From the AFA's Daily Report:
Traveling Like an Airman Should: Basic military training graduates heading from Lackland AFB, Tex., to Keesler AFB, Miss., for follow-on technical training will now arrive by chartered commercial airliner and no longer by bus as had been the practice for decades. WLOX TV 13 of Biloxi, Miss., reported that the first crop of airmen to fly in arrived Monday at Keesler and appeared happy to have been spared the 10-hour bus ride of their predecessors. A Keesler spokesman told the Daily Report on Tuesday that Keesler was the last of the Air Force's technical training bases to phase out the busses. (See also Keesler release)
Chartered flights from Lackland to Keesler? Well, lah-di-dah. I made that trip from Lackland Hell to Keesler Nirvana (by comparison) in the way-back... in October of 1963. But I went by train, which was quite pleasant given we had a six hour or so layover in N'Awlins to change trains. That was my first encounter with The Crescent City and it was MOST pleasant. We junior birdmen were under strict orders to stay in the train station for the duration of the layover and to refrain from ALL alcoholic beverages. Heh. You can imagine how much attention we paid to those instructions, especially since we were only under the supervision of the most senior among us... a BMT grad who had been awarded TWO stripes after basic because he signed a lifetime enlistment agreement or sumthin'. So... out into the streets we went, in Class A blues, and into the first of many drinking establishments. It was a sign o' the times that none among us paid for our first round of drinks and quite a few of the next rounds, as well... this being prior to the Vietnam ramp-up and the subsequent ugliness. We got gloriously inebriated but not so much as to miss our train... just pleasantly tipsy, oiled-up and happy.
I'm thinkin' those chartered flights are a whole helluva lot different than my train ride and not necessarily better, either. But I will agree flying beats being on a bus for ten hours. Ah, Today's Modern Air Force.
Today's Pic: YrHmblScrb about six months after that train ride. Keesler AFB, 1964.
Buck; Great photo. What was the deal with the headgear? Did you use a cover block and starch it?
ReplyDeleteI dig the 26 inch belt ya got there, skinny!
re: 26" belt... Yeah... I was "The Thin White Duke" back before Bowie even thought of that moniker. The headgear was a standard issue Ridgeway cap, which were ALL the rage back then. Required, too.
ReplyDeleteBitchin' shot Buck! I see you gave up cigs for cigars. Good on ya'!
ReplyDeleteKeesler, huh? 1964, huh? Well, I was 5 years old then...probably had about the same waist size. ;)
Man, when my eldest son left Lackland in JULY of 2007, we went down for his graduation. It was something like 14 degrees hotter than hell. I didn't mind, because I'm a hot weather guy...but my Momma & Daddy insisted on going with us. I thought Momma was gonna stroke out, or melt.
But I was afraid to throw water on her 'cause you know what a big bucket of water will do to a ...ooops, I'd better quit.
The AF put eldest son on a commercial (not chartered) flight to Monterey. After his housing was set up, he called for his wife (sigh) to join him.
The next day, a commercial flight ticket was in her hot miserable hands from Shreveport to Monterey. NO CHARGE. (#1 son's parents were left to pack up all of their worthless, pitiful possessions, and haul them to Monterey in a UHaul...dragging their pos car behind, btw, but I digress.)
Yep, Major Buck's AF definitely ain't his Daddy's. But, according to #1 son, the first beer is still often free. And, sometimes an appreciative citizen picks up the ticket at the cafe.
And that ain't a bad thing.
Heh. I hear ya about summertime in San Antone. I arrived at Lackland at the end of August '63, and that wasn't the most brilliant decision I ever made: opting to go through basic in September/October, when it really IS hotter than Hades there.
ReplyDeleteI flew nearly everywhere after I graduated from tech training at Keesler... including to my first assignment in Las Vegas that turned out to be in central California (but that's too long a story to get into here)... unless I chose to do otherwise.
You're a good man to have hauled all of your SN1's stuff from Loosyana to California. I don't think my Ol' Man woulda done the same for me!
Lastly... Yup, I quit ciggies three years or so ago. I still miss 'em, too, but I ain't never goin' back.
Oh yeah Buck, I know September in the south. Actually, after I posted that comment, I went back and looked. It was mid-August when #1 son gradumawated out of Lackland.
ReplyDeleteLike I said, it felt pretty good to me.
As far as being a good man for hauling Dean's junk to Cali...I was happy to do it...it meant that his wife was also out of my hair.
Dang! Is that un-Christian, or what? No need to answer. I think you've got that story figgered out by now. And, I know it's un-Christian. ;)
What Barco said, what head gear! I remember seeing them around Kirtland whilst growing up in ABQ. I visited Keelser back when my SN1 was there going to his E&I school that was like 7 or 8 years ago now. The AF as much as we (I) bust on as not being much like the Military did put that boy on the straight and narrow. It made him grow up and think like an adult. Funny, he is not a drinker though, Coke's and Pepsi's but not the Beer stuff. Ah well, can't get everything, it is the Air Force!!
ReplyDeleteBT: Jimmy T sends.
I did the bus ride in September of 72, after the hottest damned summer I ever had, only to hit Biloxi when it was 98% humidity. I was in the last open-bay barracks squadron to exist (they were torn down to build Mucous Manor). 78th Squadron if my memory is any good. The bus ride stopped half-way at a Kentucky Fried chicken stand. 60 Gomers to feed and they were ready when we stopped. I fell in love with this little black girl who was handing us bags of chicken, and she shared a smoke with me. I was too white for her likes though. She was cuter than all gettup and spoke cajun till I melted. I got a lot of grief from that as you can imagine when we got to Biloxi. I went through medic school and was sent to Panama for jungle survival and aircrew survival. My real goal was to be a paramedic but it turns out that paramedics are about 10 times tougher and meaner than I was.
ReplyDelete"Funny, he is not a drinker though, Coke's and Pepsi's but not the Beer stuff. Ah well, can't get everything, it is the Air Force!!"
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure: that might be some of the AF, but it sure as hell isn't AMMO (or most of Mx for that matter, I'm willing to wager). Of course, then we get dinged for "our culture" when some dumbass goes off and gets a DUI, but on the spectrum of old/new school, I'd rather be old and wrong than new and "right."
Re: hot weather and AF training, I can beat ya as far as location goes...Maxwell AFB, Montgomery, AL in the middle of July. Of course, it was AFROTC Field Training, so please no comments about the relative difficulties of our training, but solely commenting on the weather, it sucked (nevermind the fact that we spent half our time in an auditorium watching goddamned movies...I wish I was joking).
Nice hat...I'll see the (very) occasional airman walking around with a nicely formed ABU cover, but I usually dismiss them as these are the type of people that led to us starching and pressing the BDUs (putting CREASES into a CAMOUFLAGE uniform) and shining (!) combat boots. Shoe polish is flammable...anyone see a problem working around jets with that? The ABU, for all its faults, was designed to be wash and wear for a reason. I see no reason for the cover to be any different.
My dad had stories about the guys he met in the army while riding the bus from one base to another. I just don't think the flying will be the same.
ReplyDeleteI love the pic - men in uniform of any kind...
Holy mud!! They let 14 year olds in the service?? ;)
ReplyDeleteOne of the pictures that hangs in my office is of (Army) CO C, 1st Ordnance Training Regiment, June 1943, Aberdeen Proving Ground. And they almost all look like 14 year olds. Wish I knew their stories of how they got there.
You guys keep on telling all the stories, please. I love it.
Jimmy: They have an E&I school, as in "Engineering and Installations," at Keesler now? In my day you were simply assigned to an E&I outfit and learned the installation trade on the job (I'm speaking solely for radar troops). There was an exception: a two-week "Team Chief Academy" for NCOs who were gonna fill that role. I went to that school, which was held on-site in the E&I outfit at Yokota AB where I was stationed, taught by a traveling team of instructors from Scott AFB, IIRC. The Engineering-Installations Division at Tinker AFB also had a TCA; I taught there as a "guest instructor" when I was assigned to the EID in '83 - '85.
ReplyDeleteAnon: Were you talking about being a PJ? Those are some TOUGH dudes, no shit really. I'm told the wash-out rate at PJ school is about the same as SEAL school, i.e., 80% or so.
And about that lil creole gal... what would you have done if she had been just as smitten as you? You couldn't have put her on the bus! ;-)
Mike sez: or most of Mx for that matter, I'm willing to wager
Well, that's you flight line weenies. ;-) But I hear ya about your larger point. It's SO very good to know that there are "pockets of resistance" to political correctness. Does a geezer good.
Your bit about the ABUs just leaves me speechless. And I thought you couldn't shine the new "subdued" desert combat boots? Aren't they made of some sort of suede material? I could google that, I suppose...
Lou: I'll admit... there's a certain romance about long bus trips, and I've done a couple o' few. But given my druthers...
Kath: Thanks for the kind words!
Here's a link to a couple o' more young troop pics.
I love all the stories in the comments. Buck, you are one cool cat! Thats a really awesome picture of you.
ReplyDeleteToo bad they nixed the train/bud rides, sounds like modern airmen are missing out on a rite of passage!
Buck, E&I now includes Network Admin and Fibre Optic installation, the kid was trained to do FIOS stuff!!
ReplyDeleteBT: Jimmy T sends.
Buck, yes on PJ. Roger on the tough! Physical and mental.
ReplyDeleteOh, yea, in 72 we didn't get a stripe out of basic. Well actually, 5 guys got a stripe (squad leaders, dorm chief), and 6-year enlistees got 2-stripes (sure wished I heard about that).
Anyway, we had a Tack-On ceremony, where I think it was one month after Basic, you were awarded your first stripe, and everyone slugged you in the shoulders during morning formation. What a treat...
The way the open-bay barracks worked, was the two green ropes (upstairs and downstairs) got a room on each floor, and the bay-dwellers cleaned it for them before formation.
Since the electronics guys were there forever, us short school gomers never rose to any rope rank.
Then there was a bigger room over the bathroom, that we called the Deuce Room. This usually held the electronic guys who had two stripes and were ready to graduate.
Holy cow, I thought I had forgotten all that stuff! Thanks for jogging my memory Buck, and nice HAT!
Crysti: Thank ya, Ma'am!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the clarification, Jimmy.
OG: I didn't get a stripe out of basic, either.
I hear ya about those open bays, but I lived in the Triangle so I didn't have to deal with 'em. I had friends that DID, tho.
We are NOT "flight line weenies"...those are aircraft folks, mainly crew chief and loader types, both of which are pretty much the dumbest creatures on God's green Earth. (Now that I said that, I'm sure SN1 was probably a crew chief when he wore his rank on his sleeve...:-p).
ReplyDeleteYou are correct, ABU boots aren't possible to shine...I was referring to the black combat boots that went with the BDU. There's nothing in the regs that states you needed to have them polished, and in fact they were originally intended to be no/minimal shining like the ABU boots, but that quickly changed when a general realized how "sloppy" his troops looked in their BATTLE DRESS UNIFORMS and started the trend that led to everyone starching, ironing, and shining what was supposed to be a combat/mx/industrial type work uniform. Of course, the ABU boots have a whole 'nother problem, which is that a) being a fuzzy type of suede, they soak up grease/oil/etc like a sponge, and b) being GREEN, grease/oil/etc which tends to be BLACK in color stands out like a sore thumb.
To go off on a tangent, I came across some forum on the internet that was basically for old farts long retired from the AF (no comment on whether or not you'd fit in...:-p). The thread was about the blues uniform and whether or not they should be required for office workers and such...nevermind the fact that they are possibly the most uncomfortable clothing ever devised. One poster waxed rhapsodic about the days when the cops at the gate wore blues and how "professional" they looked (like to see how quickly they could chase down a gate runner wearing shirt garters and low quarters, but I digress). Another poster, a former cop, talked about the pride he took in the several hours he spent each night prepping his uniform.
I'm all for people taking pride in their military appearance, but several hours on uniforms...daily? The man could've had a goddamned master's, much less a bachelor's, by the time his enlistment was up with all that time on his hands.
...I'm sure SN1 was probably a crew chief when he wore his rank on his sleeve...:-p
ReplyDeleteNah. He was an avionics type, working on F-111 FLIR pods.
re: "flight line weenies" vs. ammo... all you guys work on airplanes or the stuff that hangs on 'em, same diff. ;-)
BTW... my Ol Man, he of the infamous "stay away from airplanes" advice, had a little familiarity with my career field and called us "mountain-dwelling country cousins." Not kindly, either. Those aren't his exact words.
re: that forum. I think the blue shirt/pants uni SHOULD be required for office workers outside of the AOR. Not full Class A's, just the blue shirt, sans tie. Having everyone run around in BDUs/ABUs just out of "solidarity" with our deployed troops is frickin' silly. And you're right about that skycop... or anyone that obsessive about uniforms (or anything else, for that matter).
Man, you are just asking for a whuppin' from AMMO...I could make some phone calls and have some AMMO airmen in your front yard within a few hours. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI actually agree with you about the blues for office workers, although they need to redesign the blues pants to make them a little more comfortable. And "office" workers in Mx (aka supervision) should be exempt from that requirement, because I'm not changing uniforms to go out and "manage by walking around." They're reasonable about that up here at Elmo but at other bases I have heard that they make Mx supervision wear blues on Mondays.