Marching

I figure I spent roughly 200 hours marching back and forth across Keelser AFB during 1973, and there's one thing about it that's driving me absolutely nuts: I cannot recall how I carried everything to and from school... It wasn't a trivial amount of stuff either. We're talking about all my books plus an extra set of fatigues and a raincoat (in case of sudden downpours)... I mean - it's hard to march while holding a bag in your hand so we probably had some sort of backpack, but for the life of me I don't have the slightest recollection of it... I've been trying to dredge up any memory for days now - and nada... But that's not the point of this post :-)

Three times a day all the students in the squadron who were on the same shift going to the same Hall would form up on Falcon Street and march off. (The Allee Hall formation left earlier than Cody Hall because it was further away.) The formations tended to be large (6 columns wide) and were arranged by height, so every Monday when new students arrived to take the place of the ones who graduated the previous Friday we'd play the "who is taller?" game until we got it all sorted out... As I recall, there were a few "old timers" who wouldn't move from their usual spot so the ordering ended up being inexact, but I don't think anyone really noticed...

The student leader in charge of the marching formation was known as a "yellow rope" because (oddly enough) he wore a yellow colored rope loop on his left shoulder. There were also green ropes who were bay leaders, and red ropes were in charge of a shift - or a squadron  - or something. (I was never quite sure about them.)

Aside: For the life of me I could not understand why anyone volunteered to be a rope... The TIs always insisted that it would look good on your "permanent record" - but think about it:
Enlisted members of the Air Force are basically technicians. Do you think you can "manage" aircraft mechanics (for example) by yelling "Get out there and fix that plane!"??. Yeah sounds kind of silly, doesn't it... My point is that just because you can make sure the latrine gets cleaned doesn't mean you can coordinate a complex maintenance operation - it's a totally different skill set (and everyone in the "real" Air Force knows that)... Of course, it's been many years since I left the military so things may have changed, but back in my day admitting that you had been a rope in tech school earned you nothing but derision... And I digress.

I was on "A" shift for radar school and it was usually quite dark out when we headed off to Cody Hall in the morning (5 AM?) so we carried a black flashlight with a yellow cone on the lighted end (for visibility) in our left hand. And sometimes when we were about to do a "left turn" the guys in the left column would blink their flashlights off and on like a turn signal... Yeah - it was amusing at the time but only because of how bored we were... Sigh... I can't believe that I remember those stupid flashlights so well, but a bag or a backpack? Nothing...

Now - about that raincoat and spare uniform... I have never experienced anything like the downpours on the Gulf Coast... I specifically remember one morning when a storm hit while we were on our way to school. We were already wearing our raincoats but we might as well have not bothered. There was so much water coming from so many directions that within 30 seconds my uniform was soaked just from what was running down my collar. And a short time later I realized that every time I took a step there was water gushing out of the top of my combat boots... Yeah - we're talking "inches per minute" here ... but at least it was a warm rain :-)

The "highlight" of our day (from a marching standpoint) was "passing in review" (near the flight-line) during the noon shift change. First the B shift students passed on their way to school, then the A shift students on their way back to the dorms. The drum corps (when present) would repeat the same 4 bar pattern the entire time (I will never forget it), and as we approached the stand we'd fall into step with the drumbeat, the yellow rope would call "eyes right" (or left, depending on the direction) and then he'd salute the officer(s) on the stand... Yeah - real exciting stuff :-) And that leads to a story in 3 parts:

There was an airman from Seattle named Simms who was my yellow rope when I was at Allee Hall. He had grown up in a predominantly white neighborhood and if you talked to him on the phone you would have never guessed he was African American... So - one day we were on our way to the chow hall and I noticed that whenever we were within earshot of any other black airmen he would drift into "ebonics"... I remember thinking "Seriously?" - then it dawned on me that he was stuck between two worlds with different expectations and was trying really hard to fit into both, which must have been really tough... End of part 1.

As a yellow rope, Simms was a lot of fun to mess with. One of our favorite stunts was for the airmen at the front of the columns in the formation to do a "change step" and / or randomly alter their pace while he wasn't looking. Within a few seconds it would be total chaos (everyone bouncing up and down out of sync) and Simms would turn around and be like "What the hell just happened?" and he'd have to call cadence until we got back in step... Yes - we were actually that bored... End of part 2.

Shortly after Simms and I completed  Basic Electronics at Allee Hall (on B shift) he was given the job of yellow rope for the A shift formation to Cody Hall, but that only lasted for one day:
As I mentioned before, the "passing in review" ritual happened during the A/B shift change, and on B shift the stand had always been on his right, but on A shift we were heading the opposite direction so the stand was on his left... Earlier in the day Simms had mentioned being worried about mistakenly calling "eyes right" (as he had always done on B shift). That would be "bad" because our squadron commander was on the stand that day. So as we approached he made absolutely certain to call "Eyes left!" and then saluted... That's when we heard our commander's voice say "Wrong hand, Simms!" ... Yeah - he had been so focused on not screwing up the call that he inadvertently saluted with his left hand... And he lost his yellow rope that afternoon...

So - five days a week thousands of students would march to and from school at Keesler - formation after formation - close to 100 airmen each - all in perfect step - as far as the eye could see... The whole thing was pretty impressive, actually... And of no real value whatsoever.

Yes - I did stand in formation a few times after I left Keesler. (A couple of flag ceremonies and that one time when a "shake and bake" 2nd lieutenant decided we needed to be "inspected")... But I never marched another step again.