PRESERVING A MILITARY LEGACY FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS
The following Reflection represents A3C Michael Bell’s legacy of their military service from 1963 to 1966. If you are a Veteran, consider preserving a record of your own military service, including your memories and photographs, on Togetherweserved.com (TWS), the leading archive of living military history. The Service Reflections is an easy-to-complete self-interview, located on your TWS Military Service Page, which enables you to remember key people and events from your military service and the impact they made on your life.
Where did you go to Boot Camp/ Basic Training? What specific memories do you have of instructors, fellow recruits and any rigorous training?:
Lackland, in winter…
I quit my high school senior year in South Bend on the November day JFK was assassinated. Being a foster kid and ward of Cook County court I was given one choice; enlist or go back to school. I chose USAF because my uncle had been in blue working on Boxcars in Japan during Korea, and everyone else in the family going back to the 1700s had been Army. I scored high on “Abstract Reasoning” – as my wife and kids would attest still holds true 60 years later. In almost exactly one month I found myself in Indianapolis taking the physical, and the oath with about 20 other guys my age. After spending that night in a seedy hotel part of the city, we were put on the civilian equivalent of a C-131 (aka T-29) Samaritan recip. Bound south vector to San Antonio, at age 17; my first airplane ride, and into the unkowable.
We landed at Kelly Field and mounted the old familiar blue bus waiting at the bottom of the stairs for its next gaggle of rainbows. About twenty minutes later we came through the LAFB main gate, drove to a ramp and dismounted; and were “greeted” at the foot of those steps by TI SSgt Thacker, a man who proved to be one of few but very special unique words.
His A1C assistant TI herded us into our first rank and file formation, such as it was. We marched (sort of) directly to a WWII wood structure where our papers were gathered, got the buzz cut, stripped down and were issued (learning respect for Base Supply people) a (usually Army green) duffel bag, our first set of off-the-shelf fatigues with brogans – all of which actually fit almost all of us, basically. From there we again marched (sort of) to our newish WWII open bay barracks home to met again by Thacker, and took whichever steel framed bunk bed (where our Army surplus “linens” had been neatly stacked) and elevation thereon that came up in the sequence by which we entered the building.
We were immediately colorfully familiarized in terse sharp voice with wholly new terms such as; “rack” – “latrine” – “butt can (1ea. red, coffee, large” – “gig” – “cover” – “reveille” – “chow hall” – “Dorm Daddy” and were informed that, whereas we are all equally worthless motherless idiots whom God himself had now forsaken (though we did win the coveted Chapel Honor Flight plaque later on), his commands superseded both our mother’s and the Lord’s own. He acquainted us with our new footlockers (1ea. gray/green, wood with tray) into which we were shown how to roll everything and exactly, not approximately, where all of it was to be placed, unfailingly. SSgt Thacker was a man without a sense of humor who lacked any patience at all. We were wary of and noted that his fatigues were sharply starched and creased, his cover was a very stylish Ridgway and the brogans seemed to be patent leather; ours being essentially rumpled and unsightly – facts we were reminded of often, on an up-close-and-personal-as-in-your-actual-face loud manner. I still have no memory of what happened to my civvies or how my skeeter wing got sewn on for graduation day, or when the Class A’s got issued.
From there on, BMT itself was, dare one say, actually fascinating, challenging and exciting every day, to me. For reasons I’ll never understand, Thacker voluntold me to be the Flight’s Right Guide; an unforgettable privilege – which exempted me from KP and other obnoxious duties. We did our 5BX each morning, kept beard hairs out of our Gillettes, got gassed in a small room, ran the confidence course, formed those hospital corners just right, learned to field strip and fire the M1 carbine, heard cadence calls, studied CBW, practiced close order drill. witnessed battlefield triage films, sang the USAF anthem, passed in review, got 3 hours at the BX with Donut Dollies and a one day pass into town. It all ended on a very cold rainy morning back at Kelly Field where, in our dress blues, we were sent off to permanent party assignments all over the world, with an actual AFSC, me on an Air Force plane bound for Chanute and C-123s.
Practically everyone who’s honest says of such times that life was changed forever and the better. Today, Friday the 13th, has been declared an “International Day of Rage” – and I’m so grateful to have been trained on the honorable side of peace in order to, as a WWII Ace once said, “Fly it as far as you can into the crash.”
Baruch hashem, Adonai eloheinu, Adonai echad.
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I was about a year ahead of you down at LAFB, remember most of what you said. Graduated out of HS in June of 62 and two weeks later was in Texas. The bus ride was at night did not know where they were taking us. The TI’s started barking as soon as are feet hit the ground. After about a week I was wondering what the hell did I sign up for. But I survived, learn a bunch, learned the true meaning of respect and following orders which today’s generation needs to learn.
Glad I did what I did and if I had to do over, would do it again. Thanks for your memories as they freshen up my memories.
Oh by the I am located in Indiana also…….just down the road a few miles.