The recruiter called me in early October. I was to be at the bus station the morning of the 16th of October. I was there at the appointed time along with a few other guys. We took U.S. 101 to Los Angles. We had to go over a little pass at Camarillo and the hillsides were on fire on both side of the interstate. No premonition there. The hills were just on fire.
When we got to the induction center in Los Angles there were some Marine guards there and they escorted us into the induction center. We had to step over war protestors that were lying on the sidewalks.
After we got done with all the poking and prodding, coughing bending over and raising our hand and getting sworn in, we were loaded on the bus again and taken to the Los Angles air port. I called home to tell my mother that I was on my way to Lackland AFB in Texas for boot camp. She told me that I had gotten a letter that day from the draft board. I told her not to open it and to send it back explaining that I had already been sworn into the Air Force.
We flew into San Antonio Texas, arriving there quite late. After deplaning we were herded to a waiting area where there were other young men from other parts of the nation. An Air Force sergeant then introduced himself and told us to get outside and get on the bus. He wasn’t screaming but he sure wasn’t talking quietly and being polite. It was our introduction to how we would be spoken to and treated for the next eight weeks. A lot of name calling, cussing and yelling, but we were all so terrified that we hardly noticed. It didn’t take us long to get on the bus. We didn’t have any luggage to wait for since Uncle Sam was going to provide us with everything that we would need, even haircuts. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what the trip from the airport to Lackland AFB was like because it was like being in a bad dream, only I didn’t wake up.
When we arrived at Lackland it was in the wee hours of the morning and there were three more sergeants waiting for us. They came on the bus like Tasmanian Wildcats, screaming cussing and calling us all manner of names and if we didn’t get our young asses of this bus in one minute we’d have hell to pay. We couldn’t get off that bus quick enough. With all the tripping over each other and trying to be the first off the bus it was a wonder there weren’t some serious injuries. The TI’s (training instructors) then took five minutes to try to whip us into some semblance of order and we were marched into a chow hall for an early breakfast. Let me tell you it wasn’t a leisurely breakfast either. After breakfast, it was down the street we went to our barracks and our home for the next eight weeks.
I think it was two or three o’clock in the morning when we got to the barracks and told to grab a bunk and get to sleep. Five o’clock came awfully early to us tired puppies but time keeps moving and five o’clock arrived whether we wanted it to or not. God what a rude awakening. Our TI came in screaming at us to get up and get dressed. We couldn’t move fast enough for him. He was in our faces screaming to move faster, belittling us, cussing at us, making us feel lower than low. We did manage to get outside without serious injury and into a formation that we remembered from the night before and off we went.
The TI was strutting beside the flight, chest out, Smoky the bear hat cocked slightly forward and yelling, cussing and feeling right with the world. I would have said standing tall also but he was a short man with a Napoleon complex. The first stop was the barbershop. I want you to remember that this was the “60s”, the decade of the longhair hippies, not me of course. We all stood in line and moved up five at a time, that’s how many chairs they had. Longhair hippies went in and bald boys came out. The process of making us all the same had begun.
After our haircuts we were marched to supply and I use the term marched loosely, after all we been at boot camp only a few hours, what the heck did we know? At supply we got our all the clothing we would need as far as Uncle Sam was concerned. We got three different kinds of footwear; we got boxer shorts and undershirts, three sets of fatigues, two sets of 1505’s and a set of dress blues. We also got the hats belts and accoutrements to go along with the uniforms. Oh, way back at the beginning of the line we receive a duffel bag to put it all in. We were flat loaded down.
As we marched back to the barracks to begin learning everything we ever wanted to know about Airforce life, we were passed by flights in various stages of boot camp. They were all singing while they marched “Here we go again marching down the avenue, here we go again six more weeks and we’ll be through”, or five weeks or three weeks. Whatever week or training they were in. I remember thinking, would I ever be singing that also. Didn’t seem like it. It seemed so far away.
Once back at the barracks we received so much information my head hurt and I didn’t think that I would ever remember it all. How to pack my footlocker, how to make my bed. The beds had to be made just so. There was no closet, just a rack to hang my uniforms on and by god they had better be hanging right or the you know what will hit the fan. There could be no inspection tags in the pockets. In later inspections those darned little tags kept showing up in our uniforms. We all suspected that the inspectors carried a hand full of them and put them in our uniforms. Latrines had to be cleaned every morning before breakfast. The floors, toilets, sinks, showers, everything had to be cleaned just so. No margin for error or the fan gets hit again. Everything from our civilian lives was put away in a locker in the TI’s room. Not to be used or seen for the next eight weeks.
In the next eight weeks we’d be inspected time and time again. Once the TI didn’t like the way one of the guys had packed his footlocker. He grabbed it up and gave it the old heave ho and down the aisle it went. The back door was open and lucky for it that it was. The footlocker slid down the aisle and out the door and into the street. The guy had five minutes to get it back where it belonged and packed correctly. It made a heck of a mess of the floor. As time passed things began to improve and we began to see that the TI’s were actually human after all. All flights had two TIs, the flight TI and the assistant flight TI. Our flight TI was a big man but he didn’t look as mean as he let on. Our assistant TI was the little guy that I mentioned earlier. One night he had CQ. He called the barracks and told whoever answered to go over to the chow hall and see this particular guy. Two guys went and came back with a whole big pan of peanut butter cookies. We were told to have the pan back before lights out. That was no problem, we made them disappear in a hurry. After that we started thinking that he was all right but he still rode us hard.
We had all manner of classes that are to boring to tell you about so I won’t. Every Sunday everyone had the opportunity to go to church. Everyone went even if they weren’t particularly religious because it got them away from the barracks and we could smoke after services.
We didn’t get any privileges at all for two weeks. Then we got a base pass. We could go anywhere on the base. As I look back on it now I don’t see how it is possible to spend as much time as we did in the Base Exchange. What the heck at least it wasn’t at the barracks.
The most memorable occasion was when we went to see about what AF jobs we could get. They went through all the jobs that the AF needed people for. Like avionics, electricians, motor pool stuff, administration and on and on. Oh, yes, there was also security police. The last people to get up were survival people. They gave a little talk and it sounded interesting. Anyone who was interested should see them after our group was dismissed. I went to see them as soon as we were dismissed and they gave me a pass to come back that night after chow.
That night they gave a slide presentation about the survival career field. Anyone, who was still interested, stick around the rest were to return to their barracks. Those of us who stayed were to give impromptu speeches about ourselves. When we were all done we were told to go back to our barracks and we would be notified in a week. A week seemed like a lifetime. We had heard that the security police were taking a lot of people because they were needed in Vietnam. Damn, I came into the AF to avoid to that place. I remember having dorm guard once when everyone else was gone. A week later I got notified that I had been accepted. By the way Paul Green was there that night, he was also accepted. I felt so good. I was guaranteed a shot at survival. I knew where I was going after boot camp. No one else did until a week later. There was a map of the U.S. hanging on the front wall and I would stand in front of it and stare at Spokane WA.
Seventy percent of my flight went to security police and most of them went in country. That’s Vietnam. We still had a lot of training to do. We went to the firing range and most of us qualified on the M-16 rifle. Some of those boys couldn’t hit their butts with both hands. Then off to the obstacle course. That was an all day affair. Swinging on ropes across water, climbing ropes on walls, crawling on our stomachs under barbed wire. We even put on gas masks and went through a building with tear gas in it. That was the hardest for me. You know how I am about things over my nose and mouth.
At any rate soon we found ourselves marching down the avenue on our way to the graduation ceremony singing “One more day and we’ll be through”. My Mom and Dad had come for the ceremony. We marched out onto the parade grounds with all the other flights. It was a glorious day. The sun was shining; the Air Force band was playing marches by John Philip Sousa. They played the Air Force Song as we all marched to position and halted. Then the National Anthem was played. I was so proud to be a part of the US military. I got very choked up. I still get choked up when the national anthem is played. What a glorious day it was.
After graduation was over we marched off the parade grounds and back to the barracks to prepare for departure the next day. Morning came and we got on buses, headed for the airport, got on respective airplanes and went on our way. I never saw any of my classmates again. I was on a plane headed home for two weeks.
For two weeks I relaxed and enjoyed myself. Visited with friends, although many of them had gone into the service and weren’t home. Spent some time at the beach and driving in the mountains.
When we got to the induction center in Los Angles there were some Marine guards there and they escorted us into the induction center. We had to step over war protestors that were lying on the sidewalks.
After we got done with all the poking and prodding, coughing bending over and raising our hand and getting sworn in, we were loaded on the bus again and taken to the Los Angles air port. I called home to tell my mother that I was on my way to Lackland AFB in Texas for boot camp. She told me that I had gotten a letter that day from the draft board. I told her not to open it and to send it back explaining that I had already been sworn into the Air Force.
We flew into San Antonio Texas, arriving there quite late. After deplaning we were herded to a waiting area where there were other young men from other parts of the nation. An Air Force sergeant then introduced himself and told us to get outside and get on the bus. He wasn’t screaming but he sure wasn’t talking quietly and being polite. It was our introduction to how we would be spoken to and treated for the next eight weeks. A lot of name calling, cussing and yelling, but we were all so terrified that we hardly noticed. It didn’t take us long to get on the bus. We didn’t have any luggage to wait for since Uncle Sam was going to provide us with everything that we would need, even haircuts. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what the trip from the airport to Lackland AFB was like because it was like being in a bad dream, only I didn’t wake up.
When we arrived at Lackland it was in the wee hours of the morning and there were three more sergeants waiting for us. They came on the bus like Tasmanian Wildcats, screaming cussing and calling us all manner of names and if we didn’t get our young asses of this bus in one minute we’d have hell to pay. We couldn’t get off that bus quick enough. With all the tripping over each other and trying to be the first off the bus it was a wonder there weren’t some serious injuries. The TI’s (training instructors) then took five minutes to try to whip us into some semblance of order and we were marched into a chow hall for an early breakfast. Let me tell you it wasn’t a leisurely breakfast either. After breakfast, it was down the street we went to our barracks and our home for the next eight weeks.
I think it was two or three o’clock in the morning when we got to the barracks and told to grab a bunk and get to sleep. Five o’clock came awfully early to us tired puppies but time keeps moving and five o’clock arrived whether we wanted it to or not. God what a rude awakening. Our TI came in screaming at us to get up and get dressed. We couldn’t move fast enough for him. He was in our faces screaming to move faster, belittling us, cussing at us, making us feel lower than low. We did manage to get outside without serious injury and into a formation that we remembered from the night before and off we went.
The TI was strutting beside the flight, chest out, Smoky the bear hat cocked slightly forward and yelling, cussing and feeling right with the world. I would have said standing tall also but he was a short man with a Napoleon complex. The first stop was the barbershop. I want you to remember that this was the “60s”, the decade of the longhair hippies, not me of course. We all stood in line and moved up five at a time, that’s how many chairs they had. Longhair hippies went in and bald boys came out. The process of making us all the same had begun.
After our haircuts we were marched to supply and I use the term marched loosely, after all we been at boot camp only a few hours, what the heck did we know? At supply we got our all the clothing we would need as far as Uncle Sam was concerned. We got three different kinds of footwear; we got boxer shorts and undershirts, three sets of fatigues, two sets of 1505’s and a set of dress blues. We also got the hats belts and accoutrements to go along with the uniforms. Oh, way back at the beginning of the line we receive a duffel bag to put it all in. We were flat loaded down.
As we marched back to the barracks to begin learning everything we ever wanted to know about Airforce life, we were passed by flights in various stages of boot camp. They were all singing while they marched “Here we go again marching down the avenue, here we go again six more weeks and we’ll be through”, or five weeks or three weeks. Whatever week or training they were in. I remember thinking, would I ever be singing that also. Didn’t seem like it. It seemed so far away.
Once back at the barracks we received so much information my head hurt and I didn’t think that I would ever remember it all. How to pack my footlocker, how to make my bed. The beds had to be made just so. There was no closet, just a rack to hang my uniforms on and by god they had better be hanging right or the you know what will hit the fan. There could be no inspection tags in the pockets. In later inspections those darned little tags kept showing up in our uniforms. We all suspected that the inspectors carried a hand full of them and put them in our uniforms. Latrines had to be cleaned every morning before breakfast. The floors, toilets, sinks, showers, everything had to be cleaned just so. No margin for error or the fan gets hit again. Everything from our civilian lives was put away in a locker in the TI’s room. Not to be used or seen for the next eight weeks.
In the next eight weeks we’d be inspected time and time again. Once the TI didn’t like the way one of the guys had packed his footlocker. He grabbed it up and gave it the old heave ho and down the aisle it went. The back door was open and lucky for it that it was. The footlocker slid down the aisle and out the door and into the street. The guy had five minutes to get it back where it belonged and packed correctly. It made a heck of a mess of the floor. As time passed things began to improve and we began to see that the TI’s were actually human after all. All flights had two TIs, the flight TI and the assistant flight TI. Our flight TI was a big man but he didn’t look as mean as he let on. Our assistant TI was the little guy that I mentioned earlier. One night he had CQ. He called the barracks and told whoever answered to go over to the chow hall and see this particular guy. Two guys went and came back with a whole big pan of peanut butter cookies. We were told to have the pan back before lights out. That was no problem, we made them disappear in a hurry. After that we started thinking that he was all right but he still rode us hard.
We had all manner of classes that are to boring to tell you about so I won’t. Every Sunday everyone had the opportunity to go to church. Everyone went even if they weren’t particularly religious because it got them away from the barracks and we could smoke after services.
We didn’t get any privileges at all for two weeks. Then we got a base pass. We could go anywhere on the base. As I look back on it now I don’t see how it is possible to spend as much time as we did in the Base Exchange. What the heck at least it wasn’t at the barracks.
The most memorable occasion was when we went to see about what AF jobs we could get. They went through all the jobs that the AF needed people for. Like avionics, electricians, motor pool stuff, administration and on and on. Oh, yes, there was also security police. The last people to get up were survival people. They gave a little talk and it sounded interesting. Anyone who was interested should see them after our group was dismissed. I went to see them as soon as we were dismissed and they gave me a pass to come back that night after chow.
That night they gave a slide presentation about the survival career field. Anyone, who was still interested, stick around the rest were to return to their barracks. Those of us who stayed were to give impromptu speeches about ourselves. When we were all done we were told to go back to our barracks and we would be notified in a week. A week seemed like a lifetime. We had heard that the security police were taking a lot of people because they were needed in Vietnam. Damn, I came into the AF to avoid to that place. I remember having dorm guard once when everyone else was gone. A week later I got notified that I had been accepted. By the way Paul Green was there that night, he was also accepted. I felt so good. I was guaranteed a shot at survival. I knew where I was going after boot camp. No one else did until a week later. There was a map of the U.S. hanging on the front wall and I would stand in front of it and stare at Spokane WA.
Seventy percent of my flight went to security police and most of them went in country. That’s Vietnam. We still had a lot of training to do. We went to the firing range and most of us qualified on the M-16 rifle. Some of those boys couldn’t hit their butts with both hands. Then off to the obstacle course. That was an all day affair. Swinging on ropes across water, climbing ropes on walls, crawling on our stomachs under barbed wire. We even put on gas masks and went through a building with tear gas in it. That was the hardest for me. You know how I am about things over my nose and mouth.
At any rate soon we found ourselves marching down the avenue on our way to the graduation ceremony singing “One more day and we’ll be through”. My Mom and Dad had come for the ceremony. We marched out onto the parade grounds with all the other flights. It was a glorious day. The sun was shining; the Air Force band was playing marches by John Philip Sousa. They played the Air Force Song as we all marched to position and halted. Then the National Anthem was played. I was so proud to be a part of the US military. I got very choked up. I still get choked up when the national anthem is played. What a glorious day it was.
After graduation was over we marched off the parade grounds and back to the barracks to prepare for departure the next day. Morning came and we got on buses, headed for the airport, got on respective airplanes and went on our way. I never saw any of my classmates again. I was on a plane headed home for two weeks.
For two weeks I relaxed and enjoyed myself. Visited with friends, although many of them had gone into the service and weren’t home. Spent some time at the beach and driving in the mountains.
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