baldilocks

Regarding Another Wall

General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!

As many here know, I was stationed in Berlin in the late 1980s and was in town—though on duty--when President Reagan made his famous June 12, 1988 request to Mikhail Gorbachev in the shadow of the Brandenburger Tor. In hindsight, it almost seems as if the sound of Reagan's voice terminally weakened the Berlin Wall to the point that it "crumbled" on its own a mere fifteen months later, like the wall of Jericho at the sound of the footsteps of Joshua's host.

I belong to several news groups which are composed of Air Force veterans who were stationed in Berlin before 1989. Some of the members were part of the USAF detail assigned to the arrival of the president and told some less-than-flattering stories about our lack of practice in military Drill and Ceremonies, especially as compared to that of their Berlin Brigade (Army) counterparts. There’s a reason that the other services make fun of us. Most of the time we laugh it off, but that one sounded like an occasion for real embarrassment.

UPDATE:GWB speech at the dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial:

We dedicate this memorial because we have an obligation to those who died, to acknowledge their lives and honor their memory. The Czech writer Milan Kundera once described the struggle against Communism as "the struggle of memory against forgetting." Communist regimes did more than take their victims' lives; they sought to steal their humanity and erase their memory. With this memorial, we restore their humanity and we reclaim their memory. With this memorial, we say of Communism's innocent and anonymous victims, these men and women lived and they shall not be forgotten.

Of Disasters And Of Peace

On January 28, 1986, during the one of the hourly, ten minute breaks that is a feature of any classroom technical training in the military—in this case I was at DLI learning German--I turned from getting my morning coffee to watch the television as the Challenger was making its ascent. Suddenly—

I’ll never forget the wide eyes, the open mouths that were suddenly a feature of every face in the room; the ‘Oh-my-Gods’ that issued from nearly every mouth. DLI hosts students from each service and nearly all of its language instructors are civilian native-speakers. So it was that in the room I was in, Air Force, Army, Marine, Navy and civilian alike stood stunned—some in tears—as the fate of the Challenger’s crew slowly dawned on the mind of each individual observer.

At the time, I thought no disaster could be so universally traumatic to witness. We all know differently now, of course.

*****

Whenever I have thought of the Challenger disaster, I can’t help but think of the lone civilian member of the crew, Christa McAuliffe. Most of us who were adults then recall the media blitz immediate preceding Mrs. McAuliffe’s mission. As the first civilian (a teacher) to go into space, there was a lot of excitement—and, yes, hype—surrounding the lady’s presence on the Challenger. However, one report stands out in my mind: some interviewer asked Mrs. McAuliffe’s young daughter, Caroline—around five or six at the time—how she felt about her mother going into space. The poor kid was afraid that her mother would never come back.

Over these many years, I have wondered how the now-young woman has been doing and have sent up a prayer for her every now and then, along with all of the others.

*****

Not long after the Columbia disaster, my mother, who works for a Big Media organization, had occasion to meet a brother of one of the crew of the last mission. The upshot of his attitude was this: he hurt and he missed his sister, but he was, at the same time, at peace. His sister died doing something that she loved, had dreamed about and trained for nearly all of her life, and she had been making a positive contribution to her society and to its future.

That’s all any of us can aspire to.

UPDATE: Dr. Sanity was there.

First and Last

When I had my retirement ceremony back in October 2003, I had a friend of mine take some pictures. Afterward, however, I couldn’t find the camera anywhere! (Thank God it wasn’t a digital one.)

Well, I found it this week in a really retarded place. (Spring cleaning is a very illuminating practice.)
Here’s part of the chronicle of my last day in uniform. That yellow thing hanging from my collar is my AF Commendation Medal.

That’s my former commander, Col B., a great guy. (He asked me to tell you that, but I would have said so anyway because it’s true.)

Here's what I looked like twenty-two years earlier.

I loved it, but I don’t miss it. Page turned.

Sticking Situations

I don’t know whether it’s the flu shot that I’ve been militarily compelled to take every year of my adult life or the West African-East African-Native American-European immune system that’s responsible, but I’ve rarely caught one of the variations of the flu.

This year, it keeps trying to catch me, but my system keeps fighting it off. I took my shot a couple of weeks ago, my first year of voluntary compliance. Unlike many, I have never caught the “flu” immediately after the arm stab. I only got sick in two (consecutive) years with the causes being very apparent.

Three years ago, when the vaccine was delayed until late in the flu season and I hadn’t received the shot yet, I got hit.

Then, two years ago, my sister and my then three-year-old niece came to visit from Albuquerque. My sister had entered her daughter—a future Miss America for sure—into a kiddie talent show held here, so I went with them to the proceedings. In this manner, I was exposed to hundreds of rug-rats—no doubt carrying all manner of contagion--and was, for only the second time in my life, abed for days. (Niece won in her category, however.)

Kids are dangerous.

*****

My last career in the Air Force was as an immunization technician. Here’s the rule: large male patients are the worst babies about getting stuck. Female patients, especially those who have given birth, roll up their sleeves and say, “hey, let’s get this over with so I can get back to work.” Here's the other rule: if you thought you were going to faint and you were over five feet two inches and weighed more than one hundred pounds, you’d better sit down because I like my spinal column better than I like you.

One guy always had to sit down and have someone—a woman, preferably—hold his hand whenever he got shot. He’d cover his eyes with the other hand. A light-skinned black man, he would turn fire-truck red as soon as the needle hit his arm. He was gorgeous, however, so I didn’t mind holding his hand. I would do my best not to laugh at the poor thing.

MORE: How do I handle receiving shots? Okay, as long as I don’t look at what they’re doing and as long as they’re quick about it. Get in and get the flock out.

It’s the drawing of blood that bothers me.

Being very dark of skin and small of blood vessel, I always request the most experienced lab technician. There have been a couple of amateurs that have had to dig around in the crook of my arm(s) for a vein. Once, I came away from the experience with tears coming from my eyes and an arm resembling that of a heroin addict. Needless to say, giving blood isn’t high on my list of helping the unfortunate. I’ll give money, thanks.

One Plus One Equals Six

In one of my last entries in this category, I said that I spent the second half of the eighties stationed in Germany, in occupied Berlin, to be specific. It’s there that I made some of my oldest and best friends, including this one.

Since my career was in intel, I can’t talk too much about it. I can only say that it was the highlight of my career, both professionally and personally. I had a blast!

But aside from good friends made and kept, my presence in Germany had another wonderful effect that lasted from my first life into my second and, as it appears, far into the future.

You Never Can Tell

I posted this in Donnie’s comments regarding the Confederate flag.

*****

Back when I bought my first car in the early eighties, I was still rather inattentive as to how much gas was in it. One day, I ran out of gas. (This was on Lowry AFB, CO.)

I kept trying to flag people down. A little over a dozen cars passed me by. More than half of the motorists were black.

Suddenly, a white guy driving a pick up truck with the Stars and Bars in the back window stops. He’s wearing a cowboy hat. The truck plates were from a southern state (don't remember which).

The guy gets out and says, "Kin ah hep yew, ma'am?" I told him my plight. Of course he's got a gas can. He goes to the gas station, gets some gas and brings it back. He wouldn't let me touch the can and he refused any money from me, though I offered twice.

God bless him, wherever he is.

Scary Story

I know I'm a day late, but this one is really scary. Real-life ghoul stories always are.

A few years back, I was driving home from my reserve unit on a late Sunday afternoon. The seventy-mile trip was normally uneventful outside of the usual crazy California drivers. But this one was different.

One of my close friends/co-workers happened to live in LA at the time and, on this day, we left about the same time. This was unusual in itself, given both of our unpredictable workloads: one or both of us often stayed late.

So we drove close to each other, with me in front. At the time, I had a cell phone, so we yakked on the phone a bit, then we hung up and drove.

About ten minutes after we hung up, a van cuts me off. I swore a bit, then slowed down to get off of its rear. The van slows down too. So I change lanes and slow down to avoid what I think is just another of the myriad California idiots. The van, light blue with no side or back windows, changes lanes to get in front of me again. It slows down.

My friend calls me back: “What is this mf’s problem?

Me: (shaken) I don’t know.

Friend: Pull over. And whatever you do, stay in the car!

I pull over to the shoulder and, sure enough, the van pulls over some 100 feet in front of me. My friend pulls over behind me. I’m nervous as a cat as I watch the scenario unfold.

I see the driver’s side door of the van open. A man with dark hair, maybe latino, starts to get out. Then his eyes widen. He jumps back in and speeds off. The van goes over on two wheels, nearly turning over getting out of there. Dust is flying up all over the place. I look in my left mirror and see my friend approaching my window.

I guess a tall, imposing black man wearing BDUs (my friend) was a bit more than the van-driver bargained for.

I still wonder to this day what that guy was going to do and who else was in the van. I was obviously military (wearing ‘blues,’ blouse and skirt). Was it an attempted pervert hit or an attempted military hit? Or was it racial? Or some combination thereof? I don’t know and I’m very happy not to have found out.

Memories of the First Life (Part Five)

Nearing the end of my first four year commitment, I had a choice to make. I could stay in my present career and position for another four years, I could accept a position as a Training Instructor (TI) in the Air Force Basic Military Training School at Lackland AFB, Texas, or I could get a new job.

There was no way that I was going to remain a bomb loader, so that choice was made. Being a TI sounded like it might be fun for about a year. The problem was that the position was a four-year controlled tour, meaning you did four years minimum, period. It sounded like jail.

Besides, I figured that there was no point in putting up with the rigor of the military if you didn’t get to go to some other country.

So, cross-training it was.

Anniversary of Infamy

Twenty years ago today, the US Marine Barracks in Beirut was blown up by the terrorists, killing 241 Marines, Navy and Army personnel.

When the Beirut bombing of sleeping US fighting men occurred, I had been in the Air Force for two years. Before this cowardly attack, I had been intimately associated with our versions of weapons of mass destruction and had begun to question the wisdom of war in general and my role in perpetrating war in particular. Minus all the pertinent facts and naïve to the nature of humans, I had decided to put in a request for Conscientious Objectors Status. I nearly had the paperwork done when my comrades were murdered and maimed in their sleep.

Paperwork trashed.

It was then when I realized that evil truly existed and must be opposed…”by any means necessary.” I have not regretted this decision once.

Rest in Peace, good men and Semper Fidelis.

Memories of the First Life (Part Three)

Since it appears that this memories thing will be a multi-part post, a series, if you will, I have given it its own category.

My sojourn as a technical training instructor was relatively uneventful. Oh, I enjoyed it and had a lot of fun, but I won’t be posting too much about that fun here, especially since my mother’s reading this stuff. (Hi, Mom!)

Since I was only an Airman First Class (E-3) when I arrived at Lowry, it was often assumed that I had no practical experience as a bomb loader. The reason? During the technical training (job training) that comes directly after basic training and before assignment to one’s first duty station, there are some students that manage to score an average of 98% or better on the tests. Often, those students are offered technical training instructor positions right out of school: that is, instead of going to get the practical experience of doing the job, they go right into teaching others how to do the job. Since I was busy having fun during technical training and only achieved a high 80s average, I had been sent on to my station, Plattsburg.

None of my airmen students gave me any flak over this assumption and most of my NCO students didn’t either. However, there’s always one. A staff sergeant called me out in front of the whole class: “What do you know? You’ve never been out at a real base to do this job.” I corrected him.

Later, I told my boss about the incident. Abe Something (can’t remember right now) was a black man, about five-six, weighed about two-fifty and had a bald head. He had all the dimensions of a cannon ball with a voice and a personality to match: he took absolutely no crap, especially off students.

After I dimed on the sergeant, Abe called him into his office. We could hear Abe outside of the building. Abe wasn’t the kind of guy to give you a letter of counseling/reprimand or anything. He was the type to threaten to cut your eyeballs out and feed them to you. And he treated me like a little sister.

*****

Being a “technical training instructor” bequeathed to me several gifts. The class designed to train instructors to teach helped me to do three things:

• It helped me to minimize my innate shyness. (To those who know me in person: stop laughing! Thank the designers of this course for the hellcat you presently know and love/put up with.)

• It eliminated any fear of making speeches, even impromptu ones. Preparation and practice are the keys, but once the fear is gone, you can bloviate jaw-jack talk to your heart’s content without a script and without that funny feeling in your stomach.

• It minimized the horrid, annoying habit of peppering speech with verbal fillers, e.g. “like,” “you know,” and especially the dreaded “uh.” It also minimized “physical distracters,” e.g. moving your head too much, twirling hair (not a problem for me now, but then I had a little Afro), and playing with pencils, shuffling papers and the like. FoxNews reporters Wendell Goler and Jennifer Eccleston would benefit greatly from this course.

Memories of the First Life (Part Two)

After a year at my base, I checked into the requirements for becoming an instructor in my career field. They were: one year at present duty station (check), achieve a certain level in the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB; check) and have a cumulative “nine”—the highest possible--on all of the last five Airman Performance Reports (now called Enlisted Performance Reports, the highest cumulative score being “five”).

This last item was something that I was worried about. Oh, I had been a good girl, but it was rumored that the superintendent of maintenance, a senior master sergeant (E-8) rarely endorsed a nine for new airman. My first and only APR was done, but the superintendent hadn’t done the endorsement. Three weeks went by before I checked on it again.

Memories of the First Life

Well, it’s over and it’s been a blast. My career was varied and interesting and I thought I’d share a few of the more interesting factoids with the readers.

*****

My first career field in the Air Force was munitions maintenance, more descriptively known as bomb loading. Now, as many recruits find out, it is extremely unwise to enter the military in “open field,” that is, without picking your job first. I did this and munitions maintenance is what I got.

Back then, many fields that had been previously barred to women had the bar dropped and munitions maintenance was one of them. New female recruits were steered toward these fields and I was one of them. This field had weight lifting requirements, but they were lowered in light of average female physical capabilities. Take that as you will and keep in mind that, having gained seven pounds in basic training, I weighed a grand total of 110 pounds upon graduation from same.

At my first duty station, Plattsburg AFB, New York, my shop had a total of 73 people. Three of them were women, counting yours truly. By the time I had been there a few months, I was the lone female. One had messed up some equipment and was consigned to indoor duty. The other became pregnant. (Later, we got another woman in the shop, who, for a time, was my roommate. More about her later.) Before my time, there had been other female loaders in the shop who had left it through similar means.

Needless to say, I had to prove myself.

I did so by the usual means: always being on time, not complaining about anything, volunteering for every crappy duty that came up--believe me, there were plenty--and doing something novel: my job.

Not complaining about one particular subject was very difficult for me. Imagine a young California girl who had only seen snow once in her life, having to work outside in an upstate New York winter everyday. My standard accoutrements were: parka (with hood), parka pants, skull cap (covering ears and neck), black beanie, long johns (top and bottom), panty hose, socks, boots, mukluks, thin gloves (for working), and black leather, fur-lined gloves (plus the usual female undies). Oh yeah, and there was my uniform. And I would still be freezing my little narrow a** off.

I remember walking to work one December afternoon in 1981—we worked the swing shift—dressed as described, freezing said a** off and talking to myself. “Why in the hell did you do this? You could be sitting in a nice warm college classroom right now. What the hell were you thinking?”

We worked in four person teams and, because of my physical limitations, my position involved more hands-on duty than brute strength. Actually, having smaller hands made it easier for me to work in this position than was so for many men.

I hated this job. But, having made the commitment, I would stick to it and bide my time. I couldn’t see myself purposely sabotaging equipment. The thought disgusted me. As for becoming pregnant, I couldn’t see myself doing that either, but for more practical reasons: why make an eighteen year commitment—a lifetime one, if you ask me--to get out of a four year one?

So there I was. Then the wheels began to turn. How could I get into the best position possible within the career field, through legal and honorable means, until the time came for me to separate from the service or cross-train (get a new job) and re-enlist? Answer: I would become an instructor.

(continued)