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...