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...