. (BTW: You rarely saw a TI without shades. Even at night...):
Aside: I recently found a card my sister sent me while I was at Lackland and the address indicates I was in the 3723 BMTS (Basic Military Training Squadron), Flight 278 (in 1973). I found a map (online) that shows which building we were in. I'd never been able to figure it out because I never had a clue where I was during basic training. (When we were in formation all I ever saw was the back of Zippy's head.) It's at the intersection of Selfridge and Walker down on the south end of the base (which explains why we had to march so far to get anywhere).
And on with the story:
It is common knowledge that the center aisle (between the beds) is strictly off limits in any military barracks. That's because that aisle is the first thing the "Stand" (short for Standards) Team sees when they come to inspect, so it has to be perfect.
But that wasn't the only thing off limits. The latrine was huge, but we were only allowed to use four of the sinks, three(?) of the urinals and two or three of the toilets. The reason was that the dorm had to be completely cleaned before we left in the morning and it would have taken way too long to do the whole thing.
Another aside: I don't think most recruits ever figured out the extent to which the TIs worked together. Wilkerson acted like he hated the Stand Team, and he claimed he was in competition with the TIs from the other flights (and that might have been true to some extent), but there were just too many times when people's weaknesses were targeted by other TIs for me to think it was a coincidence...
And that leads me to one of the games the TIs played:
Very early during basic sergeant Wilkerson told us that it was against regulations for anything in the dorm to be off limits so if anyone on the Stand Team asked about it we had to lie. Then he asked if anyone in the flight had a problem with lying (even when ordered to do so), and (of course) there were a handful of devout types who were dumb enough to claim that they could not lie under any circumstances.
So the first time the "Stand Team" came through one of TIs went right up to the airman who was the most adamant about not lying and asked him what was off limits, and the airman answered (not surprisingly) "Nothing, sir!"... Then the TI did the whole "I know you're lying!" routine and threatened severe consequences if he didn't tell the truth. And once again (not surprisingly) the airman stuck to the lie.
I guess there are a couple of points here:
The first is that serving in the military is kind of synonymous with doing things that are morally reprehensible. (Death and destruction are part of the job description.) So the whole "I cannot tell a lie" thing is pretty silly given the context :-)
And the other point deals with how little most of us know about ourselves: You hear stories about people confessing to crimes they didn't commit, and you read about things like the "Stanford Prison Experiment" and everyone wonders how that could happen to "ordinary people"...
But anyone who's been through basic training knows how it happens. When you are placed in a completely foreign environment and you are sleep deprived and physically and mentally stressed you will do almost anything to adapt to the expectations placed on you. It's really that simple...
So in case anyone thinks they are somehow "immune" to it... You'd be surprised :-)
Thursday, January 17, 2013
The Dorm
Sometime in the wee hours of the morning after our initial arrival at Lackland AFB we were finally led up to our dorm on the 3rd (top) floor of one of the new buildings.
Aside: After a bit of back and forth I've decided to go ahead and call it a dorm (vs barracks). It was a huge steel and cinder block building with 10 wings, so "dorm" seems more appropriate. Note that there were still wooden barracks in use at Lackland in 1973 and I'm glad I didn't end up in one. They were reportedly cold, drafty and impossible to keep clean.
Here's a picture I found online showing the old barracks in the foregrourd with one of newer dorm buildings behind it... I was never quite sure why there were ledges jutting out from each floor of the new buildings (we were instructed not to crawl out on them). You can also see that the windows are relatively small and pretty high above the floor so you couldn't easily look out:
Each floor of each wing was a self-contained unit that housed one "flight" (roughly 50 airmen). The unit had a single door with a small "mesh reinforced" window, a latrine (with showers), a day room (which was locked for the first few weeks of basic), the TIs office, and two large rooms, each with two rows of beds (separated by a center aisle) and lockers against the walls.
I only have one significant memory from that first night: Sergeant Wilkerson was going down the list of names assigning us beds, and at some point he called out "Mister Oz!". There was no response, so he hollered it again - and again... Finally, he spelled out "M..R..O..Z" and someone replied "It's Mroz, sir!"... And Wilkerson was like "Why didn't you respond earlier, airman? Haven't you ever been called Mister Oz before?"... He indicated that he hadn't. (Apparently the small rural town he came from did not have one single clever resident)... So - the poor guy had to endure 6 weeks of "Wizard of Oz" jokes, and people kept running up to him, clicking their heels and asking to be sent home... He was really irritated by it. That's what made it so funny :-)
Another aside: Although we were responsible for all the cleaning in the the dorm unit itself, I was somewhat surprised to learn that we didn't have to do any laundry.We just stashed it into a bag tied to the foot of our bed and occasionally it would disappear and come back clean.
That first night was also when the drill sergeant chose the "dorm chief" and the squad leaders. Each row of beds formed a squad, hence there were 4 squads in a flight (apparently they now call them "elements" rather than squads). My squad leader was Airman Little - he'd been chosen because he was in the Civil Air Patrol.
As I recall, the dorm chief (who marched next to the formation) was extraordinarily incompetent and was only chosen because he was 6'6" and would have made the formation look "unbalanced". (At least that's what Airman Little told me - the squad leaders were privy to things the rest of us weren't.)
And one final remark to wrap up this post:
During basic training (and subsequent technical training) TIs will continually try to convince you that volunteering for leadership positions will look good on your record and earn you the respect and admiration of your future supervisors...
Yeah - don't believe it... When you get to your first assignment you will likely discover that members of the "real" Air Force have the same attitude about "brown-nosers" as members of society in general. So if you (for example) disclose that you were a "green rope" in tech school you will likely be subject to much taunting and derision... Trust me - there is nothing to be gained from volunteering for anything in the military :-)
Aside: After a bit of back and forth I've decided to go ahead and call it a dorm (vs barracks). It was a huge steel and cinder block building with 10 wings, so "dorm" seems more appropriate. Note that there were still wooden barracks in use at Lackland in 1973 and I'm glad I didn't end up in one. They were reportedly cold, drafty and impossible to keep clean.
Here's a picture I found online showing the old barracks in the foregrourd with one of newer dorm buildings behind it... I was never quite sure why there were ledges jutting out from each floor of the new buildings (we were instructed not to crawl out on them). You can also see that the windows are relatively small and pretty high above the floor so you couldn't easily look out:
Each floor of each wing was a self-contained unit that housed one "flight" (roughly 50 airmen). The unit had a single door with a small "mesh reinforced" window, a latrine (with showers), a day room (which was locked for the first few weeks of basic), the TIs office, and two large rooms, each with two rows of beds (separated by a center aisle) and lockers against the walls.
I only have one significant memory from that first night: Sergeant Wilkerson was going down the list of names assigning us beds, and at some point he called out "Mister Oz!". There was no response, so he hollered it again - and again... Finally, he spelled out "M..R..O..Z" and someone replied "It's Mroz, sir!"... And Wilkerson was like "Why didn't you respond earlier, airman? Haven't you ever been called Mister Oz before?"... He indicated that he hadn't. (Apparently the small rural town he came from did not have one single clever resident)... So - the poor guy had to endure 6 weeks of "Wizard of Oz" jokes, and people kept running up to him, clicking their heels and asking to be sent home... He was really irritated by it. That's what made it so funny :-)
Another aside: Although we were responsible for all the cleaning in the the dorm unit itself, I was somewhat surprised to learn that we didn't have to do any laundry.We just stashed it into a bag tied to the foot of our bed and occasionally it would disappear and come back clean.
That first night was also when the drill sergeant chose the "dorm chief" and the squad leaders. Each row of beds formed a squad, hence there were 4 squads in a flight (apparently they now call them "elements" rather than squads). My squad leader was Airman Little - he'd been chosen because he was in the Civil Air Patrol.
As I recall, the dorm chief (who marched next to the formation) was extraordinarily incompetent and was only chosen because he was 6'6" and would have made the formation look "unbalanced". (At least that's what Airman Little told me - the squad leaders were privy to things the rest of us weren't.)
And one final remark to wrap up this post:
During basic training (and subsequent technical training) TIs will continually try to convince you that volunteering for leadership positions will look good on your record and earn you the respect and admiration of your future supervisors...
Yeah - don't believe it... When you get to your first assignment you will likely discover that members of the "real" Air Force have the same attitude about "brown-nosers" as members of society in general. So if you (for example) disclose that you were a "green rope" in tech school you will likely be subject to much taunting and derision... Trust me - there is nothing to be gained from volunteering for anything in the military :-)
Monday, January 14, 2013
A Quick Step Back
I just realized that I there was something that happened in Eugene sometime around November of 1972 that I'd intended to write about but inadvertently skipped in my haste to get to story of my enlistment:
One day mom saw a notice about an open discussion on alternative living (or something similar) that was being held in a room at the University of Oregon on a regular (monthly?) basis and decided we should go. And since we didn't have a car at the time she asked this guy we had met to take us down there. (This is not in any way relevant, but he looked exactly like the standard portrayal of Jesus. Seriously - people used to stop and stare at him on the street).
As it turned out, the regular participants in the open discussion were residents of the surrounding communes (40 or so) who didn't have the slightest interest in talking about astrology or spiritual energy which really pissed my mom off because her sole reason for going was to be the "center of attention" and she wasn't... But that's not what this post is about :-)
Aside: For some reason there were no chairs in the room... I'm not sure if it was because the "commune folk" considered chairs to be conformist or oppressive or what - but we all had to sit on the floor.
Another aside: I probably shouldn't mention this, but (as usual) I will anyway...
There was an attractive young blond woman with an infant straight across from me and at some point during the evening she prepared to nurse the child in a manner that was the opposite of discrete. (Women are usually trying to collect beads when they do what she did.) I really didn't intend to stare but it caught me totally off guard. And I must have had an unusually goofy expression on my face because she was clearly amused by my reaction... Yeah - it's one of my more vivid memories :-)
At various times during the evening there were discussions about how hard it was to get anything done in a commune when everyone was involved in the decision making, so maybe a smaller group should be set up for that... And there had been a fire at one of the communes and nobody knew what to do about it so they discussed having people trained for that... And another commune had problems with people coming onto their property and stealing stuff so they figured maybe they needed someone to handle that... They also talked about setting up a system for teaching their children, and methods for managing the crops and ensuring everyone got a fair share... And it went on and on...
To summarize: After deliberately rejecting all of society's norms and conventions these people were concluding that what they really needed was a town council, fire department, police department, schools, a regulatory structure and a system of taxation... And oddly enough, none of them saw the irony! I was on the verge of laughter all evening - it was just too funny :-) ... But that's not the point of this post either...
At some point during the festivities one of the men told a story (he insisted it was true) about a woman that had shown up at his commune... But first, I should warn you that this is yet another one of those things that nobody but me thinks is funny. So I'll tell it anyway:
The woman (who was around 40 years old) had arrived one day in a new BMW with California plates. She was impeccably dressed and wearing expensive jewelry, and without saying a word she handed them her car keys and a bunch of cash... And over the next few days she began to settle into their daily routine - smiling and occasionally nodding in response, but always maintaining silence... They were (understandably) curious, but figured she had her reasons and decided it would be best to respect her privacy...
Then one evening a few weeks later they inadvertently stayed out in the field too late and when they got inside to fix dinner it was already dark and nobody could find any matches to light the candles (they had no electricity). And after a few minutes everyone was in a total panic and the kids were crying, and that's when the "mystery woman" reached down into her cleavage and pulled out a flashlight...
After expressing their gratitude they inquired as to why she had a flashlight down her blouse. And her response (the first words she had spoken to them) was: "Well, don't you know??? ... I'm the usher!"
Don't say I didn't warn you :-)
One day mom saw a notice about an open discussion on alternative living (or something similar) that was being held in a room at the University of Oregon on a regular (monthly?) basis and decided we should go. And since we didn't have a car at the time she asked this guy we had met to take us down there. (This is not in any way relevant, but he looked exactly like the standard portrayal of Jesus. Seriously - people used to stop and stare at him on the street).
As it turned out, the regular participants in the open discussion were residents of the surrounding communes (40 or so) who didn't have the slightest interest in talking about astrology or spiritual energy which really pissed my mom off because her sole reason for going was to be the "center of attention" and she wasn't... But that's not what this post is about :-)
Aside: For some reason there were no chairs in the room... I'm not sure if it was because the "commune folk" considered chairs to be conformist or oppressive or what - but we all had to sit on the floor.
Another aside: I probably shouldn't mention this, but (as usual) I will anyway...
There was an attractive young blond woman with an infant straight across from me and at some point during the evening she prepared to nurse the child in a manner that was the opposite of discrete. (Women are usually trying to collect beads when they do what she did.) I really didn't intend to stare but it caught me totally off guard. And I must have had an unusually goofy expression on my face because she was clearly amused by my reaction... Yeah - it's one of my more vivid memories :-)
At various times during the evening there were discussions about how hard it was to get anything done in a commune when everyone was involved in the decision making, so maybe a smaller group should be set up for that... And there had been a fire at one of the communes and nobody knew what to do about it so they discussed having people trained for that... And another commune had problems with people coming onto their property and stealing stuff so they figured maybe they needed someone to handle that... They also talked about setting up a system for teaching their children, and methods for managing the crops and ensuring everyone got a fair share... And it went on and on...
To summarize: After deliberately rejecting all of society's norms and conventions these people were concluding that what they really needed was a town council, fire department, police department, schools, a regulatory structure and a system of taxation... And oddly enough, none of them saw the irony! I was on the verge of laughter all evening - it was just too funny :-) ... But that's not the point of this post either...
At some point during the festivities one of the men told a story (he insisted it was true) about a woman that had shown up at his commune... But first, I should warn you that this is yet another one of those things that nobody but me thinks is funny. So I'll tell it anyway:
The woman (who was around 40 years old) had arrived one day in a new BMW with California plates. She was impeccably dressed and wearing expensive jewelry, and without saying a word she handed them her car keys and a bunch of cash... And over the next few days she began to settle into their daily routine - smiling and occasionally nodding in response, but always maintaining silence... They were (understandably) curious, but figured she had her reasons and decided it would be best to respect her privacy...
Then one evening a few weeks later they inadvertently stayed out in the field too late and when they got inside to fix dinner it was already dark and nobody could find any matches to light the candles (they had no electricity). And after a few minutes everyone was in a total panic and the kids were crying, and that's when the "mystery woman" reached down into her cleavage and pulled out a flashlight...
After expressing their gratitude they inquired as to why she had a flashlight down her blouse. And her response (the first words she had spoken to them) was: "Well, don't you know??? ... I'm the usher!"
Don't say I didn't warn you :-)
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Certainty
I will get around to explaining what I mean by the title of this post (eventually), but first I want to describe what the first few weeks of basic training were like:
Have you ever had one of those days when you had a whole bunch of stuff to do? And you were constantly rushed and you ran into major hassles everywhere you went? And by the time you finally got home you were so relieved that you could finally sit down and unwind?
Now... Suppose that day had started at "Oh-Dark-Thirty" (military humor), and from the moment you woke up there were people screaming at you to hurry up (and it never stopped all day)... And you didn't have a car to drive so you had to either run or march everywhere you went (in heavy combat boots)... And along the way you had to stop and do pushups and situps (way more than you thought you could do), and by mid day every muscle in you body had turned to jello, your lungs were about to burst, and you felt like your knees were going to explode from the pounding they were taking... And you were so exhausted you didn't think you could take another step - but you did take another ... and another ... and another ... because you didn't want to find out what would happen if you stopped.
And the whole time there were countless little details you had to keep track of because everything had to be done in a precise way and the simplest lapse in attention could have dire consequences for you (and everyone around you)... And people kept coming up to you demanding that you recite things you were supposed to have memorized, but they were screaming at you the whole time trying to get you screw it up... And by mid day you were so stressed you just want to lie down and curl up in a ball... At times you were certain you couldn't take one more second of it - but you had no choice... And more than anything in the world you just wanted to go home - but you couldn't...
Then suppose the next morning it started all over again ... and the next ... and the next...
Yeah... it was kind of like that :-)
And on to the topic at hand:
When we got back to the dorm we marked all our clothing with our identification stamps and changed into our fatigues. (I can't recall exactly when we got the name strips sewn on. I think it was a week or 2 later.) Then they took away the rest of our civilian possessions (except for our wallets) and locked them up in the storage room.
Aside: It's hard to explain just how odd it is to look in the mirror and see a stranger with a shaved head wearing a military uniform staring back at you. It's one of the most absurd and peculiar experiences I can recall ever having :-)
Now - here's where the "certainty" part comes in: Every clothing item had to be folded or hung in a precise manner and stored in a specific location and order... For example, pants were to be placed over the hanger with the "fly" on the right facing forward, zipped and fastened, with the cuffs a certain number of inches lower than waist band. Similarly, your underwear and socks had to be folded in a specific way and placed in a certain location in the drawers.
And it wasn't just the lockers... When wearing the fatigue cap the bill had to be "two fingers" above the bridge of your nose... When you used the toilet paper (which unrolled over the top) you had to leave the end folded under at a 45 degree angle... And there was none of this AM / PM nonsense. Lights out was at 22:00 hours... I could go on and on for pages, but suffice it to say that everything was pretty darn clearly specified.
Aside: That reminds me of one of my pet peeves... It is very rare to see a Hollywood actor salute properly and I cannot begin to explain just how much it grates on my nerves... I mean, they spend millions of dollars getting the uniforms and equipment exactly right and they don't bother to make sure the actors can correctly perform a simple gesture that every military member makes a number of times a day??? It completely blows the authenticity. You might as well have them dressed in clown costumes driving Yugos with guns glued to the roof and call it "close enough" :-)
But here's the point: I had spent my entire life in a state of confusion, paralyzed by indecision, because I could see multiple ways to interpret most everything...
Then I suddenly found myself in an environment where nothing was ambiguous. And (over time) I discovered that when I was not constantly engaged in "second-guessing", I was capable of doing things I never suspected I could do.
So - yeah... The first few days of basic were kind of insane. They were barking instructions at us from sunup to sundown (major information overload)... It was almost impossible to keep it all straight - especially when being pushed to our physical and mental limits... And the stress of having to focus 100% of our attention on every little thing we did was absolutely unreal...
But we survived :-)
Have you ever had one of those days when you had a whole bunch of stuff to do? And you were constantly rushed and you ran into major hassles everywhere you went? And by the time you finally got home you were so relieved that you could finally sit down and unwind?
Now... Suppose that day had started at "Oh-Dark-Thirty" (military humor), and from the moment you woke up there were people screaming at you to hurry up (and it never stopped all day)... And you didn't have a car to drive so you had to either run or march everywhere you went (in heavy combat boots)... And along the way you had to stop and do pushups and situps (way more than you thought you could do), and by mid day every muscle in you body had turned to jello, your lungs were about to burst, and you felt like your knees were going to explode from the pounding they were taking... And you were so exhausted you didn't think you could take another step - but you did take another ... and another ... and another ... because you didn't want to find out what would happen if you stopped.
And the whole time there were countless little details you had to keep track of because everything had to be done in a precise way and the simplest lapse in attention could have dire consequences for you (and everyone around you)... And people kept coming up to you demanding that you recite things you were supposed to have memorized, but they were screaming at you the whole time trying to get you screw it up... And by mid day you were so stressed you just want to lie down and curl up in a ball... At times you were certain you couldn't take one more second of it - but you had no choice... And more than anything in the world you just wanted to go home - but you couldn't...
Then suppose the next morning it started all over again ... and the next ... and the next...
Yeah... it was kind of like that :-)
And on to the topic at hand:
When we got back to the dorm we marked all our clothing with our identification stamps and changed into our fatigues. (I can't recall exactly when we got the name strips sewn on. I think it was a week or 2 later.) Then they took away the rest of our civilian possessions (except for our wallets) and locked them up in the storage room.
Aside: It's hard to explain just how odd it is to look in the mirror and see a stranger with a shaved head wearing a military uniform staring back at you. It's one of the most absurd and peculiar experiences I can recall ever having :-)
Now - here's where the "certainty" part comes in: Every clothing item had to be folded or hung in a precise manner and stored in a specific location and order... For example, pants were to be placed over the hanger with the "fly" on the right facing forward, zipped and fastened, with the cuffs a certain number of inches lower than waist band. Similarly, your underwear and socks had to be folded in a specific way and placed in a certain location in the drawers.
And it wasn't just the lockers... When wearing the fatigue cap the bill had to be "two fingers" above the bridge of your nose... When you used the toilet paper (which unrolled over the top) you had to leave the end folded under at a 45 degree angle... And there was none of this AM / PM nonsense. Lights out was at 22:00 hours... I could go on and on for pages, but suffice it to say that everything was pretty darn clearly specified.
Aside: That reminds me of one of my pet peeves... It is very rare to see a Hollywood actor salute properly and I cannot begin to explain just how much it grates on my nerves... I mean, they spend millions of dollars getting the uniforms and equipment exactly right and they don't bother to make sure the actors can correctly perform a simple gesture that every military member makes a number of times a day??? It completely blows the authenticity. You might as well have them dressed in clown costumes driving Yugos with guns glued to the roof and call it "close enough" :-)
But here's the point: I had spent my entire life in a state of confusion, paralyzed by indecision, because I could see multiple ways to interpret most everything...
Then I suddenly found myself in an environment where nothing was ambiguous. And (over time) I discovered that when I was not constantly engaged in "second-guessing", I was capable of doing things I never suspected I could do.
So - yeah... The first few days of basic were kind of insane. They were barking instructions at us from sunup to sundown (major information overload)... It was almost impossible to keep it all straight - especially when being pushed to our physical and mental limits... And the stress of having to focus 100% of our attention on every little thing we did was absolutely unreal...
But we survived :-)
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
The Fun Begins
When I left off in my prior post it was Monday morning February 26, 1973 and I was at Lackland Air Force Base marching off to the base barbershop.
Aside: On that first Saturday we had been lined up in "formation" (4 columns of ~25 soldiers each) and our position within the formation did not change for the rest of basic training... I had the misfortune of ending up behind a guy with multiple nicknames - "Mabel" (no idea why), "Baby Huey" (the resemblance was uncanny) and "Zippy" (he had a pointy head) - and the problem was that he had the goofiest gait I'd ever seen... His body swayed the wrong direction when he walked, and even when he was "in step" his feet always seemed always to be in the wrong place. We marched in a tight formation and I had to devote my full attention to trying to guess where his feet were (to avoid tripping over them) while staring at the back of his head. (You were not permitted to look anywhere else while marching.) And this went on for the entire 6 weeks - it was a nightmare.
And back to the story:
We filed through the barber shop 4 at a time (as I recall) where the civilian barbers spent about 20 seconds buzzing off our hair. Then we paid them couple of bucks and headed back outside...Yeah - adjusted for inflation each barber made around $250 for 15 minutes work (all cash)... That had not escaped our attention :-)
But here's the funny part: All of us who'd had long hair were highly amused by our new "look" whereas a lot of the guys who'd had short hair were absolutely livid about it. (The fact that it was "different" was somehow upsetting to them)... Hmm... I wonder if their recruiters had told them they wouldn't get their heads shaved? (I wouldn't doubt it.)
Then we headed over to Supply where there was a long line of tables waiting for us... We were each given a duffel bag at the first table (I'm a little hazy on when the stenciling was done, but our bags were marked with our name and SSN). Then we moved on down the line stuffing everything that was issued to us into the bag. There were fatigues, a field jacket, rain coat, boxer shorts and t-shirts, socks, khakis and dress blues, including both the "bus driver" hat and what was referred to as the "___ cap". (I decided to omit the crude 4 letter reference to the female anatomy here. Apparently the official name is "garrison cap" but I never heard it called that)... And there were combat boots, chukka boots and dress shoes, and a little rubber stamp (with an ink pad) to mark all our clothes so they wouldn't get mixed up in the laundry... It was definitely not easy getting everything to fit into the duffel bag and it ended up being heavier than hell...
The next thing I remember we had arrived at the "blood typing" station... (When people ask for my blood type I often refer to it as "A Possible" for reasons for that will soon be apparent.)
The "lab tech" grabbed the first 3 guys in line (I was #2) and the first guy was tasked with puncturing the finger of each Airman, squeezing 3 drops of blood onto a glass slide and handing it to me. Then I had to add drops of reagent (A, B and RH) to the blood drops. (I vaguely recall having to mix each drop with a fresh toothpick.) Then I'd hand the slide to the 3rd Airman who had been given a 30 second crash course in interpreting the results.
Yeah - the "slide method" is unreliable under the best of conditions, and when it is being performed "bucket brigade" style by persons with zero medical training while drill sergeants scream at them to "speed it up"? ... Let's just say I wouldn't bet my life on it :-)
Aside: I don't recall if they made our "dog tags" immediately after the blood typing or if we got them a few days later - but the type was definitely on them. It was actually kind of cool having a "genuine" military issue ID tag hanging around your neck. It kind of made it "official" :-)
The last thing I remember from the morning's festivities was the immunization station:
I just looked at my records and they apparently hit me with tet/dpt, influenza, tb tine, adenovirus and mengingococcal. Yeah - I could hardly move my arm for three days. The other thing I remember is that they used an air gun for the final shot and they warned us not to flinch but one of the guys in another flight did. It sliced his arm open like a scalpel - he was bleeding all over the place...
I also recall that they made us stand at "parade rest" outside the building for about 20 minutes (to monitor for adverse reactions) while keeping an eye on the airmen around us - and sure as heck a couple of guys dropped and got hustled back inside for treatment...
Then it was back to the dorm to unpack our goodies. And that's when the fun really began...
Aside: On that first Saturday we had been lined up in "formation" (4 columns of ~25 soldiers each) and our position within the formation did not change for the rest of basic training... I had the misfortune of ending up behind a guy with multiple nicknames - "Mabel" (no idea why), "Baby Huey" (the resemblance was uncanny) and "Zippy" (he had a pointy head) - and the problem was that he had the goofiest gait I'd ever seen... His body swayed the wrong direction when he walked, and even when he was "in step" his feet always seemed always to be in the wrong place. We marched in a tight formation and I had to devote my full attention to trying to guess where his feet were (to avoid tripping over them) while staring at the back of his head. (You were not permitted to look anywhere else while marching.) And this went on for the entire 6 weeks - it was a nightmare.
And back to the story:
We filed through the barber shop 4 at a time (as I recall) where the civilian barbers spent about 20 seconds buzzing off our hair. Then we paid them couple of bucks and headed back outside...Yeah - adjusted for inflation each barber made around $250 for 15 minutes work (all cash)... That had not escaped our attention :-)
But here's the funny part: All of us who'd had long hair were highly amused by our new "look" whereas a lot of the guys who'd had short hair were absolutely livid about it. (The fact that it was "different" was somehow upsetting to them)... Hmm... I wonder if their recruiters had told them they wouldn't get their heads shaved? (I wouldn't doubt it.)
Then we headed over to Supply where there was a long line of tables waiting for us... We were each given a duffel bag at the first table (I'm a little hazy on when the stenciling was done, but our bags were marked with our name and SSN). Then we moved on down the line stuffing everything that was issued to us into the bag. There were fatigues, a field jacket, rain coat, boxer shorts and t-shirts, socks, khakis and dress blues, including both the "bus driver" hat and what was referred to as the "___ cap". (I decided to omit the crude 4 letter reference to the female anatomy here. Apparently the official name is "garrison cap" but I never heard it called that)... And there were combat boots, chukka boots and dress shoes, and a little rubber stamp (with an ink pad) to mark all our clothes so they wouldn't get mixed up in the laundry... It was definitely not easy getting everything to fit into the duffel bag and it ended up being heavier than hell...
The next thing I remember we had arrived at the "blood typing" station... (When people ask for my blood type I often refer to it as "A Possible" for reasons for that will soon be apparent.)
The "lab tech" grabbed the first 3 guys in line (I was #2) and the first guy was tasked with puncturing the finger of each Airman, squeezing 3 drops of blood onto a glass slide and handing it to me. Then I had to add drops of reagent (A, B and RH) to the blood drops. (I vaguely recall having to mix each drop with a fresh toothpick.) Then I'd hand the slide to the 3rd Airman who had been given a 30 second crash course in interpreting the results.
Yeah - the "slide method" is unreliable under the best of conditions, and when it is being performed "bucket brigade" style by persons with zero medical training while drill sergeants scream at them to "speed it up"? ... Let's just say I wouldn't bet my life on it :-)
Aside: I don't recall if they made our "dog tags" immediately after the blood typing or if we got them a few days later - but the type was definitely on them. It was actually kind of cool having a "genuine" military issue ID tag hanging around your neck. It kind of made it "official" :-)
The last thing I remember from the morning's festivities was the immunization station:
I just looked at my records and they apparently hit me with tet/dpt, influenza, tb tine, adenovirus and mengingococcal. Yeah - I could hardly move my arm for three days. The other thing I remember is that they used an air gun for the final shot and they warned us not to flinch but one of the guys in another flight did. It sliced his arm open like a scalpel - he was bleeding all over the place...
I also recall that they made us stand at "parade rest" outside the building for about 20 minutes (to monitor for adverse reactions) while keeping an eye on the airmen around us - and sure as heck a couple of guys dropped and got hustled back inside for treatment...
Then it was back to the dorm to unpack our goodies. And that's when the fun really began...
Monday, January 7, 2013
Monday Arrives
After spending the weekend marching around in our civvies (with full heads of hair) we were (rudely) awakened dark and early that Monday morning in February of 1973 for our first day of "real" Air Force basic training. Yup - over the next a few hours they were going to start turning us into soldiers...
But before I go any further I want to make a few observations about basic training:
I've always had a strong tendency to analyze (and often obsess over) the "whys and wherefors" of what I see going on on around me, and when it comes to human behavior in general I'd pretty much thrown in the towel (there's just no sense to be made of it)...
But basic training was different. On the surface it seemed like mindless hazing, but when you focus on the "essentials" of being a soldier it all begins to make perfect sense...
At its core it was a "high intensity" exercise in brain washing. The drill sergeants had 6 weeks to strip you of your identity and turn you into someone who was willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the good of the unit and your fellow soldiers - to do exactly what you were told, regardless of whether you thought you were being watched or not, regardless of how physically or mentally stressed or exhausted you were - and to follow orders that were in direct conflict with your core values and beliefs - all without question or hesitation.
So - from the second you get off the bus the drill sergeants are evaluating you - watching your body language - poking and prodding - looking for flaws or weaknesses - devising strategies to expose them and push you to your limits... And it quickly became obvious that the key to survival was to avoid calling attention to yourself - to never let your guard down. And most importantly ... never, ever, ever volunteer any information... I was amazed at how many guys never figured that out :-)
Next - a bit of background info, starting with the good cop / bad cop routine our TIs had going:
That Monday morning was the first time we met our senior drill sergeant. He was the "bad cop" - absolutely terrifying... The junior TI (Wilkerson - the "good cop") was the one who had spent the weekend with us, and although he was tough he didn't scare the crap out of us the way the senior TI did. As a matter of fact, he often did this "I'm just trying to help get you through this" routine, and as a result some of the guys let their guard down and revealed things they shouldn't have. (Huge mistake.)
After a few days it suddenly dawned on me that the senior TI never did anything other than get right in your face and scream at the top of his lungs with spit flying everywhere... Yeah - it was frightening as hell - but it was also completely benign... (He was close to retirement and I suspect he was just going thought the motions.)
Wilkerson, on the other hand, would make us all run laps or do push-ups whenever anybody screwed up. And he would constantly lay "guilt trips" on us - saying things like "I've been taking it easy on you and you've betrayed me by making me look bad"... I soon began to suspect that it was all just a ruse to manipulate us into trusting him and exposing our weaknesses. I tried to warn some the other guys that he was the one they needed to be afraid of - but they just looked at me like I was crazy... And, over time, my suspicions were confirmed. Yes - things weren't as they seemed :-)
Then there was the whole "no win situation" business:
One of the fundamental rules of basic training is that unless you are asked for a specific piece of information (like your name) you may only answer "Yes sir", "No sir" or "I don't know sir"... And the TIs are experts at asking questions for which all of above are hopelessly wrong. They will keep firing questions at you without giving you time to think - mercilessly berating you - and no matter what you say it will just keep getting worse, and worse... And the point is that it really doesn't matter what your answer is - they just want to see how you react to the stress.
And finally: During the induction process I'd had a number of conversations with the other recruits, and one of the things we wondered about is how the TIs could make you do anything, since they weren't allowed to touch you... And it turns out there are multiple answers to that question:
First: Despite the fact that many of our recruiters told us that if you didn't like basic training you could simply leave, the Air Force can (technically) keep you there for your entire 4 (or 6) year enlistment... When you screw up too often they put you back a week - then another week. And if you keep screwing up they put you in a special "Motivation Flight" where the level of harassment is almost unimaginable. And if that doesn't fix you they'd probably give you a discharge, but it's honestly a lot easier to just "get with the program".
Second: They will punish everyone around you for your mistakes... You'd have to be a pretty serious @sshole if that doesn't make you try to do better...
Finally: When you think you've hit your limit and you look around and see that everybody else is still going, it's hard to accept that they can take it and you can't... And the amusing part is that everyone else is probably thinking that exact same thing.
Of course, I hadn't figured all of this out yet on that first Monday morning as we headed down for chow... Then it was off to the base barber shop for that critical first step in becoming GIs...
But before I go any further I want to make a few observations about basic training:
I've always had a strong tendency to analyze (and often obsess over) the "whys and wherefors" of what I see going on on around me, and when it comes to human behavior in general I'd pretty much thrown in the towel (there's just no sense to be made of it)...
But basic training was different. On the surface it seemed like mindless hazing, but when you focus on the "essentials" of being a soldier it all begins to make perfect sense...
At its core it was a "high intensity" exercise in brain washing. The drill sergeants had 6 weeks to strip you of your identity and turn you into someone who was willing to sacrifice anything and everything for the good of the unit and your fellow soldiers - to do exactly what you were told, regardless of whether you thought you were being watched or not, regardless of how physically or mentally stressed or exhausted you were - and to follow orders that were in direct conflict with your core values and beliefs - all without question or hesitation.
So - from the second you get off the bus the drill sergeants are evaluating you - watching your body language - poking and prodding - looking for flaws or weaknesses - devising strategies to expose them and push you to your limits... And it quickly became obvious that the key to survival was to avoid calling attention to yourself - to never let your guard down. And most importantly ... never, ever, ever volunteer any information... I was amazed at how many guys never figured that out :-)
Next - a bit of background info, starting with the good cop / bad cop routine our TIs had going:
That Monday morning was the first time we met our senior drill sergeant. He was the "bad cop" - absolutely terrifying... The junior TI (Wilkerson - the "good cop") was the one who had spent the weekend with us, and although he was tough he didn't scare the crap out of us the way the senior TI did. As a matter of fact, he often did this "I'm just trying to help get you through this" routine, and as a result some of the guys let their guard down and revealed things they shouldn't have. (Huge mistake.)
After a few days it suddenly dawned on me that the senior TI never did anything other than get right in your face and scream at the top of his lungs with spit flying everywhere... Yeah - it was frightening as hell - but it was also completely benign... (He was close to retirement and I suspect he was just going thought the motions.)
Wilkerson, on the other hand, would make us all run laps or do push-ups whenever anybody screwed up. And he would constantly lay "guilt trips" on us - saying things like "I've been taking it easy on you and you've betrayed me by making me look bad"... I soon began to suspect that it was all just a ruse to manipulate us into trusting him and exposing our weaknesses. I tried to warn some the other guys that he was the one they needed to be afraid of - but they just looked at me like I was crazy... And, over time, my suspicions were confirmed. Yes - things weren't as they seemed :-)
Then there was the whole "no win situation" business:
One of the fundamental rules of basic training is that unless you are asked for a specific piece of information (like your name) you may only answer "Yes sir", "No sir" or "I don't know sir"... And the TIs are experts at asking questions for which all of above are hopelessly wrong. They will keep firing questions at you without giving you time to think - mercilessly berating you - and no matter what you say it will just keep getting worse, and worse... And the point is that it really doesn't matter what your answer is - they just want to see how you react to the stress.
And finally: During the induction process I'd had a number of conversations with the other recruits, and one of the things we wondered about is how the TIs could make you do anything, since they weren't allowed to touch you... And it turns out there are multiple answers to that question:
First: Despite the fact that many of our recruiters told us that if you didn't like basic training you could simply leave, the Air Force can (technically) keep you there for your entire 4 (or 6) year enlistment... When you screw up too often they put you back a week - then another week. And if you keep screwing up they put you in a special "Motivation Flight" where the level of harassment is almost unimaginable. And if that doesn't fix you they'd probably give you a discharge, but it's honestly a lot easier to just "get with the program".
Second: They will punish everyone around you for your mistakes... You'd have to be a pretty serious @sshole if that doesn't make you try to do better...
Finally: When you think you've hit your limit and you look around and see that everybody else is still going, it's hard to accept that they can take it and you can't... And the amusing part is that everyone else is probably thinking that exact same thing.
Of course, I hadn't figured all of this out yet on that first Monday morning as we headed down for chow... Then it was off to the base barber shop for that critical first step in becoming GIs...
Saturday, January 5, 2013
The Basics of Basic
The bus pulled up to a nondescript building at Lackland Air Force Base sometime around midnight on February 23, 1973... There were a number of drill sergeants (TIs -Training Instructors) waiting for us and they immediately began screaming at us to get off the bus and line up... After "taking roll" the next thing they did was direct us to a restroom to pee in a cup...
Aside: In order to enlist in the Air Force you had to sign a statement saying that you had never used any illegal substances... OK - I "fudged" a bit on that one - but so did roughly 80% of my fellow enlistees :-) ... I remember wondering why they didn't screen for drugs at the induction center. All I could figure was that the other branches weren't as "picky" as the Air Force... Still, it seemed kind of stupid to fly someone halfway across the country just to send them back... And yes - there were people who were dumb enough to show up for basic training with drugs in their system.
After we finished "relieving" ourselves they shuffled us off to "midnight chow". As I recall, I had some greasy french toast smothered in runny "flavor impaired" syrup. It really didn't sit very well in my stomach... And then it was off to a classroom to fill out some forms and sit through an "indoctrination" session. They showed us this cheesy video that featured a recruit repeated asking "Who am I? Why am I here?". That become one of our "taglines" for the rest of basic. Every time things got particularly stressful you'd turn to the guy next to you and say "Why am I here?". It almost got funny after a while.
BTW: I was in that classroom that the TIs started the whole "I can't hear you!" bit - making you scream "Yes Sir!!!" in response at the top of your lungs... That was kind of the "wake-up call" that (despite what our recruiters had told us) basic training was going to be a lot like it was in the movies...
It was about 2AM by the time the classroom session ended and we were shuffled off to our respective barracks (we had all been awake for over 20 hours and were dead on our feet), and that leads into the next "big lie" the recruiters told us: "Don't worry. You will get eight hours of sleep almost every night"... Yeah - as I recall, that happened "never" times :-)
The next morning (Saturday) we learned that we weren't going to get our heads shaved or be issued uniforms until Monday, so our drill sergeant (Wilkerson) spent the weekend teaching us the essential "rules and regs" and the basics of marching. Yeah - we stood out like sore thumb marching around with our civvies and hair and all...
And yes - (I've alluded to this before) - instead of being surrounded by patriotic "do your duty" types (as I had expected), almost all of the 50 men in my "flight" had joined for reasons other than "love of country"... It was definitely an interesting mixture of cultures. At the extremes were young men from Harlem that had never actually spoken to a white person before, and a couple of guys from "rural America" who had never spoken a black person before. That led to some real interesting dynamics :-)
Although we kept pretty busy that first weekend it wasn't exceedingly stressful - yet... And I was suddenly thankful that my 4th grade P.E. teacher at Waldron Academy (a former Marine drill instructor) had taught us kids how to march in formation and do the correct moves for left face, right face, about face and change step. It definitely made that part of basic training easier. (Some of the guys were having a really hard time with it.)
OK... Here's another one of those things I probably shouldn't mention but will anyway:
Just in case you think the female recruits had it any easier, we happened to march past their flight that first day just in time to hear their male drill instructor scream "When you come to attention I want to hear 30 p#ssies snap shut!!!"... Yeah - I couldn't decide if I was amused or horrified.
I'm stunned at how many memories came flooding back when I started writing this post. It was a pivotal point in my life and it's going to be a real challenge trying to figure out how to write it all down... Heck - I might even have to do an outline :-)
Aside: In order to enlist in the Air Force you had to sign a statement saying that you had never used any illegal substances... OK - I "fudged" a bit on that one - but so did roughly 80% of my fellow enlistees :-) ... I remember wondering why they didn't screen for drugs at the induction center. All I could figure was that the other branches weren't as "picky" as the Air Force... Still, it seemed kind of stupid to fly someone halfway across the country just to send them back... And yes - there were people who were dumb enough to show up for basic training with drugs in their system.
After we finished "relieving" ourselves they shuffled us off to "midnight chow". As I recall, I had some greasy french toast smothered in runny "flavor impaired" syrup. It really didn't sit very well in my stomach... And then it was off to a classroom to fill out some forms and sit through an "indoctrination" session. They showed us this cheesy video that featured a recruit repeated asking "Who am I? Why am I here?". That become one of our "taglines" for the rest of basic. Every time things got particularly stressful you'd turn to the guy next to you and say "Why am I here?". It almost got funny after a while.
BTW: I was in that classroom that the TIs started the whole "I can't hear you!" bit - making you scream "Yes Sir!!!" in response at the top of your lungs... That was kind of the "wake-up call" that (despite what our recruiters had told us) basic training was going to be a lot like it was in the movies...
It was about 2AM by the time the classroom session ended and we were shuffled off to our respective barracks (we had all been awake for over 20 hours and were dead on our feet), and that leads into the next "big lie" the recruiters told us: "Don't worry. You will get eight hours of sleep almost every night"... Yeah - as I recall, that happened "never" times :-)
The next morning (Saturday) we learned that we weren't going to get our heads shaved or be issued uniforms until Monday, so our drill sergeant (Wilkerson) spent the weekend teaching us the essential "rules and regs" and the basics of marching. Yeah - we stood out like sore thumb marching around with our civvies and hair and all...
And yes - (I've alluded to this before) - instead of being surrounded by patriotic "do your duty" types (as I had expected), almost all of the 50 men in my "flight" had joined for reasons other than "love of country"... It was definitely an interesting mixture of cultures. At the extremes were young men from Harlem that had never actually spoken to a white person before, and a couple of guys from "rural America" who had never spoken a black person before. That led to some real interesting dynamics :-)
Although we kept pretty busy that first weekend it wasn't exceedingly stressful - yet... And I was suddenly thankful that my 4th grade P.E. teacher at Waldron Academy (a former Marine drill instructor) had taught us kids how to march in formation and do the correct moves for left face, right face, about face and change step. It definitely made that part of basic training easier. (Some of the guys were having a really hard time with it.)
OK... Here's another one of those things I probably shouldn't mention but will anyway:
Just in case you think the female recruits had it any easier, we happened to march past their flight that first day just in time to hear their male drill instructor scream "When you come to attention I want to hear 30 p#ssies snap shut!!!"... Yeah - I couldn't decide if I was amused or horrified.
I'm stunned at how many memories came flooding back when I started writing this post. It was a pivotal point in my life and it's going to be a real challenge trying to figure out how to write it all down... Heck - I might even have to do an outline :-)
Friday, January 4, 2013
Induction - Part 2
When I left off in my prior post, I had just returned to the military induction center in Portland after a quick trip back to Eugene to fetch some clothes and other personal effects, and they put us up for the night at the Heathman Hotel (with a couple of meal vouchers).
Now - anyone familiar with Portland would be puzzled at this point, because the Heathman (which dates back to 1927) is a 4-star luxury hotel. But back in the early 1970's it was pretty rough around the edges and the military had rented a couple of entire floors. The rooms were furnished with 4 cots, a couple of chairs and a black and white TV - no "adornments" of any sort.
Aside: The female recruits were housed on a different floor, and the elevator operator (a young guy) would not tell us which one. He wouldn't even allow male and female recruits in the elevator at the same time... A few guys came up with the idea of asking to go to random floors to see which one he refused to take them to, but he wouldn't "play that game"... Yeah - it was all kind of juvenile :-)
Mom had given Ron a "head's up" that I was in town (he was the friend who had helped us get settled in Eugene) and he swung by to keep me company for a while. (I admit it - I was scared shitless)... We went next door to the Portland Theater (also now a historical landmark) to see the movie "The Reivers" and I don't remember a darn thing about it :-) After the movie Ron wished me well and I headed back up to the hotel room where my "roomies" had just started watching "No Time for Sergeants" (an old Andy Griffith military movie). I remember discussing whether basic training was going to be anything like what was portrayed in the movie and discovered that all our recruiters had assured us it wasn't like that any more. (Yeah - that was the biggest lie of all.)
The last thing I remember from that evening is sitting by the window looking down at Broadway, watching all the muscle cars cruise by (that was the "main drag" in Portland at the time) and thinking about everything I was leaving behind...
None of us got much sleep that night, and the next morning we headed back to the induction center where they gathered us all (roughly 70 or 80 recruits) in one big room and administered the oath of enlistment... I have to admit I kind choked when we got to the part about obeying the orders of the president, and afterward the guy next to me whispered that he'd had his fingers crossed... Umm, I don't think that counts :-)
Aside: The problem with swearing allegiance to the president was that it was Richard M. Nixon. He had just been re-elected by the largest margin in U.S. history despite revelations that members of his staff had been involved in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Hotel the previous summer... Let's just say he wasn't very high on my "trustworthy" list.
Then the Gideons gave us our "pocket size" New Testaments (it was the only non-military item we were allowed to carry on our person during basic) and we started piling into cabs to go to the Portland airport.
It turns out there were only 6 Air Force enlistees out of the entire bunch. One was a rather attractive (but "frigid") young lady from Sweet Home, and two of the guys were complete idiots. (Me and the remaining guys were OK.) We traveled as a group (by commercial airlines) to San Antonio, and the trip took all freaking day (it must have been the cheapest option available). I think we had to change planes three times, and we decided it would be best to have one person hold all the boarding passes because we were afraid the "moron twins" would lose theirs... Yeah - every time we stopped they'd joke about going AWOL and head off to go exploring somewhere... I think it was in Denver where the rest of us waited at the agreed meeting place until the last possible second before boarding and they never showed up... It turned out they had managed to talk their way onto the plane without their boarding passes. (This was long before airport security got so tight.)
There were about 30 or 40 recruits on the last Air Force bus to leave the airport in San Antonio that evening, and it was sometime around midnight when we finally rolled into Lackland AFB. Yeah - I'm certain there must have been an inscription over the gate that read "Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes", but I apparently missed it :-)
Now - anyone familiar with Portland would be puzzled at this point, because the Heathman (which dates back to 1927) is a 4-star luxury hotel. But back in the early 1970's it was pretty rough around the edges and the military had rented a couple of entire floors. The rooms were furnished with 4 cots, a couple of chairs and a black and white TV - no "adornments" of any sort.
Aside: The female recruits were housed on a different floor, and the elevator operator (a young guy) would not tell us which one. He wouldn't even allow male and female recruits in the elevator at the same time... A few guys came up with the idea of asking to go to random floors to see which one he refused to take them to, but he wouldn't "play that game"... Yeah - it was all kind of juvenile :-)
Mom had given Ron a "head's up" that I was in town (he was the friend who had helped us get settled in Eugene) and he swung by to keep me company for a while. (I admit it - I was scared shitless)... We went next door to the Portland Theater (also now a historical landmark) to see the movie "The Reivers" and I don't remember a darn thing about it :-) After the movie Ron wished me well and I headed back up to the hotel room where my "roomies" had just started watching "No Time for Sergeants" (an old Andy Griffith military movie). I remember discussing whether basic training was going to be anything like what was portrayed in the movie and discovered that all our recruiters had assured us it wasn't like that any more. (Yeah - that was the biggest lie of all.)
The last thing I remember from that evening is sitting by the window looking down at Broadway, watching all the muscle cars cruise by (that was the "main drag" in Portland at the time) and thinking about everything I was leaving behind...
None of us got much sleep that night, and the next morning we headed back to the induction center where they gathered us all (roughly 70 or 80 recruits) in one big room and administered the oath of enlistment... I have to admit I kind choked when we got to the part about obeying the orders of the president, and afterward the guy next to me whispered that he'd had his fingers crossed... Umm, I don't think that counts :-)
Aside: The problem with swearing allegiance to the president was that it was Richard M. Nixon. He had just been re-elected by the largest margin in U.S. history despite revelations that members of his staff had been involved in the break-in at the Democratic National Committee office in the Watergate Hotel the previous summer... Let's just say he wasn't very high on my "trustworthy" list.
Then the Gideons gave us our "pocket size" New Testaments (it was the only non-military item we were allowed to carry on our person during basic) and we started piling into cabs to go to the Portland airport.
It turns out there were only 6 Air Force enlistees out of the entire bunch. One was a rather attractive (but "frigid") young lady from Sweet Home, and two of the guys were complete idiots. (Me and the remaining guys were OK.) We traveled as a group (by commercial airlines) to San Antonio, and the trip took all freaking day (it must have been the cheapest option available). I think we had to change planes three times, and we decided it would be best to have one person hold all the boarding passes because we were afraid the "moron twins" would lose theirs... Yeah - every time we stopped they'd joke about going AWOL and head off to go exploring somewhere... I think it was in Denver where the rest of us waited at the agreed meeting place until the last possible second before boarding and they never showed up... It turned out they had managed to talk their way onto the plane without their boarding passes. (This was long before airport security got so tight.)
There were about 30 or 40 recruits on the last Air Force bus to leave the airport in San Antonio that evening, and it was sometime around midnight when we finally rolled into Lackland AFB. Yeah - I'm certain there must have been an inscription over the gate that read "Omnes relinquite spes, o vos intrantes", but I apparently missed it :-)
Induction - Part 1
I've talked about what led me to enlist in the Air Force back in February of 1973 but I haven't yet said a thing about how it affected my mother and my sister Karina...
Mom (as it turned out) was surprisingly supportive... I'm certain that she didn't really want me to leave (I was her primary source of emotional support), but she understood that I was 19 years old (almost 3 years out of high school) and needed to get on with my life... Plus, it played right into that "martyr" thing she had going :-)
Karina, on the other hand, was absolutely livid... I honestly hadn't expected that... I thought she would be happy for me, but she was enraged that I was leaving her "alone" with mom...
Yeah - Karina and mom had the strangest relationship. They were constantly yelling at each other, and Karina was always moving out with some guy or another, but always seemed to come right back again... They couldn't stand to be together, and couldn't stand to be apart - just too much alike, I guess :-)
One of Karina's immediate concerns was the $100 a month in child support I was to receive until I turned 21. Since she wanted the money the idea that I might keep it for myself was totally unacceptable. So I went ahead and told dad to send the checks to her. (It's not like I ever saw a penny of it anyway.)
Of course, Mom's sister Vesti was still sending monthly checks (enough money for rent and food), and mom was making some extra with her "psychic counseling" so my leaving probably helped her financial situation rather than hurt it.
And on to the "induction" part of the story:
After I signed the enlistment papers I was scheduled for my physical in Portland on February 22nd. As best as I can recall my recruiter picked me up that morning (at some godawful early hour) and drove me to the Greyhound bus station in Eugene. The military induction center was (at the time) somewhere in downtown Portland (in a dingy old building that felt kind of like a warehouse) and I seem to recall that the days festivities started at 6 AM...
I don't recall exactly how long the physical took but I remember that there were a lot of people being processed, and (for some reason) the song "Alice's Restaurant" kept running through my head :-) ... By then I was having second thoughts, so I claimed that my knee sometimes went out and I had a trick shoulder. Yeah - they didn't buy it... Their major concern was my scoliosis (which I didn't even know I had) but they decided it wasn't serious enough to fail me... I also recall regretting the fact that I didn't wear underwear because there were time when were supposed to be in our skivvies and I either had to keep my pants on (and repeatedly explain why) or go "au naturel"...
Aside: I think I've mentioned this before, but I had stopped wearing underwear many years earlier because the sales clerks were usually women and I was too embarrassed to buy them :-)
The weirdest part of the physical was when they made us all line up, bend over and spread our butt cheeks... They didn't really explain why but I figured they must have been looking for evidence of "unnatural penetration" or something (if you get my drift)... Either that or they thought it was funny to make us pose like that :-)
So - after I passed the physical everything started moving way faster that I expected. They told me I'd be getting on a plane to basic training the next morning and they gave me a round trip bus ticket to Eugene with just enough time to collect some clothes and personal items before heading back...
Now - you'd think that saying my final goodbyes (as a "free man") to my mom and sister would be the most memorable part of that trip to Eugene, but it wasn't... On the return trip (my third of the day) there was a drunk guy at the front of the bus who was on his way to Alaska to kill a f*cking moose... He spent the entire 2 hours from Eugene to Portland expounding very loudly (in "drunk speak") on the topic of the inevitable demise of the aforementioned f*cking moose, assuring us that it was already there in Alaska just waiting for him to kill it and when he got there that was exactly what he was going to do... Believe it or not, it got a bit irritating after the first hour or so, and when I got off the bus in Portland I recall feeling quite sorry for the passengers who were continuing north :-)
It was around supper time when I got back to the induction center and was shuttled to the local hotel where I would spend my last night before heading to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for six weeks of "fun filled" adventure :-)
Mom (as it turned out) was surprisingly supportive... I'm certain that she didn't really want me to leave (I was her primary source of emotional support), but she understood that I was 19 years old (almost 3 years out of high school) and needed to get on with my life... Plus, it played right into that "martyr" thing she had going :-)
Karina, on the other hand, was absolutely livid... I honestly hadn't expected that... I thought she would be happy for me, but she was enraged that I was leaving her "alone" with mom...
Yeah - Karina and mom had the strangest relationship. They were constantly yelling at each other, and Karina was always moving out with some guy or another, but always seemed to come right back again... They couldn't stand to be together, and couldn't stand to be apart - just too much alike, I guess :-)
One of Karina's immediate concerns was the $100 a month in child support I was to receive until I turned 21. Since she wanted the money the idea that I might keep it for myself was totally unacceptable. So I went ahead and told dad to send the checks to her. (It's not like I ever saw a penny of it anyway.)
Of course, Mom's sister Vesti was still sending monthly checks (enough money for rent and food), and mom was making some extra with her "psychic counseling" so my leaving probably helped her financial situation rather than hurt it.
And on to the "induction" part of the story:
After I signed the enlistment papers I was scheduled for my physical in Portland on February 22nd. As best as I can recall my recruiter picked me up that morning (at some godawful early hour) and drove me to the Greyhound bus station in Eugene. The military induction center was (at the time) somewhere in downtown Portland (in a dingy old building that felt kind of like a warehouse) and I seem to recall that the days festivities started at 6 AM...
I don't recall exactly how long the physical took but I remember that there were a lot of people being processed, and (for some reason) the song "Alice's Restaurant" kept running through my head :-) ... By then I was having second thoughts, so I claimed that my knee sometimes went out and I had a trick shoulder. Yeah - they didn't buy it... Their major concern was my scoliosis (which I didn't even know I had) but they decided it wasn't serious enough to fail me... I also recall regretting the fact that I didn't wear underwear because there were time when were supposed to be in our skivvies and I either had to keep my pants on (and repeatedly explain why) or go "au naturel"...
Aside: I think I've mentioned this before, but I had stopped wearing underwear many years earlier because the sales clerks were usually women and I was too embarrassed to buy them :-)
The weirdest part of the physical was when they made us all line up, bend over and spread our butt cheeks... They didn't really explain why but I figured they must have been looking for evidence of "unnatural penetration" or something (if you get my drift)... Either that or they thought it was funny to make us pose like that :-)
So - after I passed the physical everything started moving way faster that I expected. They told me I'd be getting on a plane to basic training the next morning and they gave me a round trip bus ticket to Eugene with just enough time to collect some clothes and personal items before heading back...
Now - you'd think that saying my final goodbyes (as a "free man") to my mom and sister would be the most memorable part of that trip to Eugene, but it wasn't... On the return trip (my third of the day) there was a drunk guy at the front of the bus who was on his way to Alaska to kill a f*cking moose... He spent the entire 2 hours from Eugene to Portland expounding very loudly (in "drunk speak") on the topic of the inevitable demise of the aforementioned f*cking moose, assuring us that it was already there in Alaska just waiting for him to kill it and when he got there that was exactly what he was going to do... Believe it or not, it got a bit irritating after the first hour or so, and when I got off the bus in Portland I recall feeling quite sorry for the passengers who were continuing north :-)
It was around supper time when I got back to the induction center and was shuttled to the local hotel where I would spend my last night before heading to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio for six weeks of "fun filled" adventure :-)
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Recruitment
I don't think I mentioned this before, but I had considered joining the Air Force back when I turned 17 (to avoid any chance of ending up in the infantry), but apparently I wasn't the only one who thought of that because there was a long waiting list. However, by the beginning of 1973 the troop levels in Vietnam had been cut almost ten fold and nobody had been drafted in over a year, so by the time I showed up at the Air Force recruiter's office in Eugene Oregon the "backlog" had evaporated.
BTW: For anyone who hasn't dealt with a military recruiter, it's an interesting experience (kind of like buying a used car) - one that probably hasn't changed much since 1973... Yeah - during basic training a bunch of us compared notes and the only thing that differed was the brazenness of the lies. (It was almost amusing)... But I'm getting ahead of myself :-)
The first order of business when I got to the recruiter's office (after assuring him I had a high school diploma) was taking the military entrance exams. And (given my past performance on aptitude tests) it wasn't a huge surprise that I scored high enough to qualify for any enlisted job in the Air Force. (Note that flight crew positions required a college degree so those were not available to me.)
Aside: I distinctly remember having some kind of weird mental block on the "spatial" problems: Basically, there was an outline of a flattened shape with a bunch of fold lines and marked corners, and the question was something like "If you cut out this shape and folded it along lines T through Z would corner A be touching corner B, C or D?" ... That's normally the kind of thing I'm really good at, but for some reason my brain just didn't feel like dealing with it that morning... I ended up scoring an 85 on that section which was still high enough to qualify for any job, but it wasn't as high as the other sections.
The recruiter was really excited about my scores and told me that if I signed up for 6 years (instead of the usual 4) I could pick the exact job I wanted and I would be promoted to "Airman First Class" (2 stripes) right out of basic training. (That was actually true)... He sent me home with a stack of literature, including a booklet that described every enlisted job in the Air Force (together with the requirements, etc)... BTW: I recall being rather amused by some of the job titles, like "Protective Coating Specialist" for "painter" :-)
Over the next few weeks I spent many hours poring over that "jobs" booklet. (I no longer recall exactly how many times the recruiter called, but I'm sure it was a bunch - they're kind of persistent). I started out focusing on the aircraft maintenance jobs but I noticed that the required test scores weren't as high as I expected (60s?)... I mean - why waste high test scores on something that didn't require them, right? ...
Aside: The job that everyone wanted (including me) was repairing flight simulators. That was in the days before video games (the Atari Pong arcade machine had just been introduced) so the idea of being able to "pilot" a jet fighter simulator was about the coolest thing anyone could envision (short of flying the real thing). That's why that field had an 18 month waiting list (at least that's what my recruiter told me - it was probably true - he really wasn't as bad as most of them).
It was the electronics jobs that required the highest entrance scores (80 or higher), so I refocused on those and started looking at how long the technical training was. (I figured the longer the school the more I'd learn). And one of the longest schools at the time (9 months) was for job code "30331" aka "Air Traffic Control Radar Specialist".
Another aside: I don't think I mentioned this, but when I was in Tyler Texas in 1970 but I had dabbled in electronics a bit - rewiring my Telecaster and repairing my amp. I had also worked my way through a mail order electronics course Bernie had loaned me. I found it all rather intriguing and even looked into a local trade school (ITT tech?) but nothing ever became of it...
So it came to pass that around mid-February of 1973 I decided to sign up for 6 years with the guaranteed job of ATC radar repairman... At the time it seemed like a leap into the unknown (a rather frightening one), but it ended up being one of the most important life-changing decisions I've ever made - second only to proposing to the woman I've been married to for the past 38 years :-)
BTW: For anyone who hasn't dealt with a military recruiter, it's an interesting experience (kind of like buying a used car) - one that probably hasn't changed much since 1973... Yeah - during basic training a bunch of us compared notes and the only thing that differed was the brazenness of the lies. (It was almost amusing)... But I'm getting ahead of myself :-)
The first order of business when I got to the recruiter's office (after assuring him I had a high school diploma) was taking the military entrance exams. And (given my past performance on aptitude tests) it wasn't a huge surprise that I scored high enough to qualify for any enlisted job in the Air Force. (Note that flight crew positions required a college degree so those were not available to me.)
Aside: I distinctly remember having some kind of weird mental block on the "spatial" problems: Basically, there was an outline of a flattened shape with a bunch of fold lines and marked corners, and the question was something like "If you cut out this shape and folded it along lines T through Z would corner A be touching corner B, C or D?" ... That's normally the kind of thing I'm really good at, but for some reason my brain just didn't feel like dealing with it that morning... I ended up scoring an 85 on that section which was still high enough to qualify for any job, but it wasn't as high as the other sections.
The recruiter was really excited about my scores and told me that if I signed up for 6 years (instead of the usual 4) I could pick the exact job I wanted and I would be promoted to "Airman First Class" (2 stripes) right out of basic training. (That was actually true)... He sent me home with a stack of literature, including a booklet that described every enlisted job in the Air Force (together with the requirements, etc)... BTW: I recall being rather amused by some of the job titles, like "Protective Coating Specialist" for "painter" :-)
Over the next few weeks I spent many hours poring over that "jobs" booklet. (I no longer recall exactly how many times the recruiter called, but I'm sure it was a bunch - they're kind of persistent). I started out focusing on the aircraft maintenance jobs but I noticed that the required test scores weren't as high as I expected (60s?)... I mean - why waste high test scores on something that didn't require them, right? ...
Aside: The job that everyone wanted (including me) was repairing flight simulators. That was in the days before video games (the Atari Pong arcade machine had just been introduced) so the idea of being able to "pilot" a jet fighter simulator was about the coolest thing anyone could envision (short of flying the real thing). That's why that field had an 18 month waiting list (at least that's what my recruiter told me - it was probably true - he really wasn't as bad as most of them).
It was the electronics jobs that required the highest entrance scores (80 or higher), so I refocused on those and started looking at how long the technical training was. (I figured the longer the school the more I'd learn). And one of the longest schools at the time (9 months) was for job code "30331" aka "Air Traffic Control Radar Specialist".
Another aside: I don't think I mentioned this, but when I was in Tyler Texas in 1970 but I had dabbled in electronics a bit - rewiring my Telecaster and repairing my amp. I had also worked my way through a mail order electronics course Bernie had loaned me. I found it all rather intriguing and even looked into a local trade school (ITT tech?) but nothing ever became of it...
So it came to pass that around mid-February of 1973 I decided to sign up for 6 years with the guaranteed job of ATC radar repairman... At the time it seemed like a leap into the unknown (a rather frightening one), but it ended up being one of the most important life-changing decisions I've ever made - second only to proposing to the woman I've been married to for the past 38 years :-)
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Turning Point
Mom, Karina and I spent Christmas eve in 1972 visiting the family of a woman that mom was "counseling". She was in her mid 20s (quite pretty), had a 5 year old son and was married to a much older man. The issue was that she had gone back to college and was surrounded by guys her own age and that was causing marital problems... They were a very nice couple and I have no idea how that story turned out - and it doesn't really matter (in the context of my blog, that is). I guess the point is that when you mom is a "psychic counselor" you tend to be surrounded by "reality impaired" people who have lots of drama in their lives :-)
Aside: When I was little and I saw adults going through "drama" I could never figure out what the deal was, and when I asked about it they would always tell me that when I got older I would understand... Well, I'm 59 years old now and I still don't have a clue what it's about. Whenever I see people go through "dramatic episodes" I still feel like a little kid who is just too young to "get it"... I mean, I just don't see how it accomplishes anything... But I digress :-)
As the sun rose on those first few days of 1973 I found myself in a state of mind that's hard to describe. I was not exactly unhappy - just discouraged... And although I was content with my life, I was far from satisfied... I was tired of "going with the flow" and felt I needed to gain some level of control. I just didn't know how to do it...
I'd already concluded that I'd never make it as a rock guitarist (which was the only thing I'd ever put any effort into) and I'd pretty much stopped trying to find a job - I just couldn't handle any more rejection. (I took it way too personally.)
And the hardest part to explain is why I woke up one morning in mid-January and headed to the local Air Force recruiter's office.
Anyone who has paid attention to my past 300 posts knows that I'd spent my entire life up to that point avoiding pain, discomfort and effort... Seriously! ... "Avoidance" was at the very core of my existence :-) That made military service a truly unlikely choice indeed.
I wish I could say that the desire to serve my country was one of the factors but it really wasn't. As a matter of fact (much to my surprise) only 1 of the 50 men I went through basic training with exhibited any level of patriotic zeal. Yes - apparently all those folks who gushed about patriotic duty during Vietnam believed that someone else should be doing the fighting (that was the whole point of "Fortunate Son" by Credence Clearwater Revival).
I also considered the fact that my uncle (mom's brother) had been among the most heavily decorated Austro-Hungarian WWI veterans and that my dad had been a WWII fighter pilot - so service was definitely "in my blood" on both sides. And I actually thought quite a bit about what that ex-Marine Vietnam vet in college told me: If you don't serve, your opinions about military matters don't count.
But to be honest, my main considerations were a roof over my head, 3 meals a day, medical and dental care (which I'd had very little of as a teen), career training, and (if I so desired) the GI Bill to pay for college afterward...
And most importantly, it would finally get me off the "crazy train" :-)
Aside: When I was little and I saw adults going through "drama" I could never figure out what the deal was, and when I asked about it they would always tell me that when I got older I would understand... Well, I'm 59 years old now and I still don't have a clue what it's about. Whenever I see people go through "dramatic episodes" I still feel like a little kid who is just too young to "get it"... I mean, I just don't see how it accomplishes anything... But I digress :-)
As the sun rose on those first few days of 1973 I found myself in a state of mind that's hard to describe. I was not exactly unhappy - just discouraged... And although I was content with my life, I was far from satisfied... I was tired of "going with the flow" and felt I needed to gain some level of control. I just didn't know how to do it...
I'd already concluded that I'd never make it as a rock guitarist (which was the only thing I'd ever put any effort into) and I'd pretty much stopped trying to find a job - I just couldn't handle any more rejection. (I took it way too personally.)
And the hardest part to explain is why I woke up one morning in mid-January and headed to the local Air Force recruiter's office.
Anyone who has paid attention to my past 300 posts knows that I'd spent my entire life up to that point avoiding pain, discomfort and effort... Seriously! ... "Avoidance" was at the very core of my existence :-) That made military service a truly unlikely choice indeed.
I wish I could say that the desire to serve my country was one of the factors but it really wasn't. As a matter of fact (much to my surprise) only 1 of the 50 men I went through basic training with exhibited any level of patriotic zeal. Yes - apparently all those folks who gushed about patriotic duty during Vietnam believed that someone else should be doing the fighting (that was the whole point of "Fortunate Son" by Credence Clearwater Revival).
I also considered the fact that my uncle (mom's brother) had been among the most heavily decorated Austro-Hungarian WWI veterans and that my dad had been a WWII fighter pilot - so service was definitely "in my blood" on both sides. And I actually thought quite a bit about what that ex-Marine Vietnam vet in college told me: If you don't serve, your opinions about military matters don't count.
But to be honest, my main considerations were a roof over my head, 3 meals a day, medical and dental care (which I'd had very little of as a teen), career training, and (if I so desired) the GI Bill to pay for college afterward...
And most importantly, it would finally get me off the "crazy train" :-)
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