AIR POLICE TRAINING – BECOMING A SKY COP

On the appointed day of transition, a bus picked me up and took me to the opposite side of Lackland, to older barracks and Flights of marching troops in more fitted fatigues and highly polished boots. “This must be the “real” Air Force,” I thought as I peered out at my future.

Woody and Tom had been gone for over two days now and an even more lonely feeling crept through my stomach as I stood and walked off the bus. I cannot remember how I knew where to go or how I got signed into the Air Police Tech School, but I ended up in a room with two sets of bunk beds on opposite walls, four wall closets and drawers on another, and a row of large paned windows on another.

This is where I met Frank Boyce, a tall slender young man about twenty-three, from “up state Mississippi”, as he was known to say, especially to those that bragged about being from “up state New York!” He was pure southern breed, with a deep sense of tradition and he did not attempt to hide his dislike of the black or “Yankee” troops around him.

Frank was college educated and had washed out of Officer Training School (OCS) and, as a reward, assigned to spend his four-year enlistment as a lowly “sky cop.” Frank, as would be expected, hated the “stupidity” of the military mentality, but had long since resigned himself to ride it out and then get on with his life.

Frank, for some reason, out of pity I suppose, took me under his wing and over the next two and a half years, I learned a lot about how to function in an adult world – how to order food, fancy drinks, and even to assert myself in the world around me. Frank learned all this from being away from home since age eighteen attending college, and was more than willing to share his experiences with a “country bumpkin” like me.

I only remember one other of my new bunk mates; he was Frank Gordon (too many Franks, but worlds apart) from Marietta, Georgia. I remember the Franks from photos and experiences we had in “tech school”, later at Keesler, and finally in Vietnam. I once tracked Boyce down by phone, living in Nashville, but apparently, he had some live threatening disease at the time and did not want to talk to me. I was a little hurt, having always thought so much of him, but life goes on. He was a true friend then and I miss him to this day.

Life in “tech school” was not much different from basic. There was still the necessity of cleaning the barracks for inspections, pulling KP duty, marching, firing range visits, physical exercising, and classroom instruction. However, everything had a more focused purpose in training you to be a military “cop!”

Some of the duties included cleaning the K-9 kennels, the study of military and civil law, the tactics of crowd control, law enforcement techniques, aircraft security guard responsibilities, and the terrifying judo training.

We all hated judo training with a “purple passion,” but did not dare voice any complaints. The two hours a day we spent were the longest hours of the day, spent in pure fear, often terror, of the instructors, who seemed to be there not to teach, but to inflict pain for their own amusement.

There was a least one broken arm while I was there, and a rumor of a leg being broken in the previous training Flight. You had to stay alert and watch the instructors without being seen looking!

Usually there is a ring formed around an area cushioned by blue exercise pads, with the center used for demonstrations. Circling the ring are three to four other instructors, wearing their professional looking gees, who watched your every move – get caught looking away from the demonstration, or at one of them, and your legs were immediately knocked out from under you! It must be the kind of anxiety animals on the plains feel as lions or wolves circle looking for the weakest. Pure fear enveloped each of us until that class ended.

You just lay there helpless, hurting, and embarrassed as the instructor, with his foot on your chest screamed, “You bett'a keep yo' eyes focused Airman! Do you understand?” Everyone looked straight ahead in empathy!

Once the demo is completed, you choose a partner and the two of you begin practicing the demonstrated move, repeatedly, until the instructors feel, you both are performing it properly. Do it wrong, do not apply enough torque, or pressure to a hold or throw, you then become the hapless dummy of demonstration – tossed about like a killer whale toying with a helpless seal.

Suffice it to say, I hated judo training, but I became pretty accomplished at it nonetheless.

The best part of Air Police Technical Training came along about the beginning of the third week, the instilment of pride in yourself, your appearance, the Air Force, and the pride of being a military policeman. Everyone begins to walk, talk, and look like a military person. The laundry shops in the area cater to troops wanting form-fitting uniforms. Everything in your wardrobe is tapered, press pelted, and starched. Your dress shoes and combat boots are highly “spit-shined.”

You spend hours melting your shoe polish, adding a little alcohol, and applying it hot with a cotton ball dipped in water (or spit) to your shoes, hat brim, belt, baton (billy club) holder, and .45 holster. You rub for hours in tight little clock-wise circles until layer upon layer of polish builds into a high-gloss shine – good enough to see your reflection!

When you wear the uniform of an Air Policeman, you strut, showing the world your confidence and pride. Even today, people tell me that I walk proudly, shoulders back (at least until my recent shoulder operations), and this could only come from my military police training.

I learned to enjoy the military during this time, often going to the Airmen’s Club with friends for 3.2 beer (4% or less alcohol), cigarettes, and often a “Tom Collins” a drink made of gin that Frank Boyce introduced me to as being “sophisticated.” “Something a southern gentleman would have,” he would say. We would have many more “Tom Collins” after our assignment to Keesler AFB, Mississippi!

However, I must first go back to dreamland, back to Harriman for a mandatory thirty-day leave!

EXPLANATION OF BASIC TRAINING - BY BRUNO

Now that I've finished my Basic Training episodes, you must read Bruno's explanation of the harsh realities of military training - CLICK HERE NOW!

AIR FORCE BASIC TRAINING – FIRST ASSIGNMENT (Part 5 of 5)

The last two weeks moved on at a snail’s pace, or as I’ve described like being on a turtle’s back. However, these last two weeks were the most enjoyable, if you can find any joy in basic training.

The DI’s begin to treat us with a little respect and us them. There are quiet moments of rest, in our dayroom where they answered questions about their careers and about what we were to expect after leaving Lackland. I found that my anxiety level again rose, wondering where I would be stationed next and what I would be trained to do.

When I first took the test at the recruiter’s office in Harriman, I had every intention of being in the medical field, specifically “paramedics” – do not ask me why. I just thought I would like working in a hospital when I got out and drawing blood from patients and then performing all the required tests to determine their various illnesses.

After the test came back, the “General Field”, which included medics, cooks, and air police, came out slightly higher than the Electronics and Mechanical Fields. So, that is what I signed up for, not realizing that specifically getting a medical assignment was not a guaranteed thing!

The last weeks moved on with more M1, class, and obstacle course training, but all the time my next duty assignment was foremost on my mind.

I scored “expert” with the M1 and thoroughly enjoyed the classes on firing disciple and the mechanics of the weapon. The most fun was sitting beneath the targets downrange and listening the sonic pops the .30 caliber rounds made above my head before sinking themselves into the dirt breams, pulling the targets down, marking the hits, and pushing them back into view again. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed and I frequent a range in Oak Ridge, not as much as I would like, just for the experience. To me, it is almost as exciting as the actual live firing!

Then there was the obstacle course, which is nothing like the Army or Marines I’m sure, but tough nonetheless. There is the expected full-out run over logs, through creeks, under logs, through mud holes, and the tougher crawl over logs, swinging from ropes, climbing walls, jump off walls, and completely exhausting and pushing your body to the max as a DI screams insults in your ear and in your face!

I remember that we were all told to run into the “tear gas” shack, make a left, and straight out the other side. However, as my line approached the canvas flap that covered the doorway, I could see briefly inside and I saw daylight straight through and almost laughed as a guy a few steps in from of us make the instructed left and go down. You could hear him behind the canvas begin to cough and yell “I can’t see!”

The line I was in was halted as a DI near the door, wearing a gas mask, reached in and pulled the spitting and sputtering Airman outside and down on the ground. They then waved us forward and apparently the guys just in front of me saw the same thing I did. We all ran straight through the canvas and straight out the opposite side of the gas filled shack! We had no problems holding our breath that long and were soon on our way down the course to the finish.

With this last flurry of action, “Order Day” came soon enough and the DI’s called us into the dayroom. They began by telling us what a pleasure it had been to train us and that they wished us well. “Yeah, yeah, get on with the lottery,” we all thought!

We all sat on the floor, legs crossed with our feet in front of us, and our elbows propped upon our knees, and our hands on each side of our faces like kids waiting for the presents to be handed out. It was a sinking feeling to realize the military had your life in their hands and there was nothing you could do to change their decision.

Names were called and next duty assignments, or tech schools, were read with running plus and minus commentary from the DIs. “Oh, Dawson, you are going to freeze your ass off in Minot!” or “Johnson, you lucky bastard, you’re going to Florida!”

For the most part, as each Airman’s orders were read, there were happy sounds and smiles, but for some there was shock and disappointment.

Most of the orders began, “…first you will go home for 10 (some as much as 30) days leave, then you will report to such-and-such-airbase for 10 to 18 weeks job specific technical school training.” Wow, I don’t think I realized you got to go home before being trained. I couldn’t wait for my name to be called.

“Woody!”

“Yes sir?”

“You will go home for 30 days leave, and then you’ll report to Keesler AFB in Biloxi, Mississippi where you will train for 18 weeks for ‘air traffic control’ duty.”

“Thank YOU sir,” Woody nearly shouted as he looked satisfied into my eyes thinking about home!

Some thought of Woody and I getting to enjoy circling The Beacon one more time together fluttered through mine. It was going to be too cool! We would be wearing our dress blues and looking fine!

“Mushy!”

“Sir?”

“Oh hell,” he said without finishing, but instead addressed the group, “Mushy is going to be a damn sky cop!” Everyone looked at me with that “first day of school” look and then laughed.

My heart, hopes, and dignity all sank to the floor and tried to crawl up under the dayroom couch, but they were now all too bloody and bare to hide.

“Mushy (not his real name), you will stay here at Lackland, transfer over to the Air Police Training School, and complete a 6 week (now 13 weeks) training course, after which you will be reassigned to a permanent party station somewhere in the world.”

“I, I don’t get to go home sir?”

“Oh, not until after you receive your next orders, and before reporting to your next station, I’m sure you’ll get a 30 day leave then.” He looked around and closed the session with, “Any other questions from anyone?”

The excited buzz continued as I walked back, head down, to my bunk and thoroughly read my orders over and over looking for a loop hole. “Damn…I hate this place!”

Woody and Tom came by my bunk and said “tough break” but could not contain their excitement. Who could blame them – they were going home.

I did not see Tom Hall again until years after our tour of duty ended. However, I would see Woody again 8 to 10 weeks later at Keesler.

I sat and sulked for some time thinking, “No Pararescue for me now…I’m going to be a dumb cop…a cop…what the hell?”

As it turned out, with Vietnam in my future, and the life expectancy of a helicopter rescue crew and all, it was a blessing I did not fully understand until 3 years later.

Next, 6 more weeks of hell!

AIR FORCE BASIC TRAINING – LEARNING TO RELAX (Part 4 or 5)

The DI’s pushed us hard for about three weeks without giving the slightest indication they were human. They gave the appearance of being driven, “gung-ho”, and having been born from the womb of the military. Except for us seeing their wives occasionally, as we stood embarrassed in our skivvies, there was no indication they cared about anything other than the military.

However, one day, after an exceptionally long “double time” back from the firing range, we suddenly were shocked by “Lit’em up if you got’em!”

Hell, most of us had long since stopped carrying any cigarettes on us with the hopes of enjoying one at some rest point. There were two or three guys that did have a pack on them and they were quickly passing them out to us bummers!

If I had any since then, I should have never started back. It had been over three weeks since my last and the first puff sent me into a nicotine high that almost brought me to me knees! Still, I puffed the damn thing and ignored the rolling of my stomach. From that point on, we all carried our smokes and many, like me, continued to smoke for over twenty years!

Sometime after the fourth week, we were given a pass to visit San Antonio. It was scary and exciting all at once. I had never visited a strange city on my own, but the rumored possibilities of hooking up with some babe in town overwhelmed any fears of the unknown.

Traveling into town, dressed in our sharply pressed 1505 khakis, with a bus load of other Airmen squelched the “being alone fears” and gave you a since of bravery and need for adventure. However, most of us just walked the streets, avoiding the “strip bars” like the plague, and just sightseeing.

Along the way were dozens of Latino boys hawking their cheap wears, offering shoe shines, which we bought, and generally begging for handouts.

There were even those offering sex for money which scared the crap out of most of us young gringos! “Hey buddy, you wont gurl,” one asked in his heavy Mexican accent?

We all replied in unison, remembering the horrifying sex education films we had seen just a week earlier, “No thanks!”

“Well, how ‘bout a vurgen?”

“No thanks…we’ll pass.”

“How ‘bout me sester…she’s a vurgen!”

Again we said no thanks, but this time we gave it a couple of seconds thought before answering!

“Well,” the frustrated kid responded for the last time, “how ‘bout my grandmuther…She’s a vurgen!”

We had never stopped walking during this exchange and thankfully he gave up at some point and went back up the street looking for his next victim or customer.

As I look back on this, I do not remember even having a single beer on town leave. What was I thinking? Maybe it was “stay sober” and “stay out of trouble,” who knows!

Suddenly we realized we were standing in front of the Alamo…a sacred place to a Tennessean – David Crockett and all!

I looked around, not realizing that the surrounding building foundations were once where the outer walls stood, disappointed in what I was seeing. This cannot be where those brave men stood off 5,000 Mexican troops…too little!

Once inside, the vision of what I thought the Alamo should look like was again dashed against the stone walls of the tiny little building. It was years before I realized the true story, scope, and arrangement of the buildings and walls.

Still, it was the Alamo and I was there standing in history and in uniform myself. I played over scenes from the Disney movie called “King of the Wild Frontier”, staring Fess Parker, in my mine and soaked up the real-life scene before me. The Alamo was featured in the third and final part of the TV movie. It was a proud moment for me to be there, even though it was not anything like the movie set, but I will never forget it.

But then it was time to meet the bus and return to Lackland…no more time for sightseeing, “vurgens”, or history. It was the last time I would leave the base until after I finished two more weeks of basic training and the six weeks of Air Police Tech School heading home on “thirty-day leave.”

However, there was much more to come before that happened.

AIR FORCE BASIC TRAINING – THE SLACKERS (Part 3 of 5)

Somewhere within any work situation, you will find “slackers”, people who try to get by with as little effort as possible. Sometimes, they try to get out of the work altogether. The military is no exception!

Slacker number 1 - The flight returned from the firing range about midday about 3 weeks into training and got no response at the barracks door. Wondering what the holdup was, the DI pushed his way up the stairs to the entrance door, banged heavily at the door, and yelled for “Barracks Guard!” There was no answer and no one could be seen through the little 10-inch pane of reinforced glass.

The DI yelled down to one of his assistants and the guy ran off toward the Orderly Room where the First Sergeant of area had his office. Soon the DI’s assistant returned and handed the door key to the DI.

The DI entered our barracks area and made a motioned that told the rest of us to be quiet and wait in place while he checked out the situation.

Soon the DI came out and told us to follow him in but that if anyone made a noise he would have his ass. Therefore, we tiptoed, following his lead, back through the barracks to the rear emergency door.

There, slumped in a metal folding chair, was the Airman from Oak Ridge (I cannot remember his name) who had arrived with Woody, Tom, and me. At first glance, I thought something horrible had happened to him and my throat tightened.

The DI motioned for us to ring the chair quietly and we did as he instructed. That was when it hit me that the Airman was just asleep…asleep on duty – my stomach turned over!

When everyone was in place, the DI kicked the chair as hard as he could and yelled, “Airman, what the hell are you doing?”

The poor guy caught himself before falling to the floor, then settled back and looked red-eyed around the room. It was obvious he was very embarrassed, but could not prevent the corners of his mouth to begin a smile.

The DI yelled at him for a long time while we all stood by frightened for him. We were waiting to see the DI kill him right before us - it never happened. Instead, he screamed “Attention,” causing the Airman to jerk into position fighting for control over his nervous muscles.

Long story short, the Airman was marched out of the barracks and over to the First Sergeant’s office.

Later we found out that the troop was “sat back” 3 weeks, all the way to the beginning of basic training. He would have to endue his first 3 weeks of basic all over again with a new class or rainbows. I could not imagine how that must have felt and I resolved to try even harder to stay out of trouble.

Then there was slacker number 2. His transgression we handled our selves!

G.I. parties involved coordinated teamwork, work the Flight Leader was responsible for and answered directly to DI if not done properly.

The party consisted of different groups of trainees being responsible for specific areas of the barracks. Some took the latrine, others the dayroom, while others took on the entire tiled barracks floor. The latter was my group, and a job I preferred over the latrine, but it was still hard work.

First, we moved all the bunks to one side, swept, and mopped that side, before applying a wax that required buffing out. As I have said before, we had no electric buffer, so one or two guys pulled around on G.I. blankets substituted. One side being done, the process began on the opposite side.

I might mention that there were two sides of the barracks, each a long expanse of floor with two rows of bunks mirroring the opposite side of the wall that separated and split the barracks area. Therefore, what was happening on one side of the divider was also happening simultaneously on the other by another group. All this is to point out that there was a lot of work going on with Airmen running everywhere at top speed.

As my side was finishing one-half of its side, we notice a guy lying across his bunk, obviously asleep! “What the hell,” someone said aloud?

The Flight Leader looked over and became furious, knowing it was his ass on the line. However, instead of yelling, he decided to teach the troop a lesson.

About six of us circled the bunk, reached down, got a grip, and then hoisted the bunk above our heads, forcing the bunk, and thus the troop’s face, directly under a large bright florescent light bank. At that point, the Flight Leader yelled “FIRE!”

The troop panicked and jumped to his feet in mid-air and crashed to the hard floor below!

We dumped his bunk upside down and laughed at the startled and how hurting slacker who lay looking up at us puzzled.

That guy never slacked again and I’m sure slept with at least one eye open for the next couple of nights.

This was actually a very mild group message. I heard of some flights that dished out “blanket parties” where the slacker or screw-up was ambushed, rolled up in a blanket, and beaten almost unconscious! One guy was even killed after either blindly stumbling or being pushed down a flight of stairs during a “blanket party.”

When the whole group pays for the transgression of a single member, the group takes things into their own hands.

AIR FORCE BASIC TRAINING – LEARNING THE ROPES (Part 2 of 5)

It is strange how those days crept along, like riding on the back of a turtle desperate to get somewhere but you can not get off and run. The evenings after returning to the confines of the barracks exhausted from marching drills, PT, or sitting in classrooms learning military discipline, the basics of disassembling and reassembling the M1 carbine, were themselves hell.

Hours are spent polishing the title floors by hand and dragging someone around on a G. I. blanket as a makeshift buffer. Constantly dusting and straightening everything in your area, or taking your turn on latrine duty and wiping down all the surfaces, including the floors are exhausting. All the while your legs shake and your arms hurt from the PT and constant marching. Of course, you just have to ignore the blisters on your feet from the new stiff brogans you were given the day you arrived.

In the first hours of working together doing the necessary barracks work, something strange happens. You start looking to others for leadership and for the little rewards you used to get from parents, friends, or employers. A leader emerges even though they wish they had never been given the respect.

Soon the DI picks up on those you look to when he is not around and assigns them the duties of being the Flight Leader, or Barracks Chief. The reward for this is a little red banner they wear on their right arm. Whenever the DI is going to be away, the Flight Leader is in charge and responsible for anything and everything that happens. It’s his ass that gets chewed if the Flight screws up or if he finds dust anywhere on “his” floor! Sometimes you go through a couple of Flight Leaders before a proper leader is found. Those that fail are forever targets of the DI’s rath.

The DI did not live in the barracks with us as you see in the movies. He went home to his cozy home and loving wife and family and left us from 5PM until “zero five thirty-five hours” the next morning.

During his absence we guarded the front door, swept, mopped, waxed, and buffed the entire barracks, cleaned the dayroom, the stairwell, and the latrine. After a few days of having to clean everything, you learn to clean up your own messes instead of having to do it on cleanup detail.

Therefore, this cleanliness stays with you the rest of you life. You get up, make up your bed, put everything either into the dirty clothes hamper, the closet, or wear it, but it does not lay around cluttering up your world. You shower, shave, and brush your teeth, then you wipe down the sink and shower as clean as before you started. It’s just what you learn and you never forget, or even think about – you just do it!

If you had guard duty, you stood by the front entrance wearing a web-belt, a white hardhat, had a whistle, and a flashlight. As you stood, you memorized your Air Force articles, your flight and Wing name and numbers, and military chain of command, and the barracks rules. You do it out of fear, because at any moment the DI, or one of his cronies, might began bashing on the door with their fists and demanding to be let inside. You know you can’t unless they respond with the proper badge and password, but some let them in from pure intimidation and they get their butts chewed on for what seems like hours!

All the while you cower in your corner and never look up from your work, or out from under your cover. The “boggy man” is chewing on someone besides you and you are so pleased. It’s like the herd mentality – as long as the lion is eating someone else, I’m fine.

Once inside, they drill you from the material you are supposed to have memorized, but, more often than not, you can’t remember because of the pure fear that envelops you as he is yelling, spit flying in your face, at you at the top of his lungs.

Then there are those midnight fire drills where you are rushed out of the barracks in just your shorts and t-shirts, while the DI’s wives sit in their cars smiling and giggling at all the half-dressed recruits.

However, this is just the routine you settle into for the next 6 weeks. After you have been yelled at, had your head shaved, air gun shots pressed into both arms, and double timed all over Lackland Air Force Base, you are happy to have a more familiar routine. It’s like being…home…where is home?

What used to be is now for dreaming about at night, but once the dreaded “the time now is…” shocks you awake, and you are back – awaken into the present nightmare!

This is your life…you have always been here…get used to it! Up until now, you have just been dreaming – this is the real world.

AIR FORCE BASIC TRAINING – PHYSICAL TRAINING (Part 1 of 5)

The days continued to pass slowly, with a constant dread of the unknown lingering over me like a cloud full of threatening rain.

You woke in the morning terrified, not just by the blaring of “The time now is 0530 hours…” but also by the knowledge that you had minutes to hit the “head,” shit, shave, shower, and shine! There were always the long lines in front of the toilet, urinals, and sinks. “Hurry, damnit!” you shouted inside as you waited, rocking back, and forth watching every move of the guy in front of you made.

Once the four S’s were behind you, there was the bunk to be made, nice and tight with “hospital corners,” dusting off everything in your area including under the bunk, top of the displayed shoes, the little dresser area above the four drawers that held your worldly possessions, and finally inside the wall locker, and lastly the bill of your dress hat - then, and only then, could you rush down the stairs and into your formation position!

But no…not me! I had to help Woody make his bunk! Woody, Tom, and I joined on the “buddy system.” We were supposed to experience the Air Force together. The truth, as we learned, was that we would go through basic training together and then off to our separate training schools or assigned bases for On the Job Training (OJT)!

It was years later, years after our four-year tour, that I saw either Woody or Tom again!

I would finish my area then swing up under Woody’s bunk and pull the G.I. blanket tight, then re-tuck the corners. It was hectic waiting on him, but he proved a liability to me. He had trouble marching and was always getting his ass kicked while in full step. The DI’s foot passed in front of me and I always jumped thinking it was for me!

Woody could not grasp the concept of knocking once on the DI’s door, waiting for his “Come in!” and then entering. He would knock twice or more and go right in! I shuddered at the constant “dressing down” and cussing he seemed to get. I found myself not wanting to be associated with him.

On the Physical Training (PT) Field the DIs gathered their “flights” in front of raised stands, some six to eight feet above the ground. From there they demonstrated and scrutinized your exercise efforts. There were a dozen or more “flights” of thirty to forty troops each spread out over the huge field, and the voices of the DIs echoed angrily back and forth across the field. You had to concentrate to obey only your drill sergeant’s orders, or suffer the consequences!

You were also constantly aware the DI’s eyes that were scanning your every move and you did not dare mess up the demonstrated exercise, or raise your hand to brush off a Texas sandspur. Many were the times I stealthfully dug at them under my palms with my thumbs, trying to relieve their painful stick!

There was poor old Woody, attempting to keep up with the push-up count when his knees sagged and touched the ground!

“Woody (in reality the DI screamed his last name), what the hell are you doing?”

“Nothing sir,” Woody replied between heavy breaths of air!

“If you do that one more time, I’m go’na jump off this thing right in the middle of your back! Do you understand me Airman?”

“Yes, sir!”

Woody was laboring and I was terrified for him. I did not want the DI on the ground to see me mess up too!

Before I could worry any longer, Woody suddenly yelled out, “I’m sick sir; I’m going to throw up!”

“If you throw up on my field, you’ll damn well eat it! Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir, but I can’t help it!”

“Get off my field Airman…don’t you dare throw up here…run…you’ll eat it,” the DI screamed as he pointed and yelled at the running figure!

Woody ran for the edge of the field and no one dared look.

Me, well I took the opportunity to dig out another sandspur and kept on pumping, cussing Woody all the while under my breath for bringing the DI’s wrath down on the rest of us!

LEAVING MY INNOCENCE BEHIND

I got a little out of sequence by writing about The Beacon Drive-In back in October of ’06, but it was in that piece that told how Woody and I seem to circle that place endlessly, and one night decided we would get out of that rut by joining the Air Force. That piece would chronologically follow the drag race piece and then this one.

That was the end of innocence for me. The day I decided I did not want to be a child anymore – what the hell was I thinking? Gees, I could have possibly milked that life at least another year or two, and who knows, maybe I would have become an electrician like my old man. Then, of course, I would have missed the war, never gone to college, and never known anything I know and cherish today.

Nevertheless, I chose to leave Harriman, my parents, some of my innocence, and all my youth behind me.

Imagine you are eighteen years old and far from home among strangers and some tough looking Drill Instructor (DI) and his huge black sidekick starts yelling at you during every waking hour and sometimes in your dreams. What do you do? You just look him, listen to every word he barks, and do everything he asks without questioning.

After your first two weeks in boot camp you begin the psychological state the drill sergeants work hard at provoking in your mind. You begin to think that you have always been at Lackland Air Force Base and that you have always been doing whatever you are doing at any given moment for the DI. You become totally his, putty in his hands, and you would literally charge a machine gun nest if he asked. That is the simple fact why the military takes recruits at the tender malleable age of eighteen. They would take them younger if it were constitutionally legal.

As soon as I arrived the DI told us, “I am now your momma! I am now your daddy! I am now your brother! I am now your sister! BUT, I’ll be damn if I’ll be your girlfriend!”

“Do as I say or you’ll have my foot so far up your ass you’ll have to have it surgically removed! Do you understand me?”

“Yes sir.”

“I can’t hear you!”

“YES SIR!”

That was the way if was from the first sticky August night I arrived, standing at forced stiff attention in my civilian clothes. We marched, or tried to, until the next evening in our “civvies!” This is why new recruits are called “Rainbows.” Their bright colored clothing stands out like a sore thumb beside the olive drab of the hundreds of older troops marching everywhere you look.

I arrived with about thirty-five new troops at about 1AM. Everyone was dog-tired and barely conscious from sitting around airports, flying, and riding buses since 6AM the previous morning.

We were marched into a huge building, which turned out to be an experimental barracks the Air Force was testing, and told which bunk was ours. The DI then announced at the top of his voice, “You got fifteen minutes to shit, shower, shave, and get in that bunk. Hit it! The lights go out in 14 minutes!”

Somehow the thirty-five of us made that deadline before “lights out,” but just barely. Everyone I passed, like me, had little pieces of toilet paper stuck all over their faces to stop the bleeding. When you are tired, standing five or six deep in front of a mirror, and are scared shitless, it is a wonder you do not slit your throat!

I remember waking the next morning and sitting up startled, as “The time now is zero five-thirty hours! Get up, get dressed, and get outside,” blared from the loudspeaker! I also remember that the pillow was stuck to the side of my face from the dried blood I had shed during the past four hours I was asleep!

We jumped into our clothes, pissed, brushed our teeth, splashed water on our face and ran down the stairs to the waiting DI and his assistant who were busily trying to show troops where and how to stand and wait on the others.

We left behind a bed, latrine, and barracks area in a shambles, but this was the last time we jumped out of bed as carefree as we used to do at home.

After breakfast, we double-timed over to supply and had our new wardrobe thrown into our faces, our hair shaved off, and then double-timed it back to the barracks. It was then we began learning the finer points of making hospital corners, making a bed tight enough to bounce a quarter off a foot in the air, how to properly arrange and display our clothing and toilet articles, and how to clean the latrine, all before leaving within thirty minutes of “zero five-thirty hours!”

This discipline does not just happen over night, but with a lot of screamed encouragement down the back your shirt you learned pretty quickly!

This was just the first morning and my innocence and former existence were now far behind!