Airman Stories - Part Two

Airman Stories – Part Two

When I enlisted in the Air Force I was given a choice of three careers that I'd like to pursue while in the service. There were no guarantees that I'd get what I wanted, but I were given some choices and the recruiter said they'd try to match as many as possible. There were many careers to pick from and I ended up choosing Intelligence as number 1, Weather as number 2 and something else for number 3. It doesn't really matter as I received my second pick, Weather. My orders after basic training were to report to Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois on a certain date and be prepared to start Air Weather Observer School.

Did I have any background in weather that might have prompted me to select it? Nope. Did I know anyone in weather except for, of course, Dick Goddard on television? Nope.

I just thought it might be interesting.

I didn't have enough time served in the military at that time to be allowed any leave, so when I departed Lackland AFB I was shipped directly to my next assignment at the tech school in Illinois.

During the end of 1965 and most of 1966 there was a big buildup in military forces all through the U.S., so when I arrived at Chanute the schools were all filled for the moment. I had to wait until a class opened up which I could attend. Having to wait meant I was not allowed to move into a school barracks. I had to wait my turn. So my first barracks assignment at Chanute was in what they called a PATS barracks. PATS stood for Personnel Awaiting Technical School. It was a old 2-story green building quite a long way from almost anything on base. It had been built in the early 1940's and was, ostensibly, originally a WAAC's barrack – Women's Army Air Corps. The concrete floor of the barracks was all chipped and pockmarked by the thousands and thousands of high-heel shoes of the WAAC's that had walked over it during the Second World War. At least that was the explanation I received for the rough condition of the floor.

Perhaps it might have even been true.

I was to spend almost a month in this building waiting for a class to open.

Since we weren't in school at the time, the Air Force had to find work for us PATS to do – to keep us busy. So we did a lot of policing – picking up trash all over the base, KP – working in various capacities in the gigantic kitchen of the huge main chow hall on the base, and they would also “park” us in the base movie theater and show us hour after hour of “Air Power” documentaries to keep us occupied. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the “Air Power” films, but if you ever watched TV in the 50's and watched a series of films entitled “Victory at Sea”, you will have an idea of what they were about. As “Victory at Sea” was about the Navy, “Air Power” was about the Air Force. Hour after hour after hour after hour of grainy black and white films showing WWII bombers and fighters doing their “thing” during the war, dropping bombs and shooting other airplanes. It was cold outside by this time – late December and early January – and the theater was warm. A LOT of us had a difficult time staying awake during the “entertainment”. Unfortunately there were NCO' s prowling the aisles who were determined to make sure you stayed awake. They'd yell at you and thump you if you started to drowse. So we propped our eyes open when in the theater, picked up the trash as we were ordered and did our duty on the clipper lines or cleaning details in the mess hall. And we PATS waited for the school to open.

One nice part of life on Chanute was a tradition called “Pizza – Pop”. A small business in Rantoul had the franchise to sell pizza and soda pop to the airmen, delivery style. They would drive around to all the barracks in special small trucks or station wagons and yell out the doors, “Pizza Pop!” The men in the barracks who where interested came out and bought a hot pizza pie and a cold can of cola from him. It was an interesting arrangement and us hungry guys were very appreciative. The guy had to have made a fortune!

Finally I got my school orders. Hurrah! With the school assignment I was at last assigned to a school barracks. This was a much newer, 2-story building with 4-man rooms. I think we had about 75 to 80 airmen living in each barracks and there were six to ten barracks in the squadron area. This was to be home for the next 4-5 months.

Daily life on Chanute AFB was quite different in a lot of details than it was in basic training at Lackland. You still had quite a bit of regimentation in your daily life, but not NEAR what it was like in Texas. Most of the time when you weren't in class you were free to do pretty much whatever you wanted – within limits, though. You could go to the base theater, library, church or the Airman's Club. More on that later. Or even visit the adjoining town, Rantoul, Illinois if you were adventurous.

Let's talk about the Airman's Club. It was called “The Chevron” and it was a bar/nightclub sort of place on the base. It sold beer and mixed drinks and had entertainment on the weekends. It was strictly for the enlisted men and not for the NCO's or officers, E-4's and below at that time. I'd like to say I never set foot in the place but that would be a lie. I spent many hours there, probably drinking more than I should, listening to the bands and watching the go-go dancers that were frequently hired to entertain the airmen. (Go-go dancers? Don't forget that this was the 60's, for goodness sakes.) The alcohol was inexpensive and there was not a whole lot else to do after your classes and your homework were complete. I have many fond memories of “The Chevron.”

School, when I started going to it, was quite interesting. I'd had no idea how much there was to learn about the weather. Seemed like it ought to be fairly easy.

Wrong!

In our classes we learned about basic meteorology, plotting weather information on charts, weather instrumentation, teletype and facsimile operations and did some training on some early weather radar gear, specifically on the CPS-9 Weather Radar. My specialty was in the observation of weather, so we didn't get into any forecasting training. That specialty was for higher level NCO's and officers.

Here's some weather facts for ya:

There are 9 basic types of clouds that can exist on 3 distinct levels of sky and they develop into 27 states of sky. Some of those clouds were cumulus, stratus, cirrus, cirrocumulus, cirrostratus, nimbus, nimbostratus, cumulostratus, altostratus and cumulonimbus. There were even some funny named ones: Altocumulus Castellantus, Altocumulus Standing Lenticular, Cumulonimbus Mammatus. Lots of Latin derivations. Some of these clouds produced rain, some snow, some thunderstorms, hurricanes and tornadoes.

How high must a cloud be before it's a cloud? Fifty-one feet. Below that it's fog.

Cold fronts on weather maps are colored blue and have little points on them. Warm fronts are red and have little half-moons on them. Stationary fronts are red and blue and have alternating points and half-moons. Occluded fronts (fronts that have ridden over other fronts) are purple.

Winds blow clockwise around highs and counter-clockwise around lows. In the northern hemisphere, if you stand with the wind at your back there will be a low pressure system to your left. Always. This is Buys Ballot's Law.

Barometric pressure can do seven things in a 3-hour period: steady, steady then rise, steady then fall, rise then steady, fall then steady, rise, fall.

Precipitation can take many forms, all different and all to be memorized: rain, rain showers, sleet, hail, small hail, snow, snow pellets, snow crystals, ice pellets, drizzle, freezing rain, freezing drizzle.

What causes wind? The unequal heating of the earth's surface.

The acronym CANS tells you rain is approaching by what clouds are coming toward you: Cumulus, Altostratus, Nimbostratus, Stratus.

Looking back on the way we observed and forecast weather in those days it all seems so very primitive compared to what goes on today. We had fairly crude, low range radars, weather satellites were just on the horizon, no computers. We relied on the observations of trained people, reported on teletypes, gathered together by other trained meteorologists and the information on those reports along with some faxed weather maps and local upper-level temperature, humidity and wind data were the information used by the forecasters to forecast the upcoming weather. In those days, forecasts were for a day, maybe two. Anything beyond that was called an “outlook” and could be WAY off.

School was in session during that winter in three shifts, six am until noon, noon until 6 pm and 6 pm until midnight. I was lucky and was assigned the noon until 6 pm shift. Classes were 50 minutes followed by a 10 minute break, repeated 6 times. School was taught in a huge sprawling 3-story brick building close to the airfield's flight line. We marched there and marched back as groups from our squadron area – a distance of a little less than a mile. It was so cold during some periods of this winter in Illinois we were issued face masks to wear when outside. We carried our schoolbooks and the weather charts we were working with in canvas schoolbags hung on our left sides with a strap over our right shoulder. We looked like masked mailmen heading out on their rounds!

School was a blur that winter and, by the time the ground thawed, the spring breezes started blowing and the daffodils poked their heads out of the ground, we'd learned our stuff, graduated and had received new orders.

Please be aware that time in the military is divided into assignments and leaves. Assignments are given to you by a set of orders. Orders are the lifeblood of the military and nothing much happens until you get your orders. My orders at the end of tech school told me where my next assignment was going to be.

And that first assignment as a freshly-minted Air Weather Observer was to Ft. Sill, Oklahoma.

I was initially confused by that assignment. Ft. Sill is a well-known, very old Army Post where training is given in artillery and, at that time, helicopter piloting. I didn't know there were ANY Air Force personnel there. I found out after reporting, however, that there was a small detachment of Air Force weathermen assigned to Ft. Sill to provide meteorological support to Henry Post Airfield on the Army post. Apparently the Army had no meteorologists. We were detached out of Sheppard Air Force Base about 50 miles south in Texas which meant that our paychecks and any further orders would be sent from there.

I found all that out after I'd reported in. I also found out at that time that there were only 16 of us Air Force folks on the whole army post, with literally tens of thousands of soldiers around us. We were quite the novelty with our upward-facing blue and white wing rank insignias on our sleeves instead of the army down-facing gold chevrons.

It was a great assignment! When we weren't working one of the 5 shifts that we had to cover for the day, we were free to do whatever we wanted. We actually only put on our uniforms to go to work. The rest of the time it was civvies. The work consisted of two shifts at the primary weather station in the post airfield offices, 4 am to noon and noon to 8 pm where we assisted the forecaster with assembling weather teletype reports, coloring received facsimile weather maps, posting charts, transmitting the forecasts and helping the forecaster brief pilots. The other site we worked at was the ROS, the Remote Observation Site, with 3 shifts, 7 days a week. The ROS was a small building very close to the runway where we would monitor the weather, write up our observations, cut a teletype tape and transmit it into the weather network at appropriate times where it would be incorporated into forecasts around the country.

For our living quarters we had the full 2^nd floor of an old barracks near the airfield, probably World War II vintage. We had rooms with 2 to 4 men in each plus a rec room with pool and table tennis tables. Some of the married airmen lived off-site with their wives and children. Us single guys living in the barracks also had a TV room where we could relax and watch television. I remember seeing the last episode of “The Fugitive” in that room when Dr. Richard Kimble found the one-armed man. It was comfortable living in that barracks as we could decorate our rooms as we wished (within some military restrictions). As long as we kept our areas clean we were OK. We had inspections once a week and the rooms had to be tidy with made bunks and shined shoes displayed under the beds.

The military reservation was bounded on the south by the Oklahoma town of Lawton. It, at the time, was your typical Army town with lots and lots of bars, pawn shops and other businesses catering to the military. On Army payday weekends, the city police rode with the military MP's and the MP's rode with the police. Any disturbance could thus be handled by the appropriate authorities using this procedure. It was very rowdy in Lawton on those weekends and being arrested was a distinct possibility. The amount of drunken soldiers on the streets, at times, was unbelievable – a veritable Mardi Gras every other weekend in Indian Territory.

Ft. Sill is gigantic in area – a rectangle about 10 miles from north to south and about 30 miles from east to west - 300 square miles. A lot of the land on the post is devoted to artillery ranges, so you couldn't travel around the post haphazardly. But the roads entering live ranges were blockaded and red-flagged, so you'd have to be pretty stupid to get into trouble. Geronimo, the famous Indian chief is buried in an Indian graveyard on the post – he died in captivity there back during the Indian War days. The military reservation is bordered to the north by the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, an area of land similar in size to Ft. Sill itself. The refuge contained many species of wildlife indigenous to the area including bison, longhorn cattle, elk, whitetail deer, prairie dogs, river otters and burrowing owls. The Wichita Mountains stretch along part of the Refuge and Part of Ft. Sill and the largest of them, Mt. Scott, has a paved road that runs to its summit.

I've driven that road many times both as a single man back in the '60's and with my wife and son on vacations later in life.

While I was stationed down there I drove a 1962 Chevy II Nova convertible, blue with a white top, stick shift on the column, small V-6 engine. I was also dating a girl in Tulsa. It was one of those odd occurrences. I'd met Kathy in my hometown in Ohio when I was a senior in high school and she was attending a business college in town. She was from Tulsa and, after I graduated and she moved back to Oklahoma I figured I'd probably never see her again. Lady Luck played her hand, though, and I was stationed 200 miles away from her a year later – an easy drive. She still lived at home with her parents and a brother and sister, so I became the sixth member of their family when I was able to get away from the post for a few days. We all got along really well and it was a welcome break from the military when I took my long weekends up in Tulsa. They were my second family.

There was a legend about the Wichita Mountains that I heard about while I was at Ft. Sill. It told of a cave located somewhere in the ruggedest part of the mountains that was sealed by an rusting iron door. In the cave, depending on which version of the legend you believed, there was eleven million dollars in Spanish gold in ingots and pieces of eight. Or there was $500,000 of loot from the outlaw Belle Starr. Or, in another version, there was $200,000 of Jesse James outlaw loot. The treasure site was called generically “The Iron Door of the Wichitas” I would sit in the ROS on many days and look to the north to the Wichitas. I could plainly see them from that vantage point approximately eleven miles away. I could even see the particular peak in the mountains where the outlaw Frank James, when he was an old man and before he died in 1915, had returned to and, at an old campsite, had dug up a coffee pot that he'd buried after a robbery many years before. It still contained the stolen greenbacks after all those years. I could see that site where outlaw loot had been recovered and I knew in my heart that there was more to be found for a resourceful individual. I ended up spending many an hour scrambling around those mountains and looking for treasure. The incredible ruggedness of the area made my quest virtually impossible, but the lure was there.

I even feel a tug to this day.

Some images that come to mind of my days in Oklahoma:

On one visit to Tulsa I was driving around in my convertible with Kathy near Keystone Lake on the Arkansas River. We were some miles out of town when we spotted a cougar slipping into the woods on the right side of the road. A doggone cougar! We mentioned the sighting to her dad and he called the state police to report it. We found out that it wasn't a particularly uncommon occurrence. Very different wildlife in that territory than the bunnies, squirrels and deer of my part of Ohio.

Shooting off firecrackers behind my girlfriend's house in Tulsa with her brother one Fourth of July and accidentally setting their house on fire. It ended up destroying their roof and inflicting smoke and water damage to the interior. No one was hurt and I got to help the firemen hold the hoses while they were pouring water onto the blaze. Please note that this was not one of the high points of my life.

Getting haircuts at one of my married fellow airman's houses in Lawton. He was a certified barber in his home state of Indiana, but not in Oklahoma, so it was actually illegal. Go figure. I think he charged us a dollar per haircut. He also liked to serve salty dogs to his friends when we would visit. A salty dog is grapefruit juice, gin and salt. Very good and very intoxicating.

My roommate Mike catching gonorrhea from an Indian “girlfriend”. Don't know exactly what tribe she belonged to. Watching the torment he went through with this disease made me positive that I would never be in that position myself.

Mike, my roomie, was an interesting guy. He was the son of a career Army sergeant and a French mother who married after World War II. He spoke fluent French and English. He had a hard time with authority during his tour at Ft. Sill and I had to get him out of scrapes fairly frequently. The one time I couldn't help him was when he got involved with a criminal element from Lawton and was caught stealing televisions from the local Ramada Inn. He spent a few weeks in the Comanche County Jail for it and almost got dishonorably discharged. He had to do restitution to the motel and had a hefty fine to pay. He lived on macaroni and cheese for six months or so as to have enough money to pay off his debt. Mike was later assigned to Udorn Air Force Base in Thailand. I corresponded with him for some months until my letters started being returned marked “Deceased.” I still, to this day, do not know what happened to him.

Regularly pawning my stereo record player when I ran out of cash, which happened fairly frequently just before payday. I'd pawn it for $10 and would redeem it after payday for $12. A good deal as it allowed me to eat on the day or couple days before I got paid.

Not eating isn't very much fun.

Working one day in the weather station and noticing a very young looking man in shorts and tee shirt coming in with a newspaper and going into one of the offices. I asked the forecaster on duty if that was the paper delivery boy. He looked at me oddly and informed me that the gentleman I'd just seen was my new detachment commander, Captain So-and-so. I'm so glad I asked the forecaster and not the commander. But the guy was so doggone young looking!

Working in the ROS one stormy spring night listening to the radio. It was early in my residence at Ft. Sill. The station playing was from Oklahoma City, about 80 miles north of me. The announcer was tracking 3 tornadoes as they moved across the city, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. Three! Apparently this was a common occurrence in those parts. I prayed the storms stayed to our north.

Coming back to the barracks on my first Christmas in Oklahoma after a long midnight shift. I was very depressed being away from home for my 2^nd Christmas in a row, I was 19 years old and everyone was gone, either at work or home on leave. I grabbed a bottle of whiskey that was sitting on my roommate's dresser and tipped it into my mouth intending to mitigate my sorrows for a while. I immediately found out that there was only a half-inch of booze in the bottle and my roomie had been putting out his cigarettes in it. I got a mouthful of nasty, wet ashes for my trouble.

It was a Merry Christmas indeed.

I spent a total of about 22 months at Ft. Sill. I'd been promoted to Airman 2^nd class, two stripes, while there, and had grown familiar with the ins and outs of military life. I'd made a lot of friends and learned a lot of lessons, some easily and some, which I won't delve into, a bit harder.

I was concerned that my next set of orders would send me to southeast Asia and I wasn't overeager to be sent in that direction. But when the orders came I was quite surprised at the completely different direction Uncle Sugar was sending me.

I was being ordered to...

to be continued.