Two pics of those short-sleeved dress shirts, 1970's

The first picture might have been taken near Marineland on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.   The blue shirt with the wide collar was just one of several.  The next picture is at the Lompoc Airport, not far from Vandenberg Air Force Base, where I was stationed for missile training in the spring of 1974.  I am also wearing one of the light jackets I also bought from the same store.  Again, I owned several, each with a single, solid color.

Along with the bright red dress shirt, I am wearing a colorful pair of checked bell bottom pants.  Pat Byrne could pull off such pants, but I wasn't always sure I could.

Mom might have flown up to visit.  A DeHaviland Dove is in the background.  I took one of those planes from LAX to Lompoc myself.  I don't even recall the name of the commuter airline that served the area.

Since I left my Camaro at mom's when I flew up to Minot the first time, I was able to drive it all during missile training.  Only then, when the training was over, did I then drive it to Minot.

The only problem I did have that spring of 1974 was the gasoline shortages that plagued the nation in those many months following another Mideast crisis, this time when the Saudis shut off the oil because of U.S. support for Isreal. 

California dealt with the shortage by having restricted even- and odd-day gasoline purchases.  If your license plate ended in an even number, you could only get gas on even numbered days.  Unfortunately, on the weekends, when I drove down to Southern California from Vandenberg,  I found it more and more difficult to get gasoline for the trip back to the base.  Most stations were not even open on Sundays as the shortages continued and even widened.

I would drive down on a Friday evening, and then get up early on Saturday morning and hunt for gas.  One weekend, I simply could not find an open station that had any fuel.  I drove back to Vandenberg on fumes, finding one station at the last moment.

The next weekend, I just stayed on the base.  I did not want to have to go through that ordeal again.

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Ann and Greg, early 1970's, Southern California

These were from sometime during the early to mid-1970's.  I cannot say whether I was in the Air Force or not when these were taken--they were in mom's photo albums but, rare indeed, they have no writing on the backs of either one. 

The first is likely from the parking lot of the Del Amo Mall.  Mom's 1968 blue Ford Galaxy is behind us.  When mom was on her trip to Europe, I drove that car with Mike down to San Diego a couple of times in 1970.  It road so beautifully, much more comfortably than my 1966 Ford Mustang.

The second photograph is likely from Frontierland in Disneyland.  Ann has her Karen Carpenter look going on in both.  I am wearing the same brown pullover shirt with the white stripes in each one.

Daylin became friends with a guy who managed a modestly sized men's clothing boutique not far from Daylin's house.  I believe it was off Bullus Road.  I later learned that the guy had paid a doctor to provide fake medical documents that allowed him to avoid the draft and military service in Vietnam.

The clothing store carried all kinds and colors of these short-sleeved pullover shirts.  By the time I was in the Air Force, I had already acquired many of them a few years earlier; and so pictures of me in the 1970's wearing one or another of those shirts are prevalent.  I am the type who buys a bunch of new clothes at one time and then keeps them nice for years.  Sometimes, I would wear them long after they were no longer in fashion--most especially 1970's garish pants.

When I arrived at the Academy in 1978, and my neighbor and I attended a private party given by one of the other members of the English Department, I was told that my bright maroon corduroy pants and green shirt were quite out of date and a real fashion, and color mismatched, faux pas.

I also bought a slew of the short sleeve dress shirts from the same guy, again in several bright colors.  So, if I am not wearing one of those pullover shirts, I am wearing one of those dress shirts.

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Christmas 1973 and Christmas 1974, San Pedro, CA

As I mentioned before, after I left for OTS, mom finally moved out of the rented house in South Gate to San Pedro, nearer the water where she had always wanted to live. 

The house where she moved was the left side of a long duplex on a deep lot.  The owners lived in the right half.  The unit had a long hallway to the bathroom.  I quickly joked that if one had to go, one needed to start out early since, by the time one arrived, one really had to go.  The unit had a bedroom in the back next to the bathroom that mom used, and another halfway down the hallway, used as a den and a guest bedroom.

Regarding the two pictures above, in the one on the left, I am wearing my new Air Force uniform with the long winter coat.  This must have been a morning after Christmas and New Year's when I left from LAX via Denver for Minot (note the absense of presents under the tree).  While the coat may look warm, it was entirely insufficient for North Dakota I would soon learn later that same day.

Missile school wasn't for a couple of months after OTS graduation, so I could not stay much longer in San Pedro because I had accured very little leave.  So, I needed to report to Minot soon.  I believe that I arrived on January 3rd.  When the exit door to the Frontier 737 flight opened up and I stood in the doorway, ready to descend the mobile ramp, I was blasted by the intense cold.  A breeze always seemed to blow there, adding to the wind chill.  It was definitely well below zero that day, even with the sun shining brightly.  Unfortunately, my suitcase did not make the connection in Denver since I had to transfer from either United Airlines or Continental Airlines to Frontier.

This was the first time that I made that change of planes in Denver, the first of many such transits there.  But, fortunately, this was the only time while I was stationed in Minot that my bag did not make the connecting flight with me.  I was able to catch the Air Force shuttle bus from the airport to the base and immediately checked into the Visiting Officer's Quarters (VOQ).  After checking in, I took another base bus to get to the Wing Building and checked in with my Squadron, the 742nd, whose color was blue.

The next morning, I had to hike from the VOQ to the dispensary, to catch the bus to the airport to retrieve my suitcase, which had arrived on that morning flight from Denver.  I dressed as warmly as I could in that long Air Force coat, but I was freezing before I got halfway to the dispensary (all I had to cross was the VOQ parking lot, one street, and the dispensary parking lot; but the wind was blowing strongly and the wind chill was considerably colder).  I passed someone wearing a parka, hood covering his or her head, who saluted me.  I returned the salute and kept walking, grateful at having finally reached the dispensary while my ears and nose were still attached.  (I didn't as yet have any long underwear either, my cold weather clothing issue not coming for another day or so.)

The picture above on the right is also in the rented San Pedro house; but as you can see, while the drapes are the same, and the TV is off to the right side of each picture, the two Christmas trees are entirely different.  So, this had to be the next holiday season.  Mom was only able to live in that house for a couple of years.  The couple that owned it had a daughter who married; and she and her husband wanted to move in, so mom had to move out. 

She found another rented house to move into that was rather old, having possibly been built in the 1920's, or earlier.  She did not live there that long before moving into another house, this one on a corner lot.  After she had had her first open heart surgery, she went on disability for the remainder of her life and was soon able to move into a senior housing high rise, overlooking the harbor.  From her balcony on the 10th floor, you could see one end of Catalina Island to the West.  You could also see ships arriving and departing from the harbor, their fog horns announcing their arrivals and departures.  She would live in that same apartment for the next twenty-five years until we were forced to place her in an assisted living complex a few miles away in 2002.

Unfortunately, she had already deteriorated enough that even this arrangement was insufficient.  Ann finally had to transfer her to a nursing home back in Maryland, to be near her.  She lived for approximately two months before dying of congestive heart failure in June of that year.  At this point she was 80, having endured those two open heart surgeries, one in the mid-1970's, the other in the early 1990's.  She would not have survived a third.

But that was all ahead of us, twenty-five years in the future.

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Thank you!

Taking a break from my "Photographs of You and Me" series for a moment here, I wanted to thank one of you followers of my blog for going onto amazon.com and ordering all eight volumes of the Rainbow Arc of Fire series of paperback books.

Amazon.com just sent me an email early this morning to order replacement copies for their inventory.  This obviously means that, instead of cancelling the series in paperback on their site, with this new order by one of you, they will likely maintain an inventory for the foreseeable future.  (They do not make it easy to get cancelled books returned, and I was rather saddened by the thought that their inventory of my books was going to be destroyed rather than, at the very least, given away.)

Rainbow Arc of Fire has always been a cottage industry for me for all of these years of its existence, and certainly a labor of love for every one of those years.  After the initial conclusion of the Tales of the City series (which Armistead Maupin has renewed twice now with Michael Toliver Lives! and Maryann in Autumn) , and with the passage of Amendment 2 in 1992, in Colorado, I always felt compelled to write RAoF.  What you see here is the direct result of that compulsion.

These characters seemed destined to come into existence, and I often felt like a midwife, responsible for their emergence but not entirely in control of how it all turned out.  Much like a medium being spoken through by the spirit world, I felt these characters appeared to be writing their own adventures as dictation.  I was Dr. Watson to their Sherlock Holmes.

From 1994 until well into the 2000's, I worked on one volume and then another, not really certain when the series might conclude.  The flier above is the one Anita, my visual and cover artist, created after the first six volumes were completed. 

Obviously, four more volumes were to come after those first six.  Fortunately, David Small created this blog for me to keep the series alive.  And, apparently, one of you readers did want to see the paperback books remain available on amazon.com.  For that I am profoundly grateful.

For all of you who follow this blog, I am also grateful.  While I may have had a somewhat typical existence for the past 62 years, my life, like all of your lives, like the lives of everyone else on this planet, is unique.  One of a kind.  Exactly like no other.  A snowflake.

By reading my blog and/or buying my books, whether in paperback or as Kindle Editions, you touch my life in return.  Just as all of those individuals who are in these many photographs that I continue to post touched my life, people weave in and out of our lives all of the time.  They all leave an impression on us, even if, years later, we do not always remember their names or, perhaps, never learn their names in the first place.     

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Mom removing my shoulder boards, December 5, 1973

Mom was wearing her un-PC fur coat that day because it was probably chilly.  Linda must have taken this picture of mom removing my shoulder boards after commissioning.

A few minutes later, we all departed with our friends and family members.  Many of us had promised to get our first salute from an enlisted man who worked weekends at the OTSOM, serving dinner and drinks to us trainees for so many weeks.

I sought him out, he gave me my first salute as an officer, and I reached into my pocket to give him the obligatory $1 bill.  Unfortunately, klutz that I am, I grabbed a $20 bill by mistake.  He laughed and recoiled when I went to hand it to him, now realizing my error.  I fished back into my pocket and found the $1 bill that I'd put there deliberately, a bit embarrassed.  I am sure he told that story for years afterwards.

I cannot imagine that giving only a dollar to the first person who salutes you as a new officer is sufficient remuneration anymore.

Mom and I drove around Lackland mainside after graduation.  She wanted to see the Officer's Club that she had remembered so fondly from almost thirty years previously.  She wanted to see the wooden wall where they had all carved their names or initials years earlier after the long war was over and they'd all survived.

We found the club, though it may not have looked quite as it once did to her; but the wall inside was long since gone.  Nobody we asked even knew about any such wall.  All the fun that she and my dad and their fellow officers and wives must have had so many years ago had been erased by the passage of time.

After that unsuccessful search for her past, we left the base.  We had dinner that night at the HemisFair Park, in the Tower of the Americas revolving restaurant at the top.  We spent the night at a nearby La Quinta Inn, where I called USAA Insurance Company the following morning and became a member.

That next morning, we drove off west.  I don't recall if we stayed at a motel somewhere between San Antonio and Riverside, CA.  We did get to Riverside late at night.  I dropped mom off at Mrs. Daly's house.  (She and her husband Dan had divorced several years before.  A male friend was with her and, when I left mom with them to spend the night, the two of them already sounded drunk.)  I drove to the University, found Darryl Butler, and he let me sleep in an empty dorm room that night.

It was to his dorm I went months before after my Air Force physical at March AFB when my eyes were dilated and I could not drive home to South Gate that day.

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Linda and I standing in front of the stands, OTS, December 5, 1973

Mom may have missed the hat toss, but she caught this shot perfectly.  Friends and family are meeting up with their newly commissioned officers, Linda is looking back and me, smiling, and I am looking up at mom, grinning.  It was a wonderful day.  We still have not yet removed our shoulder boards, but we're done. 

She had this picture, as well as the next one, enlarged.  That was appropriate because this was one of the finest days of my life and this was the finest moment of that day.

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After dismissal and the hat toss

Mom was just a few moments late taking this picture.  After we are administered the oath of office, we are then told, "Ladies and gentlemen, you are dismissed."  That's the signal to toss our hats in the air in celebration.  Mom missed the hat toss and caught all of us scrambling to find our hats so we could say our final goodbyes and leave. 

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Marching Past the review stand and then taking the oath

In the first picture, we're marking past the review stand while everyone stands.  In the second picture, we are probably taking the oath of office from the general.

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OTS Graduation Program, December 5, 1973

Inside on the second page, we are Class 74-06; however, on the first page with our names listed, we are Class 74-07.  I think we were 74-06.

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Parade Field and Reviewing Stand, OTS Graduation, December 5. 1973

It was a cloudy day, but the rain held off.  Mom took pictures of the flights on the parade grounds and the reviewing stand where the higher ups and their families sat. 

This is what the program said:  "Graduation Parade and Commissioning Ceremony Class 74-06 - School of Military Sciences, Officer Lackland Training Annex Parade Ground Thursday, 5 December 1973.

Adjutant's Call        1030

Oath of Office

                                Brigadier General Cecil E. Fox
                                Commander
                                School of Military Sciences, Officer

---

George Tucker and I shaking hands afterwards

This picture mom took after we were commissioned.  Nancy, with her back to the camera, and Linda look on.

George and I had met back in California before either of us had even met up in El Paso, TX, for the final leg of the drive to San Antonio.  The two of us and the other two guys from CA stayed in a motel the night before we reported.  George and I were in the same flight during the first six weeks of OTS.  We were in the same flight through FSP.  And we assigned to the same flight after we left FSP and became upperclassmen.  Now, we had just been commissioned together.

In all, we'd been through fifteen weeks of training together, starting in August in the heat and humidity of Texas.  Now it was December 5th.  He would go on to pilot training, and I dn't recall to which base he was assigned.  I would go home on leave and then report to Minot before returning to California and missile training at Vandenberg AFB north of Santa Barbara.  I am not certain that I would ever hear from George or see George again, our careers took such different paths.

The only OTS trainee I would see again was Bruce Culp from my Marine OCS days.  He would go through missile training but flunk out.  (I doubt if he really wanted to be a missile officer.)  He then was able to get into Air Force security police, becoming a "Sky Cop" in Minot, of all places.  We lived in the same dorm building there for a few years.

One other interesting Marine connection also occurred.  I learned that Marine Cadet Palms, who had left Marine OCS after six weeks along with John Ormbrek, turned up at Air Force OTS when I was an upperclassman.  We spent an evening at the OTSOM.  He'd been prior service Air Force.  Again, that was the last I saw of Palms.

I don't recall where many of my flight mates ended up.  Mel Kaya, my roommate in the final three weeks was in Columbus, Ohio.  I chatted with him one afternoon when I was there, delivering a top secret missile "can".  I believe that Linda was stationed there, too, but I was unable to locate her.

Since several of the others were either prior service or pilots, none of them ended up at a base like Minot, and so we all lost track of one another after this day.

But that was all in the near and distant future.  This day, like George and I getting as close to hugging one another as men got in 1973, we were all overjoyed to be in one another's company one last time.

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Mom pins on my gold bars. OTS graduation, Dec 5, 1973

They had us get our gold bars pinned on in the classroom rather than out on the parade field.  Here is the picture of mom doing so.  I am certain that being at San Antonio again, nearly thirty years after she and dad were there brought back a flood of memories for her. 

Our flight commander gave us the oath of office: 

"I, (officer trainee), having been appointed a second lieutenant, United States Air Force, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter, so help me God."

Twice during OTS, homosexuality came up.  Once, during the first weeks with my first flight, we were each sent to the head Chaplain of the base for an orientation.  Whether he realized that I was gay or not, or if it were merely part of his usual speech to each individual trainee, he mentioned that you only discuss certain issues with a Chaplain and those remarks would remain confidential.  Most importantly he mentioned homosexuality.  If you told anyone else, it would not be confidential, and you would get in trouble.

A few years later when I was teaching at the Academy and my friend Mike Durr was at OTS as a flight commander, I visited him and his family there.  One cadet, under suspicion for homosexuality, and having just been commissioned, was forced to wait at OTS until the investigation concluded.

The second instance of the mention of homosexuality occurred a few days after I left the FSP program.  A 1st lieutenant or junior captain was working on a psychological study regarding why some trainees failed FSP.  So, I was called into his office and interviewed.  At one point in the conversation, and I could see this question coming, he asked if I had ever had any homosexual relations.  He did not ask if I were a homosexual.  So, I was able to reply that I had not.  He noted my reaction to the question and asked, "You seemed surprised by that question."  I cooly responded, "I was surprised that you asked that question.  I haven't had any but the question surprised me."  He seemed to smile to himself, appeared to write something down, and then continued onto a different line of questions.

I never heard any more about his study.  And I doubt if he was able to come to any consistent conclusions regarding why some trainees flunk out of FSP and others do not.  Knowing gay pilots over the years, even gay Air Force pilots, that certainly does not provide any kind of impediment to succeeding at pilot training, obviously.

Regarding this day, we put our shoulder boards back on over our new gold bars.  It was only after the parade and commissioning ceremony would those boards finally come off.  Many more people were there to see the ceremonies at the parade ground than could have fit into our classrooms, so they wanted to preserve the illusion that those at the parade grounds were witnessing our official swearing in.

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The classroom, OTS, Dec 5, 1973

You can see all of the model planes hanging from the ceiling.  In the upper left is Linda's "Strawberry Bitch" which she had painted an unlikely pink.  She told us that there was a B-17 named just that in WWII, but I somehow doubt it was pink.

I think we are getting ready for the ceremony.

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Roommate, me, Nancy, Jim Thompson, classroom, Dec 5, 1973

The guy on the left was my roommate for three weeks after I returned from FSP but before we became upperclassmen.  He was a good athlete with a strong arm for playing one-pitch softball.  He could easily hit home plate with a throw from the outfield.  But even looking at all the names in the graduation program, I don't as yet recall his name.  In the group photo before, you cannot even see his name tag.  He was prior-service army, I believe.

Nancy is standing in front of me, and Jim Thompson has his arms folded.  As I said, we were standing around, waiting for the commissioning to begin.

The model plane above were constructed by some of us for extra credit.

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Flight Commander, Brian Bauries, me, Linda and Nancy in the classroom, Dec 5, 1973

I believe this was before we were read the commissioning oath.  Everyone was meeting and greeting the flight commander and family members that we did not meet the night before.  They may have only allowed one or two family members, the ones who would actually pin on our gold bars, to be there since the rooms weren't all that large.

Mom obviously took this picture.  We were all understandably in a great mood that morning.

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Linda Burgess and her mom, in the OTSOM, December 5, 1973

Linda Burgess and her mom at seated at one of the tables in the OTSOM the morning of graduation.

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Mom and I inside the OTSOM, graduation morning, December 5, 1973

Mom's pant suit is a clear indication that this was the morning of graduation.  I don't know whether they served coffee, and all the friends and family could have a last visit indoors before we arrived in the classrooms to pin on the gold bars.  I am still wearing my cadet shoulder boards.

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Mom and I in front of the F-102 display, OTS, December 5, 1973

Mom arrived that morning, and at some point we hiked up to the display.  Mom obviously had gotten someone to take our picture.  It was in the classroom building behind the F-102 display where we would have our bars pinned on. 

However, there are a couple of additional photos inside the OTSOM that same day, before graduation, so I don't recall when this picture was taken as it relates to the several pictures inside our classroom when we actually said the oath and had our gold bars pinned on.

Air Force OTS, 1973 (Forbes Hall F-102)

I was a small part
of a greater diminishing
in barely noticed ways.
Numbers were not the need.
And there were enough weekends
through the window where I could see
fewer officers train to salute in passing.

We are more significant now;
Not like the powerless fighter on display
winged
without insides remaining sufficient to fly.

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Mom, Bill Campbell's wife, Linda Burgess, another wife, OTSOM, December 4, 1973

I must have taken this picture of mom, Bill Campbell's wife, Linda Burgess, and another OT's wife at the OTSOM bar where many an officer trainee spent a Friday or Saturday evening in his cups.

It was here that the others in my flight found out that I did not drink and had me try one after another, to see if there was something alcoholic that I might enjoy drinking:  Tom Collins, Tequila Sunrise, Tequila Sunset and, finally, a Slo Gin Fizz.  That, I liked.  I know, it's  "sissy" drink.  Your point?

With the festivities and the dinner over, I handed mom the keys to the Camaro (she later told me she was a bit drunk that night), and she headed off to find a motel near the base to sleep. 

I have to relate that when we first arrived at OTS, we were warned of the hazing that occurred just before we became upperclassmen.  In fact, we were hazed periodically when drunk upperclassmen would return to the dorms and demand a "Jody Call", which meant they wanted to hear how many hours and minutes they had left to their graduation.  (We had to keep that information handy at all times.)

Then, if they were feeling particularly salty, and they usually were, they would make us then loudly call out the number of hours we had left until our graduation.  They would loudly moan at those numbers, in mocking us and all the time we had left to go.  And, of course, the night before we were to become upperclassmen, they gave us a huge hazing party.  Nothing dangerous, really, just made us put blankets over our heads and they'd yell at us and make us do silly things.  (I thought they had gone crazy.)

When we became upperclassmen with our new flight after FSP, we never once asked our lower class men to give us a Jody Call.  But because we had not harassed them, they voluntarily gave us one the night before we were to graduate.  Now, I was on Charge of Quarters (CQ) duty that final night with Paul Repak, I believe.  After our guys did haze our lower class men, the lower class men were able to turn the tables and go after us.

Paul and I immediately hid out.  We did not take part in the hazing until it was all over.  And when the counter hazing commenced, we barricaded the door to the CQ/phone room and stayed in there quietly until the tumult died down.

I also have to relate one other story.  There was this upperclassman who would come to my roommate's and my room on a Friday or Saturday night and tell us that we were letting our Cadet Flight Commander down, a good friend of his.  We'd feel really bad because we were trying very hard to do well. 

Later, one of our flight members was told by this same upperclassman to report to our Cadet Flight Commander and tell him that he (the lower class man) had been doing a particularly good job.  When he did as he was told, our Cadet Flight Commander turned to his Cadet assistant and said, "Ramirez must be drunk again."  When we heard this, my roommate and I had to finally laugh because we realized then that he had probably been drunk every time he came to our room and told us we were not measuring up.  We had both worried unnecessarily that we might flunk out because he kept telling us how poorly we were doing.

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In front of the OTSOM, December 1973

I'm standing in front of the Officer's Training School Open Mess (OTSOM).  I am wearing the OTS mess dress uniform.  We wore these fancy uniforms exactly twice.  Once for our Dining In (just us officer candidates and our training officers, who were officially invited to come into the OTSOM).  The second time would be for our Dining Out when family and friends were welcome the night before our graduation, after which we would no longer be welcome at the OTSOM as commissioned officers.  As commissioned officers, we were no longer able to wear these uniforms but had to buy official Mess Dress uniforms.

Mom wrote on the back of this picture "San Antonio" but this looks to be in the afternoon, well before she arrived.

She was able to get a ticket on a Continental flight from LAX to San Antonio.  Once she arrived at the airport in the early evening, she wasn't sure how to get to the base.  Ever resourceful, she was able to hitch a ride on an Air Force bus taking new Air Force recruits to Lackland.  She called me from Lackland Mainside, explaining that she did not know where she was and did not how to get to the Medina Annex, where OTS was.

Me and the others were getting ready in the barracks for the Dining Out.  I grabbed my keys and headed down to my car, having no idea where she might be waiting for me.  Fortunately, while we were not allowed to leave the base, Lackland Mainside where the enlisted men and women trained was part of the base to which we were restricted.

I drove to the main administrative building but she was not there.  I recalled the place from fifteen weeks earlier, when the four of us arrived from California and checked in there, only to be told where we needed to go for OTS.  I drove around the back of the building and there mom was.  I loaded her bag in the trunk and we headed back to OTS.  I was thrilled to be having my mom at my graduation and the ceremonies the night before.

I sent her on to the OTSOM while I rejoined the others at the barracks before we all walked over to the OTSOM with all of the other graduates.

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OTS Flight picture, 1973

Back Row:  Brian Bauries, William H. "Cookie Monster" Campbell, unknown, George S. Tucker, unknown, Jimmy W. Thompson(?)

Middle Row:  Patrick J. Sanjenis, Linda L. Burgess, Pamala J. Long, Nancy Farris(?), Melvin S. Kaya

Bottom Row:  David C. Hunn, Gregory E. Sanchez, Flight Commander, Lyle C. Dunable, Gary G. Wolz.

Someone with better eyes and a better magnifying glass can probably read most of the name tags--I was able to fill almost all of them in by finding the graduation program.

Just a couple of days before this picture was taken, I received a note, telling me to report to a specific Sgt. in the basement office of one of the old admin buildings.

When I descended the stairs and entered his office, I was informed by a junior enlisted man that the Sgt. was not there.  He did begin to offer, in the slowest way possible, "He was...to tell you...that your application...for missile training...."  Then he paused a really long time, long enough for me, who was already increasingly leaning forward with each partial phrase, to almost fall over.   Then he slowly finished, "...has been...approved." 

I could have jumped up and hit my head on the ceiling I was so overjoyed.  I quickly thanked him and, with my heart now racing, marched to the OTSOM where the rest of the flight was gathered.  I told everyone what I had learned and that a round of drinks was on me, for if they had not spoken up when the Squadron Commander entered the classroom at least four weeks before, I would not still be there. 

Graduation was only one week away.  But now I was going to be a part of it all. 

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Several flight members at the picnic, OTS, 1973

Somewhere, I may have the program from our graduation.  With that, I can figure out a few names, I am sure.  I am second from the left.

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Picnic Table pics, OTS, 1973

The two guys standing in the background were buddies.  I think they were from back east and both may have been prior service Air Force enlisted men. 

The second picnic table picture is of Lyle Dunable, Cookie Monster, I think her name was Linda, my roommate in the last few weeks of OTS, and the third woman in our flight on the other side of the table.

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Two more picnic pics from OTS

The first is one fellow flight member with his wife and child.

The second picture is me with Paul Repak.  Paul's older brother was an Air Force major who was quite a stud.  He showed up for our graduation, and that's when I noticed the name tag.

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More OTS Squadron Picnic Pics, 1973

The first picture is of Patrick "Frenchy" Sanjenis.  I cannot tell what building he's standing in front of.

Pat and his parents had lived in Cuba before and just after Castro and the revolution.  They had known Castro and liked him.  But after the U.S. snubbed Castro and he turned to the USSR, the Sanjenis family left and returned to the United States.

The second photograph is of a line dance.  The guy with the cup in his mouth, I believe, was Lyle Dunable.  I think David Hunn is the guy in the middle.  I am the guy on the right end of the line.

You can see that our athletic sweat suits were not very stylish.  But with the "1" on our hats, we must have been first flight of the Blue Squadron.  If I recall, there were also a Green, Red, and Yellow Squadron.  Since blue is my favorite color, I often managed to get associated with something blue.

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Another picnic pic, Lackland, TX 1973

I am pretending to pour soda on the head of one of the other women in our flight at the squadron picnic.

I have no idea if at this point I knew whether I was going to graduate or not.  I had been hearing some interesting news.  The Cookie Monster fellow told me that he had been told that one of the high ranking officers in charge of OTS had said that the Air Force takes care of its own, using me as an example.  So, I suspect I was feeling more optimistic as the weeks passed and graduation began to loom.

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Squadron Picnic, Lackland, TX, 1973

The guy sitting down with the burger and beer was chosen as the "Cookie Monster."  He was the upper class man in charge of the OTS chow hall.  He would hand out demerits if you were an underclassman and talking when you weren't supposed to or doing anything else you should not be doing in the chow hall.

Brian Bauries is seated in the lower right of the picture.  The woman standing behind with the light blue hat on became a good friend for my final six weeks at OTS.  Again, I knew all of their names to well for so many years and now I cannot even remember her name.

We'd gotten to go on a field trip to the Lone Star Brewery.  The front area featured the antlers and horns and heads of hundreds of animals the owner had killed over the years.  She was mortified at all of the carnage and whispered to me that you felt as if she were in a mausoleum or morgue.  You could hardly see the ceiling for all the antlers in one room. 

Wives and children in the area of us trainees were also invited to this Blue Squadron picnic.

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Outside my barracks, OTS, Lackland, TX, 1973

This might have been in November.  The photograph itself is my favorite from all of OTS.  I am sitting on the fire escape.  To my right was the side door to the second floor, and my dorm room was just inside that door.

Up the hill behind me was the main classroom building.  In front was an F-102 Delta Dagger display.  As you can see from my shoulder boards, I was only a cadet lieutenant.  Since I could be out processed at any time, I was not able to apply for an upper class position when we returned from FSP and joined our new flight.  Those with whom we had begun OTS were now three weeks ahead of us.

Our flight commander was a 1st lieutenant, and we later realized at a party he gave at his apartment that he was only a couple of years older than most of us in the flight. 

This is as good a place as any to relate how I managed to remain at OTS when every other indication was that I would be gone in no time.  In fact, I had met a guy who got processed out the day before I was to be eliminated, so he was gone the day that my new flight was playing one-pitch softball.

I was standing by the backstop when my flight commander approached and told me that my out processing paperwork had arrived.  He would begin the process the next day.  I hung my head in disappointment, yielding to the inevitable that I had awaited for a couple of weeks already.

However, later that day, rumors began to circulate around the OTS complex.  We eventually learned that a group of recruiters from the missile field would be visiting the site and holding an orientation in the OTSOM that afternoon.  All prior service Air Force trainees were required to attend.  They would be asked to change their assignments to missiles because the whole field was seriously short of people in the coming months.  However, none of the prior service men--women were still barred from missile operations--wanted any part of missiles in such places as Minot, North Dakota, or Montana, or South Dakota.

I was having dinner with some other members of the flight in the late afternoon as the orientation was in progress.  I told them about what I had heard and mentioned that I would be thrilled to be offered the opportunity to be in missiles.  The other three guys at the table strongly encouraged me to go to the OTSOM and present my case to whomever would listen.  I should make a plea to be considered for a missile assignment.  What did I have to lose, they correctly asked?

Thus fortified, I marched up there by myself, not at all sure this would do any good.  Once there, I realized that I was not alone.  Two other guys whom I knew who had washed out of FSP were there for the same reason.  The major in charge of missile recruitment did not sound too encouraging, but we made our case, he listened, and then we left.

The next morning, in the classroom, others in the flight brought up my situation to our flight commander.  He seemed surprised because I don't think he was aware that there was a recruitment drive going on.  However, he did not seem to know what to do since he already had my out processing paperwork.

This is where it got remarkably interesting.  At that very moment, into the classroom walked our Squadron Commander, a major, who only very rarely came to our classroom.  Another of my fellow flight members then brought up my situation with him.  He told the Squadron Commander  that I was going to be out processed but that I had wanted to stay in the Air Force and serve, even if it meant missiles and North Dakota.  Almost miraculously, every other member of the flight also spoke on my behalf.  It became a full chorus of support.  All of them were strongly declaring to him that I was a good guy and ought to be considered for retention. 

I was almost teary eyed at this total support from every one of my peers.  And most of these men and women I had only known for a couple of weeks since this was not my original flight.

The Squadron Commander looked surprised at all of this unanimous show on my behalf.  He then looked at me, and I certainly must have looked totally humbled by all of this.  Next he looked to our Flight Commander and fatefully told him, "Hold up Sanchez's paperwork.  I will see what I can do."

Our Flight Commander nodded.  My spirits instantly rose, and all of the others around the table might just as well have stood and cheered, they were beaming so.

I now had hope, something that I had none of just a few moments before the Squadron Commander's timely entrance to the classroom.  To this day, if not for the support of my peers, I know I would not have had a chance to stay.  But now the interminable wait began.

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,
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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Three of us at Hondo Field, TX, 1973

David Hunn and the other guy, whose camera must have been used to take this picture, are clowning around.  I usually was somewhat serious most of the time--but I do think I looked rather hot in Air Force Ray bans.

This was the last photograph I have of all of us at Hondo Field, TX.   I had probably already had my 24th birthday when we were at FSP.  Well after my 29th birthday, my Air Force career would be in a shambles.  Just six full years and a few months ahead.

I suppose if I were tempted to say when were my best years, in retrospect, it was during any of my military training, even if I count the Marines.  I certainly did not always feel that way at the time; but when I look at photographs of all of us in those days, it felt incredible to be young and alive and in our prime.

I did not learn until just before graduation that I was going to be able to stay.  And a number of coincidences were to occur that allowed me to remain in the Air Force and be commissioned.  At the end of FSP, it certainly did not look that way.  And I was definitely in for some low days and nights ahead when everything was in doubt.  But it all worked out, eventually.

Certainly, had I gotten out instead, gone back to California, figured out what to do with my life and, perhaps, gone back to school to become a community college instructor, I would have missed out on a lot that lay ahead on this career path.

Mom had already moved from our home in South Gate to San Pedro.  So I would have had to find a job and a place to live unless mom and I shared expenses and rented a place together.  Mike was married and lived in the Valley.  Daylin Butler was at graduate school.  Darryl was still at the University of Riverside, though he would be headed to graduate school at Indiana University in a year or two.

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Two more photos from Hondo Field, 1973

These two photos must have been taken using Brian Bauries' camera.  The one on the left is Brian and the hot guy from our flight.  The second is Brian getting hosed down after his check ride and solo flight.

If your evaluator thought you passed the FSP, you landed, he got out, and you got to take off solo, circle around the field one time by yourself, and land.  You got hosed down after that in a very old ceremony for solo pilots.

I remember the day or two it happened for for our class.  (I, of course, did not solo nor did I get hosed down.)  One guy did everything right on his check ride.  His evaluator got out and sent him on his way.  He proceeded to fly off the runway sideways, the wheels of his T-41 churning up the tall grasses off to the side of the runway before he finally got fully airborne.  His evaluator was yelling for the tower to tell him to land immediately.  He had blown it on his solo flight.

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T-41 Flight line Hondo, TX, 1973

Flight line at Hondo Field, TX, 1973. 

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Fellow flight trainee, Hondo Field, 1973

I think it was his camera that was used to produce the pictures that were wider.  Again, I cannot read his name tag.

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Greg beside T-41, Hondo Field, TX, 1973

Someone else used his camera to take this picture of me.  I am pretending to be sick to my stomach.  Unfortunately, it became a running joke, and not a very funny one.  I had gotten sick on that Hondo intro flight a few weeks before, and then I got sick on just about every flight during the FSP program. 

The staff was incredible all the way around though.  They switched instructors three times, trying a genial older guy, a tough younger guy, and a middle-of-the-spectrum kind of guy.  I went to the flight surgeon repeatedly.  He gave me all kinds of pills, one after another, to combat the airsickness.  The final time I think he even gave me a placebo, telling me that I wasn't to let anyone know that he'd given me that particularly effective remedy that he wasn't really supposed to dispense.  He'd run out of options and must have figured he'd try faking me out with a sugar pill, wondering if it wasn't all in my head instead of my stomach.

Despite all their efforts, only toward the very end did I fly and not get sick.  When I finally began to "get it" did I become focused and not get sick.  Unfortunately, I had not gotten to practice any landings because I was always sick by the time we returned to the field, and during most flights I never got the full lesson. 

I realize now that it was probably my production of too much stomach acid over the years that contributed.  Anything would upset my stomach. 

One of my flight instructors on one of my early flights panicked when he realized that we didn't have any air sick bags on our first flight together.  He halted the T-41 on the taxi way, got out, and ran ahead to get a couple of bags from the plane ahead.  He returned triumphant and we took off.  I realized later that what he intended to do was to go through every kind of maneuver he could think of to get me really sick and finally break me of the habit of getting airsick.  It didn't work.  Neither did any of the airsick pills until several flights into the program. 

As I said, when I finally got really focused on flying the plane, I cured myself to a great degree.  However, it was too late.  The program was highly accelerated and compressed into three weeks.  If you could not cut it during that shortened time, you did not make it. 

My final evaluation flight, I did OK, except in one really bad segment:  the stall.  Had I not had an Air Force pilot with me, evaluating my flying, I would have died, crashed straight into the ground.  I started the stall properly, but then I could not pull the plane out of the stall.  I got stubborn rather than let the plane pull out on its own or with little assistance from me.  It was much worse than the first time I got evaluated at the California DMV to get my driver's license and ran over curbs making a turn, stuff I had never done before, even during driver's training at school.  The pressure got to me.

The evaluator finally took the controls from me, pulled us out of what would have been a fatal dive, and we quietly flew back to base.  I knew I had absolutely no chance to be retained.  I was going to be processed out of OTS in a couple of weeks and sent home.  If you were selected to be a pilot and you were not prior service, that was the only option available to you out of OTS. 

At the evaluation board, I admitted that I had done poorly.  But I also added that I wanted to be in the Air Force.  What position I held or what job I was given was not important.  I think the board members were impressed.  They recommended that I be given any other assignment; however, the Air Force was not going to be able to do anything about their recommendation.

One other side bar, I had another near-death experience flying at Hondo Field.  My civilian instructor (they were all civilians until you reached the final evaluation flight) and I were returning to the field and had just turned into the landing pattern.  I believe this day I had not gotten sick.  I was at the controls.  Suddenly, a beautiful hawk appeared in front of the windshield and flared its wings at us, its claws pointed toward us.  The instructor instantly grabbed the controls and shoved the plane downward to avoid the hawk.  I thought the encounter was remarkable, but he knew that if the bird hit the windshield, either or both of us could have been hit by the bird's body or by pieces of shattered Plexiglas and knocked unconscious or dazed enough to lose control and possibly crash.

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Flight Screening Program (FSP) fellow trainees, Hondo Field, 1973

There was a time when I knew every one's name in this picture.  Now, I only recall some of those of us in the front row:  Dillon; I no longer remember the next guy's name (with the sunglasses) but he was one of the three guys from California with whom I met up in El Paso, TX; me; Patrick "Frenchy" Sanjenis, who was a cousin of the guy whom I have my arm on.  I don't remember the names of anyone in the back row though I knew them all.  David Hunn is second from the right.

Even using a magnifying glass on the original photograph (that someone must have taken and given me a copy), I cannot quite make out their names from the blue name tags.  Someone with better eyes could probably read the names.

FSP was an intensive three-week program.  All of us took a bus from our FSP barracks back at Lackland and road out to that old WWII flight training base.  The birds flew around the hangar door because of all the insects.  Texas was filled with bugs.

When we were training with our first flight before FSP, we were on the third floor of our barracks and yet we saw a dead scorpion in the hallway light fixture.  One afternoon during a fire drill, we were standing out in the parking lot when someone saw a large spider walking along.  He lightly put his foot down on the top of the spider when a wave headed out from it in all directions.  We realize that it was a female spider with hundreds of babies that fled at the first sign of danger.

I realize that my dad must have made friends like I did during his bombardier training.  Of course, while these guys went on to become pilots in the Air Force, dad's fellow trainees went on to fight in WWII and most probably did not make it back.

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Brian Bauries at Hondo Field, 1973

Brian Bauries and I were roommates during our Flight Screening Program three weeks at Hondo Field.  On the left photo, he's in our classroom.  In the right photograph, he's spending time as a backup to the air traffic controller personnel in the tower.

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Me in front of OTSOM, November 1973

Someone else must have taken this picture of me in front of the OTSOM with his camera and given me a copy after he got it developed.  It looks clearer than all of the other pictures I took with my Instamatic and the print is wider than mine.  Plus, mom has annotated the back with the date of November '73.  I must have mailed this picture to her because she did not arrive at Lackland until the night before graduation in December.

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Friend standing in front of OTSOM in Lackland

He's the guy who road with Brian and me to Houston, TX, and went with me to the Astrodome.  We must have used my Camaro for the trip.  As soon as the game was over, we headed back to Brian's parents' home to pick him up and drive back to San Antonio.  (An older woman saw us in the parking lot wearing our uniforms and said to a friend, loudly enough for us to hear, "There go a couple of 90-day wonders."  True, but rude.)  The night before the game, the three of us went to see PAPER MOON at a duplex theater outside of Houston.  PAPER MOON had those segments filmed in White Cloud, Kansas, my mom's home town.

The OTSOM (Officer's Training School Open Mess) was remarkable.  Marine OCS had nothing like this, only the Slopshoot burger place not far from our barracks.  It was beautifully carpeted.  The bar served half-priced drinks seemingly all the time.  The restaurant served the best steaks and dinners, of which we availed ourselves most weekends.

When those in my flight found out that I did not drink, they were determined to figure out something I might like alcoholic.  I tried a Tom Collins, Tequila Sunrise and Tequila Sunset.  Finally, they suggested a Slo Gin Fizz.  Loved it.  Drank them every weekend.  One time I did get a little happy, but never got actually drunk. 

The most important aspect of the OTSOM was that it was only for cadets.  Officers were not allowed except when invited for the Dining Out just before graduation when family and friends could also be there. 

One flight used to call out when they marched, "Nuke 'em! Nuke 'em!"   Our flight would mimic them by calling out, "OTSOM!  OTSOM!"  We were a more peaceful flight, pursuing more worldly pleasures.

Years later, in the 1990's, when I was visiting a guy I briefly dated who lived in Houston, though he worked in Denver, I road back to the airport and happened to look off and down from the elevated freeway.  There I saw, clearly abandoned for several years, the duplex theater where we three had gone at least twenty years before.

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Inside the Astrodome, November 1973

If you keep certain photographs long enough, I suppose they can become priceless, in a way.

The Astrodome is long gone, torn down several years ago as no longer state-of-the-art.  The Rams are no longer in L.A., and not even in Anaheim where they would later move.  The Oilers are no longer in Houston, having changed names to the Tennessee Titans after moving out of state, too.  It's kind of sad when you think about what eventually happened if you were a fan of either team.

The reason we spent this short weekend with Brian Bauries's parents in Houston is that I had a pair of tickets to the Rams versus the Oilers in the Astrodome.  I had had season tickets to the Rams in the Coliseum and was able to get tickets to this game before I left for Texas.  The Oilers were in the midst of back-to-back 1-13 losing seasons; and, as you can see from this photograph at half time, the stadium had plenty of empty seats.

The Rams had former San Diego quarterback John Hadl, another of those mad bombers from old AFL teams.  The score was closer than it ought to have been, but Hadl hit Harold Jackson with a couple of touchdown bombs and, I believe, the final score was 31-26.  I had never been in a domed stadium before.  The usherette, when I told her I was a Rams fan, said that she often rooted for the visiting team since the Oilers were so bad in those years.

Brian Bauries, being home, had other things to do, so that's why our flight mate was with us on this trip and with me at this game.  Really nice guy, but I do not recall his name either.

This was the first season under new head coach Chuck Knox, and the Rams were 12-2, best record in the NFC and NFL.  Looking back, what I never understood is that the Rams had beaten the Dallas Cowboys that season, as well as having a better record than Dallas (12-2 vs 10-4); however, under those old playoff rules, the Rams had to travel to Dallas for their playoff match up.  It still makes no sense when we all know now how important home field is and how teams go to great lengths to secure it these days.

That was the playoff game where the Rams were about to tackle Roger Staubach in the end zone but he just got the pass away.  He hit Drew Pearson over the middle.  Two Ram defenders hit him the moment after the pass arrived.  But by hitting him from either side simultaneously, they bounced off and he was left standing, running all the way to the end zone for the deciding score.  The Rams lost out again.

(The following year, they had the same record as Minnesota, but had beaten the Vikings in the regular season.  However, with the rotating playoff format among division winners regardless of overall record or head-to-head games, the Rams again had to travel to play a key playoff game versus the Vikings, losing a 13-10 heartbreaker.)

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Three of us at Brian Bauries house in Houston, TX, 1973

We were actually at Brian's parents townhouse in Houston on the back patio.  Unlike Marine OCS where we had to wear civilian clothes on the weekends off base because they did not want us wearing fatigues, the Air Force required that we wear our uniforms.  Brian is not actually wearing a regulation Air Force blue shirt because he left his at Lackland.

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Hondo Field, TX, summer 1973

Someone used my camera to snap a picture of me getting ready to climb aboard the Cessna.

Unfortunately, he did a couple of clearing turns after we got airborne, and I puked my guts up.  We'd been sitting around all day, waiting to fly and eating burgers and drinking sodas in the hot sun.  My stomach acid had probably been churning since before noon. 

The short end of it was that I had paid, I dunno, $20 bucks or so, to have someone get me really airsick.  Plus, with the Flight Screening Program only a few weeks away, I was seriously questioning if I was going to make it as a pilot in the Air Force.  I was severely bummed for the rest of the day.

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