|
|
I was sworn into USAF on 24 May 1967 at 100 Whitehall Street,
as my brother and father looked on. The old building, which had been a
military recruiting center since before the civil war, was being
picketed by the Catholic Mothers for Peace who were
protesting outside. I took it personally and on the way out bumped into
a few of them.
I was given until 27 May 67 to report to USAF
Officer Training School at
Medina Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas.
Medina was the annex base to the well known Lackland Air Force Base
where about everyone in USAF went through basic training. They called us
the "Medina Marines" as our facilities were pretty sparse and Spartan.
I drove the MGB down to Texas with Eileen and Little Bit coming along
until Tulsa when Eileen took Little Bit and head back to the City. I
continued on to OTS and nearly disqualified myself on the way down.
I was driving on what I think was a beltway around Dallas, getting a
little late and really poured it on. I got pulled over by a local sheriff
and he told me I was going in excess of 105MPH and he had to take me to
the station, which was the second floor of the firehouse.
I believe my license plates were more the cause of the
problem, as I had New York plates in the deep south of Texas during the
days of civil rights. Well, they fined me $125 and cut me loose as if
they had charged me I would have been disqualified for USAF OTS. I
stressed the OTS to these Texas sheriffs, but they really couldn't give
a damn about that. So much for Texas patriotism, or at least for that
particular Dallas suburb sheriff.
I got to Medina and was surprised that from the beginning everyone
called me "sir." It seemed strange, maybe I was instantly commissioned?
Perhaps they understood that being a New Yorker I was naturally of a
higher order? No, everyone called everyone "sir," I was still low man on
the totem pole.
We wore pith helmets and I joked, Who had the lisp? Nobody found that
funny but me. Our boots - later to be
flying boots -were called
"brogans." In the morning they would announce the uniform of the day,
usually it was, "The uniform of the day is pith helmets and brogans."
One morning close to graduation the OT (Officer Trainee) Group Staff, of
which I was a member, fell in wearing underwear, pith helmets and
brogans. We would have dispensed with the underwear except that there
was a flight of WAF across the quadrangle and we did not want to get
court martialled before we were commissioned.
It was the summer of 1967, and the big news was the Six Day War in which Israel beat the
crap out of all its Arab neighbors. Before that the general slur was
"Jews can't fight." After, there was no slur. In fact, the Israelis
captured several Russian SAM 5 missiles that had been knocking our
aircraft down in Vietnam and they sent one to us. So the Israelis were
big heroes, which worked in my favor. Being, at the time, Jewish, I
remember when my class was promoted to the upper classmen and as they
were picking the Group Staff, I recall Major Odland saying something
about the great fighters in Israel, and we had our own Jewish warrior
here. He was talking about me and they made me OT Chapel Representative,
which was like being the chaplain, which was like having nothing to do
except wear shoulder boards with lots of crosses on them.
I think that upset my mother, but it didn't bother me who was used to
getting blessed by Monsignor Melton with the Meadow Brook Hounds.
It was hot during OTS, from May to August; likely no worse time to be in
Texas, although I cannot thing of a good time to be in Texas.
We had to run a mile every morning, and I was never a runner. The best I
ever did was sprint the 100 yard dash. Well that track seemed awfully
long and I never would finish if Roy Crabbe did not run behind me with a
stick, whacking me on the ass when I wanted to stop. There are 8
furlongs in a mile, and we found out when it was time to run the mile
for graduation, which they did as a cross-country mile, that the regular
track was 9 furlongs, a mile and an eighth.
After we became upperclassmen, if we kept out of trouble, we got to have
weekend leave in San Antonio. We stayed at the El Tropicana Motel whose
French toast I still remember. They had started building the River Walk
back then, and although it was not complete, it was still nice.
I only remember hanging around the pool and walking along the San
Antonio River. Although I remember one
incident well. One of the guys
was the head of the OT band, a great musician whose name was Rudy
Valentino (really). So we, I do not remember who, but it was me, Rudy
and a few other guys were checking into a motel and Rudy gives the
elderly woman his name, "Rudolph Valentino."
The woman is shocked, puts her hand to her mouth and says with tragedy
in her voice, "Oh no! The Sheik is dead, the Sheik is dead."
Rudy's band played as we marched in OTS, never could figure out how they
would wash a guy out of USAF OTS for problems marching, but we lost
about 30-40%. Rudy had orchestrated the theme from the Mickey Mouse Club
to what is called a maxixe rhythm, and he would play it as we drilled.
Finally he was told not to play it any more. After that we just sang it
as we marched. Days it was too hot to go out and do our marching they
hung up a red flag and we sweated it out in the non-air conditioned barracks.
Cannot remember much about OTS, except that we got about three minutes
for breakfast and we spent the time cramming as much food into our
mouths as possible, looking like a pack of squirrels. I remember when we
were forming up outside the barracks one day, there was a bush right
behind me, touching me and that is when I got bitten on the ass by a
scorpion. I think they said it was a "vinegaroon," but I cannot
remember.
By the way, each of these pictures is linked to a
slide show of the pictures I have from OTS.
We graduated on 21 August 1967 and that became my date of rank. My
parents were there for the graduation, Eileen was there too, we drove
back home for leave together.
One of the reasons I went into USAF was because Eileen and I thought we
wanted to get married and there was not a whole lot of acceptance for
religious intermarriage, so we thought we should get independent. Of
course the marriage never happened, but USAF did; likely the best days I
ever had.
I liked the khaki 1505 uniform; USAF dumped it in favor of a light blue
shirt and dark blue pants, they should have stayed with the 1505s, they
had character.
I remember when I went to Sydney on R & R to ruin my life. I was wearing
1505s and jungle boots (shoes had rotted away). I was given a nice
woolen crew neck sweater to wear because it was winter there. So we went
to her father's "club," which is what they called saloons down there. I
order a beer and I lift the sweater to get into my left-hand breast
pocket, where I kept my money.
The barman, who looks like he is part bear, is watching me and he says,
"Here, you can't buy anything in here."
So I figured, Shit, they hate us here too?
Then the barman tells the guy next to me, "He's a Yank pilot," he saw my
wings on the 1505 shirt.
I got mobbed. They meant I could not pay for anything there, as they all
bought drinks for me. The Aussies did appreciate us, must have been the
1505s.
Got drunk enough to marry an orangutan, let alone my former #1 spouse.
Great days, huh? Right.
