War Story

Dunno if you’ve been following it or not, Gentle Reader, but Blog-Buddy Mushy has been posting a series of reminisces about his life as a Security Policeman in the USAF back in The Good Ol’ Days, which would be circa 1964 (or so) and onwards. It’s good stuff, especially if you happened to be in the service during that time…and even if you weren’t.

While Mushy and I have a couple of things in common… to wit, the time period during which we served and Keesler AFB (he was permanent party, I was a student in radar school)… Mushy has a much better memory than I do when it comes to remembering people, places and things in the waaay-back. I’m not sure why my memory is… uh…less than sharp, but I strongly suspect it has something a lot to do with what I will euphemistically describe as “bad habits” in my past lives. Highly entertaining bad habits, but bad nonetheless. But I digress.

I went into the Air Force in 1963, a scant 18 years after the end of Big Bang II. So, it stands to reason there were still more than a few career types on board who had served in WW II. Like every general and colonel in the Air Force at that time, most lieutenant colonels, and quite a few majors as well. Not to mention the guys in the senior NCO ranks. And there was also another phenomenon one ran into once in a while in those days: former officers who had been RIF’ed into the enlisted ranks.

The late 50s and early 60s were hard times, relatively speaking, for the military. The Air Force had gone through some pretty serious personnel Reductions In Force (RIF) prior to the Vietnam build-up. As I recall, officers who were tagged for involuntary separation as a result of a RIF action and had 16 years (or more) service were offered the “option” of enlisting as E4 and continuing on active duty until they reached that magic 20 year point, at which time they could retire at the “highest grade held,” which was usually captain or major. In other cases, officers on the RIF list who had held a prior enlisted grade higher than E4 before being commissioned were allowed to “revert” to that grade and continue on until they hit 20.

The first First Sergeant I ever had was in the last category. He was the First Sergeant of the 3383^rd School Squadron at Keesler AFB and was one of the sharpest looking NCOs I had ever seen, bar none. He was a distinguished looking Master Sergeant with white hair and ramrod straight posture that made him look like he was on the parade ground even while just walking from his car to the squadron orderly room. And I never, ever saw the man in anything but his Class A silver-tans (pic on the left), a uniform that was being phased out but was still “optional” at that time. My First Sergeant also had a chest full of ribbons on his Class As as well, more than any other man in uniform I’d ever seen up close and personal at that point in my very brief career. And that impressive collection of ribbons was topped by something highly unusual for a noncom: command pilot wings.

Keep in mind, Gentle Reader, I was but a jeep airman with one-stripe on my sleeve and all of perhaps three months in the service. But, being fresh out of basic with a head full of force-fed, drilled-in military history, customs, and courtesies (and having acquired some beneficial military knowledge as an Air Force brat), I knew sergeants didn’t fly airplanes. (As a general rule—there were exceptions.) And, believe me, back in that day a one-striper student airman just didn’t walk up to a Master Sergeant and say “Hey Sarge! What’s the story on the wings?” Not if he wanted body and soul to stay joined. Or unless he had some sort of unnatural desire for hours upon hours of extra duty. Nope, you stayed out of those guys’ way, period. You tried your best to be invisible.

Still, I was curious. So I brought it up with my Red Rope…a student leader… who brought it up with the Yellow Rope, and so on. Let’s take a minor digression here. About “Ropes.”

USAF technical schools are also military training environments, with the usual marching, drill, KP, parades, inspections, and the like. Many hundreds of trainees are assigned to individual school squadrons on a given training base, squadrons whose sole purpose in life is to move these students through the “pipeline” as quickly and efficiently as possible, while maintaining military discipline.

The personnel complement in a school squadron is divided between the students (transients) and “permanent party,” guys who are on three year (average) tours at that base. The permanent party organization in a school squadron basically consists of a commander (usually a lieutenant or junior captain), a first sergeant, an admin function, and a Military Training function, staffed by two Military Training Instructors (MTIs— usually staff or technical sergeants)…professional drill sergeants, in other words.

The MTIs are the guys who are actually in charge of the troops, and they have a cadre of student leaders working for them. Each squadron is organized into three shifts…A, B, and C. Each shift is led by a White Rope, and is organized into smaller sub-units of about 40 men, led by a Yellow Rope. And those sub-units go down to the lowest element of about ten men, led by a Red Rope. Ropes were students and were almost always Airmen Second Class, or two-stripers. Their authority was limited, but it was authority…and Ropes had small perks and privileges, one of which was exemption from actual physical labor…they “supervised.” Rather long digression, eh?

So. Back to my First Sergeant. It turned out, the story went, that this guy was indeed a command pilot and a former major who had flown B-17s in WW II. He had been caught up in a RIF action a couple of years before and reverted to his old rank of Master Sergeant, which he had held before being selected for pilot training during WW II. It was said he had one year to go before he retired. We, my Red Rope and myself, had this story passed down to us from the senior Ropes, who got it from the MTIs, who worshipped the First Sergeant. As a matter of fact, the story had it that our First Sergeant wielded more power… not just in our squadron, but on the base itself… and knew more people than any collection of six student squadron commanders. That story wasn’t particularly hard to believe. One would assume “the network” remains intact, even if your status changes. These sorts of bonds are strong, Gentle Reader, in ways you cannot imagine.

I wish I could have gotten to know that First Sergeant, whose name I cannot recall. But times were different then. The military has a strong caste system although it’s gotten kindler and gentler, especially in the Air Force, over the years. Back in 1963 it was unthinkable for a one-striper to engage a senior NCO in casual conversation, especially conversation of a personal nature. And speaking of that caste system… ponder, if you will, Gentle Reader, what it must have meant for my First Sergeant to go to work one day as a major and then go back to work the following day as a Master Sergeant. Granted, one wouldn’t remain in the same unit, or even on the same base. Such a transition in status was always softened by a change in physical assignment. Still and even, it had to be hard. I’ll bet my First Sergeant had some great war stories in that space. Many and varied, too.

Consider also what it must have been like for those other unfortunates who were RIFed and had no higher enlisted rank to return to. Those guys went to being E4s… Airman First Class at the time… a grade that didn’t have NCO status. Now those guys had it hard, comparatively speaking. But in the end they laughed all the way to the bank…their retirement checks contained substantially more money than any sergeant’s. I’m sure it was worth the price they paid.