The Marines weren't for me. It was a supreme challenge, one that I will never forget; but once I realized that I could meet that challenge, I knew that I didn't want to live in tents for my military career. After I left Marine OCS and returned home to South Gate after ten weeks away, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do. This was now the summer of 1972, and the draft was fading as a threat as the war was slowly winding down. Also, now that the airlines were mandated to hire men, as well as women, as flight attendants, I even applied to Continental Airlines and TWA at LAX for a job. I wasn't hired, but my straight friend Pat Byrne was.
For a few months anyway, I went back to working at A.U. Morse & Company, the wallpaper warehouse in Los Angeles where I had worked for almost all of my college years--my dad worked there as a salesman and got me the job after high school. I even moved into the office to take orders instead of filling them in the warehouse. But this was a dead end job for me and I knew it. Besides, I had actually enjoyed being in the military, even if not in the Marines. So, I soon applied to attend Coast Guard Officer's Training School. But sitting in an office and gaining weight from not exercising enough after leaving the Marines, and being too concerned about my future at this stage, almost every time I was tested, my blood pressure was too high.
I soon got fired from my office job for taking a couple of days off to relax and get my head together, then collected unemployment for a few months and tried to work on getting my blood pressure down so that I could get into the Coast Guard. I never got accepted because, while the airlines might have been hiring men for jobs that were previously only for women, the military services were now accepting women into their officer schools in far greater numbers. I then got a job as a security guard after the unemployment ran out and worked the swing shift through the spring and early summer.
One door closes and another opens: Out of the blue, literally and figuratively, the Air Force came calling. Whereas my test scores had not been good enough before, they were sufficient to spark interest in me then. I would get a pilot assignment through Air Force Officer's Training School. I passed my physical easily at March Air Force Base, a base I'd visited with my dad when I was a kid back in the 50's and he was in the Air Force Reserves. I was soon bound for OTS in August of 1973. I bought a brand new 1973 Chevrolet Camero for $4,000 after the GM strike was settled, added an 8-Track tape deck in the glove compartment, packed up some of my possessions, leaving my comic book and record collections behind, kissed my mom and South Gate goodbye one early morning, and drove from Southern California for San Antonio, Texas.
I spent my first night on the road at a Holiday Inn in Phoenix, met a cute guy in the Marine Reserves who worked road construction in Arizona and who was staying at the motel and swimming in the pool. We struck up a conversation after I'd complimented him on his diving, enjoyed one another's company, and later met for dinner in the motel restaurant. I kept hoping he'd invite me back to his room; but he had an early morning wake up call, so we parted company and I was off for El Paso, my next stop where I met up with three other guys the following evening who were also driving to OTS from Southern California. I may have had a sense of Deja Vu after we arrived and were soon assigned to our cadet squadrons, but I quickly found that AF OTS was decidedly different:
The Officer Schools
A deep, indelible blue
on the light concrete between
marches to the sun of another day;
a cadence reminding me of a different service,
and a different uniform: starched
but fading green, and rifles of Marines--
arms ordered slung to my indifference
one morning back when I trained again.
For a few months anyway, I went back to working at A.U. Morse & Company, the wallpaper warehouse in Los Angeles where I had worked for almost all of my college years--my dad worked there as a salesman and got me the job after high school. I even moved into the office to take orders instead of filling them in the warehouse. But this was a dead end job for me and I knew it. Besides, I had actually enjoyed being in the military, even if not in the Marines. So, I soon applied to attend Coast Guard Officer's Training School. But sitting in an office and gaining weight from not exercising enough after leaving the Marines, and being too concerned about my future at this stage, almost every time I was tested, my blood pressure was too high.
I soon got fired from my office job for taking a couple of days off to relax and get my head together, then collected unemployment for a few months and tried to work on getting my blood pressure down so that I could get into the Coast Guard. I never got accepted because, while the airlines might have been hiring men for jobs that were previously only for women, the military services were now accepting women into their officer schools in far greater numbers. I then got a job as a security guard after the unemployment ran out and worked the swing shift through the spring and early summer.
One door closes and another opens: Out of the blue, literally and figuratively, the Air Force came calling. Whereas my test scores had not been good enough before, they were sufficient to spark interest in me then. I would get a pilot assignment through Air Force Officer's Training School. I passed my physical easily at March Air Force Base, a base I'd visited with my dad when I was a kid back in the 50's and he was in the Air Force Reserves. I was soon bound for OTS in August of 1973. I bought a brand new 1973 Chevrolet Camero for $4,000 after the GM strike was settled, added an 8-Track tape deck in the glove compartment, packed up some of my possessions, leaving my comic book and record collections behind, kissed my mom and South Gate goodbye one early morning, and drove from Southern California for San Antonio, Texas.
I spent my first night on the road at a Holiday Inn in Phoenix, met a cute guy in the Marine Reserves who worked road construction in Arizona and who was staying at the motel and swimming in the pool. We struck up a conversation after I'd complimented him on his diving, enjoyed one another's company, and later met for dinner in the motel restaurant. I kept hoping he'd invite me back to his room; but he had an early morning wake up call, so we parted company and I was off for El Paso, my next stop where I met up with three other guys the following evening who were also driving to OTS from Southern California. I may have had a sense of Deja Vu after we arrived and were soon assigned to our cadet squadrons, but I quickly found that AF OTS was decidedly different:
The Officer Schools
A deep, indelible blue
on the light concrete between
marches to the sun of another day;
a cadence reminding me of a different service,
and a different uniform: starched
but fading green, and rifles of Marines--
arms ordered slung to my indifference
one morning back when I trained again.
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