OFF WE GO, INTO…?

Submitted by: Old Okie

After we had completed our nine weeks of basic training, we were told that we would be shipped out to our assigned permanent stations as soon as the orders were issued and a plane was available. More problems because of the excessive Air Force enlistments. In the meantime, we were declared to be “transients” and assigned to a transient barracks. We soon found out that, since no military organization wants to allow its troops to lie around and do nothing, transient personnel were used for all of the cushy jobs – policing the area, KP duty, etc. After the first couple of times that some flunky from the administration building walked into our barracks and chose several of us for those chores, we posted a “sentry” to watch for him. When the sentry sounded the alarm, all of us would jump out of the windows on the back side of the barracks (on the ground floor, of course) and run like hell. After a few days of that, we were notified that we were restricted to the barracks.

A couple of weeks after we became transients, late one night after we had gone to bed, some sergeant turned on the lights and informed us that we had a few minutes (perhaps half an hour, I’m not sure) to put on our Class A uniforms, pack everything else in our duffel bags, strip our beds, and fall in outside. We were finally shipping out! Since it was Winter, we wore our heavy overcoats in addition to our (wool) dress blues. Carrying our heavy duffel bags, we marched (round step) all the way across the base to the flight line, where a TWA Constellation was waiting. We were sweating heavily, but we didn’t care; we just wanted to get out of Texas. As we stood in formation on the flight line, a Master Sergeant told us that only a certain number, which I also can’t remember, of us would fly out that night, due to space limitations on the plane. Naturally, his list was in alphabetical order, and he started at the beginning to read the names of those who would get on the plane. I think he only got to the “Ls” that night. Since my name began with a letter near the end of the alphabet, I hoisted my duffel bag and joined the other losers, as we marched back across the base to our transient barracks, sweating all the way.

I’m sure that all of you who are in, or have been in, a branch of the military service know that those military leaders who make decisions and issue orders to their subordinates, with very few exceptions, do not concern themselves with what is fair when making those decisions. Another week went by. Then, we were again marched to the flight line late at night, only to find that the plane was again filled alphabetically. To make matters worse, we had been joined by other “transients”, many of whose names occurred near the beginning of the alphabet. As the MSgt finished filling the plane, a few of us complained that he should start at the end of the list and read backwards every other time. He ignored our suggestion. We were getting pretty good at stripping and remaking our beds, and packing and unpacking our duffel bags. One more week went by, and we finally made it onto the plane on our third attempt; but the MSgt was still starting at the beginning of the list.

I suspected that the USAF only had one TWA Constellation to use for this purpose, and that plane had to rest for a week between trips. We were flown to a base near Columbus, Ohio; but, we were again designated as transients, awaiting assignment to a permanent station. At least we weren’t used for KP and other chores. We were there for three or four days, then flew to Burlington, Vermont. An old cavalry post (Ft. Ethan Allen) a few miles outside the city of Winooski, Vermont, had just been opened as a new Air Force base (AFB), and that was our first permanent station. Burlington, about 10 miles from Winooski, was the nearest airport. In order to properly open the fort as an AFB, a local Air National Guard outfit was put on active duty (nationalized). Since they were all local folks, most of them went home each night – a drive of probably 30 minutes or less. A couple of years later, as I was working at base headquarters and in charge of personnel records, I saw that practically all of the local boys were promoted overnight two or three ranks higher than they had been, the day before going on active duty.

The base was there solely to support the 37^th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS); and, since the old cavalry post had no air strip, the FIS had to use the one at Burlington Municipal Airport. We did have a separate access road to an area across the air strip from the civilian airport facilities, with our own hangar, aircraft parking ramp, and what we called a “readiness building”. The latter contained offices and a large room with lockers where the pilots readied themselves for flying. I was in one of the offices, along with three other enlisted men.

I was responsible for maintaining all of the personnel records for the commissioned officers in our squadron. So, I became somewhat familiar with the officers. We had one 1^st Lieutenant who was an experienced fighter pilot, but had been involuntarily transferred down to our lowly squadron from Wing Headquarters at Presque Isle AFB in Presque Isle, Maine. At that time, our squadron was still flying F-51 Mustangs, and we were the last squadron in the entire Air Defense Command to convert to jets. The lieutenant in question had a tendency to brag about his prowess in a Mustang after a few drinks. Up in Presque Isle, he got a little loaded at the officer’s club one night and bet some crony five bucks that he could take off in a Mustang from the parking ramp. So, a few of them drove out to the air strip, where he proceeded to climb into an aircraft (sans chute, helmet, and oxygen mask), fire up the engine, and roar across the parking ramp into some trees, shearing off both wings. He was uninjured, but was quickly chewed out and shipped out. He was a likeable chap, and I was saddened one day when I heard that he’d had a few too many at our officer’s club and bet someone five bucks that he could take off in a Mustang from our parking ramp! It was hard to believe that he was dumb enough to make the same mistake. Later that day, I watched a big truck with a flat bed trailer haul the Mustang, with its wings stacked beside the fuselage, off to be scrapped. He was a lucky dog, though; he had twice managed to go between two trees, again escaping with no injuries. His next assignment was Korea.

The Old Okie