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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Hondo Field, TX, summer 1973

I used to know the names of all of these flight members, but no longer.  It was too long ago.  The picture with the canopy, I don't remember any of their names.  In the second picture, that's Brian Bauries standing to my right and me sitting.  I don't remember the other guy.

Our flight commander for the first six weeks was a prior service Air Force enlisted man, then a Captain.  We were told to evaluate our other flight members by saying one positive and one negative thing about each one of us.  When I was called into his office to hear what all of the others had written about me, each one had said something different as to a positive quality.  He was startled and told me that he had never had that happen before.  Usually, most of the members of a flight would say some of the same positive things, but never each one choosing a different quality.

I do recall that one flight member, and I suspect David Hunn, but I could be wrong, picked something negative as a positive quality, as well.  His negative choice was really negative:  "apple polisher and boot licker."  Nice.  The flight commander said he did not see those qualities in me at all.

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Hot friend on his bunk, OTS, 1973

Someday I may remember his name, but I don't now.

My roommate during the first weeks--I don't have a photo of him--later became the Cadet Squadron Commander, quite by mistake.  Our flight commander overheard him being criticized by another flight commander over an order he was giving to the rest of us in the flight.  However, I realized at the time that the only reason my roommate was ignoring the other flight commander was that he did not know he was being addressed.  Our flight commander thought he showed such courage in doing what he knew was right over the objections of an officer who was wrong that he highly recommended him to become Squadron Commander, the highest cadet rank.

It did not matter.  My former roommate was a very good Squadron Commander, regardless.

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Three of us at Hondo Field, August 1973

Here are three of us, again me with the shower thongs.  I frequently ran through thongs because somebody was always stepping on them, marching behind me, step on them, and tear them apart.  David Hunn got me a couple of times.

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Hot fellow flight member, Hondo Field, August 1973

I thought he was very hot.  I am surprised I no longer remember his name.

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David Hunn and two other flight members, Hondo Field, 1973

David Hunn went through the same FSP program.  The guy in the middle was hot, but I no longer remember his name.  Next to them is the other woman in our flight.

One early morning, I was sent in to the women's floor of the barracks by David Hunn to retrieve the two women for the march to the chow hall.  However, when I quickly gathered them and we stepped outside, the flight was gone, and we had been left behind.

We'd not been gone long, but David Hunn was headstrong and stubborn.  I was ready to punch his lights out when we three got to the chow hall.  The flight commander cautioned me later when I complained to simply ignore what had happened because it did not really matter.

It was like one of our flight members, David Fink, relayed to me that he had learned from an old Air Force sergeant a few years before, "Don't sweat the small shit."

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Two flight members at Hondo Field

Brian Bauries, with whom I would attend the Flight Screening Program, and a woman from our flight, leaning on the Camaro.  I longer remember her name.  We were in the same flight for the first six weeks.  Then we would be pulled out of your flight to undergo the Flight Screening Program at Hondo Field.  When we were done, our old flight was three weeks ahead.  We would join a different flight that was three weeks behind ours.  Their pilot trainees would then go on to FSP.

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Me at Hondo Field, August 1973

One very early morning in either late July or early August, I awoke, got dressed, put a few of my things in the Camaro, hugged mom goodbye, and took off for Air Force Officer's Training School at Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning.  I drove all the way to Riverside, stopping at the Sub Station, the submarine shop near the University of California Riverside campus.  I wanted to take a sandwich with me on the rest of the trip to my first stop, a Holiday Inn near the airport in Phoenix, AZ.  However, it was too early to stop by the campus and wake up Darryl Butler, and it was also much too early for the sandwich shop to be open I realized.

I got back into my car and kept driving, eventually passing through the California desert.  I had already installed an 8-Track tape player in the glove compartment to keep me entertained on the long trip.  At the motel, I accidentally left my keys in the trunk but found them still there when I realized I did not have them with me in my room over an hour later.

I soon spent time by the pool, watching a cute, younger guy diving into the pool off the board.  We finally began talking and I learned that he worked on a road crew, which was why he was staying at the motel.  He also was a member of the Marine Corps Reserves, so we had military service in common.  We ate dinner together in the motel restaurant.  On our way back to our rooms, I hoped he would ask me to his room; but he needed to get sleep, as did I, so we parted.  I left early enough the next morning so that we did not meet up again even though I hoped he'd join me again in the restaurant for breakfast.

I drove on to my next stop, El Paso, TX.  There were three other guys who were driving to OTS in their cars.  We had already agreed that we would meet up in El Paso in the same motel.  I was resting in my room when I heard a knock.  The others were there and we had dinner together before continuing across Texas the next morning.  In San Antonio, we stayed at a motel near Lackland, swimming in the pool in the afternoon.

The next day we showed up and were assigned to separate squadrons.  My squadron's colors were blue. 

A couple weeks later, my flight got to go to Hondo Field, a former base where pilots trained for WWII.  For just a few bucks, each of us was taken up individually in a Cessna by an upper classman, to get a feel for what the Flight Screening Program was going to be like in a couple more weeks.

In the photograph above, I am leaning against a B-25, which was an advanced training bomber that was used in dad's bombardier training in August 1943.  Here I was 40 years later, undergoing Air Force training.  If you look carefully, you can see that I am wearing shower thongs over my black socks rather than shoes.  I had gotten an infected blister on my big toe from the new hard shooes.  So I could not wear them until the infection healed.

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Amazon.com to cease carrying RAoF paperbacks this month (July 2012)

I have been informed that amazon.com, due to lack of "activity," will no longer carry Rainbow Arc of Fire volumes in paperback editions. 

Obviously, with ongoing and ever increasing sales of Kindle editions of the Rainbow Arc of Fire series on amazon, those will continue to be available for purchase or for free downloading--see amazon.com for details.

For those of you who would like to have paperback editions of the first eight volumes depicted above, send me a note with your name and address and, as I have time, and with the continued availability of paperback copies, I will attempt to mail out complete sets for free, as long as supplies last.  The first volume in the series, A MILE HIGH SAGA, is already becoming scarce in paperback.  (Amazon.com actually has two copies still available, but they will destroy any remaining copies of the series that they have in stock before the end of this month.)

For those of you who prefer Kindle editions of the entire series, including volumes nine and ten which are Kindle exclusives, they will continue to be available at amazon.com.  It is the digital download age, and I saw this coming for some time now.  Most Kindle editions are second editions, as a matter of record.

I may, at some point, covert the series to print-on-demand editions, as well, but that will take some time to accomplish.

For those hundreds of you over the years who bought the series in paperback in bookstores all over the nation, as well as through amazon.com--and there are quite a few of you out there--I thank you for your support.  For those of you who bought your copies through gay and independent bookstores, I especially appreciate that support.

Gay and lesbian independent bookstores were the reason why I wrote the series in the first place.  They were an integral part of our culture and our community.  I always enjoyed holding book signings around the country, specifically at Category Six Books here in Denver until they closed.  A significant part of our recent heritage vanished when these stores closed.  Only a very few, if any, still exist.  Most of the stores where I held book signings are long gone. 

It's time to move on.  We have to realize that it is not important how someone reads a book these days; it's that he or she continues to read.

Again, I thank all of you for your support over the years.  Let me know if you want copies mailed to you, and I will do what I can to send them out as I am able. 

---

Den Zito at the El Cortez Hotel, San Diego, summer 1973

I wouldn't get a fancy new camera like Dennis is holding for a couple more years.  David Zito would actually purchase one for me when he was stationed in Japan while I was in the Air Force.

At some point that spring of 1973, I do recall that when Mike was then a sock salesman for Neuvil Hosiery, and was working down in San Diego, I flew down there, he met me at the airport, and we spent a pleasant dinner at night at the El Cortez Hotel, taking the glass elevator up to the restaurant level.

I would not revisit San Diego after this trip with the Zito brothers until flying there for ComicCon in the early 2000's.  (Mike and I would drive through San Diego on one occasion when he moved back to Southern California in the later 1980's.  A few years before that, I would drive through San Diego on my way home to Southern California during Christmas vacation in 1978 from the Academy.)

I would meet up with the Zito's on a few different occasions in the later 1970's.

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Dennis Zito and friend, Marine Recruit Depot, San Diego, CA, summer 1973

Since I took all of these pictures, I'm not in any of them.  Here Dennis and his Marine buddy stand beneath the inspirational sign at the Marine Recruit Depot in San Diego, during the summer of 1973.

Sometime in the spring of 1973, I got help from a former co-worker at A.U. Morse in getting a job as a security guard.  Since AF OTS wasn't going to start for me until August, I needed to work.  I suspect that my unemployment insurance was running out.  In addition, with my search for a future in the armed forces now settled, I no longer needed to spend time getting ready or applying.  I had plenty of time on my hands.

My friend Darryl Butler was attending the University of Califronia at Riverside.  I visited him after my Air Force physical since they had dilated my pupils during the physical so that I could not see details.  I had Darryl's room number written down, though I had to ask at the front desk because I could not read my own note.

I visited Darryl at the university several times.  We sometimes ate at a new, local submarine shop where I first learned about sub sandwiches.  Since I also had so much time on my hands because I generally worked the swing shift as a security guard, I would often drive to a mall to watch movies cheaply in the first matinee before heading to work in a few locations before finally settling in at a German-owned manufacturing plant of drawer parts called Accuride. 

The company had been on strike, so I had to look for nails near the entrance and only let someone in when they had an appointment.  One evening, I was stuck between a forman at the plant and the head of the labor union as they argued on either side of the closed front gate.

One afternoon, less than a block from the main gate, I noticed something moving on the white dividing line of the two-lane road.  I instantly realized that it was a little gray kitten, not more than a few weeks old.  How he had gotten there was impossible to know.  But I knew that if I did not rescue him, he would get run over eventually.  I slowed to a stop, opened the driver's door, scooped him up, and set him on the passenger seat of my Camaro. 

Even though my three parakeets had either died or flown out the door, and I had given away to my sister Lorri my gerbil, I certainly could not keep a pet with my Air Force enlistment looming (mom was not a pet person), so I called the local animal shelter and they came to pick up the kitten.  I hope the cute little guy found a good home and lived a long life because he would certainly have died on that busy road.

Later at the plant, I even got a summer job there for Darryl.  He watched the back parking lot while I guarded the front lot.  Soon, the strike was over, the mostly Hispanic workers gaining nothing.  Most returned to their jobs since they seemed to have few other alternatives for work.

During this time, I continued to write and polish my poems, eventually publishing them using the velobind technique that I had learned about from one of those morning LA shows, that one featuring Ralph Story and Stephanie Edwards.      

BTW, the placard reads:  "To Be A Marine You Have To Believe In Yourself ..Your Fellow Marine..Your Corps..Your Country..Your God.  Semper Fidelis."

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Dave Zito, Dennis Zito, a Marine friend at San Diego Marine Recruit Depot, summer 1973

Dennis Zito's twin brother, Dave, was stationed at Edwards AFB in the high desert for backseat F-4 training while Den was stationed at 29 Palms Marine Base that summer.  The two of them with a friend of Den's in the Marines drove to my house in South Gate a couple of weeks before I left for Air Force OTS.  I remembered, likely incorrectly, that we took my Mustang to drive to San Diego.  However, my maroon Camaro sits in the background, so this picture was taken not long after Den visited me in South Gate.

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Dennis Zito in front of my new 1973 Camaro in South Gate

As you can see, the magnolia tree, almost a decade later in 1973, is still not very tall.  This photograph is the last I took while we lived in South Gate.  From June of 1964, until August of 1973, this was home.  Not long after I left for Air Force Officer's Training School in early August, mom finally was able to move to San Pedro, to live near the water.  I'd packed up most of my possessions, primarily my large record collection and books, before I left.

When I was visiting the Robertson's, I was able to speak to a representative with the Coast Guard Officer's Training School on the phone.  I was told that not only was my blood pressure a problem, but that year the Coast Guard did not have a large officer class, and I would not have qualified anyway.  Almost as soon as that door closed forcefully, out of the blue I heard again from my Air Force recruiter in Huntington Park.  He told me that my previous test scores no longer counted and that I was eligible for pilot training.  While I might have preferred to become a navigator, I wanted to join the Air Force more.

Whereas I had gone for a draft physical at the new Wilshire Blvd. draft facility in 1972, where we potential draftees were treated poorly, to a Marine OCS physical at the same facility not long after, where we were treated very well, the Air Force physical was performed at March Air Force Base, near Riverside, CA.  This was the same base where my dad took me, back in the 1950's, as a kid to an air show there.  I walked up into the cargo hold of a C-124 Globemaster on a gray day.

When I easily passed my Air Force physical, with no high blood pressure issues, and my date for AF OTS was set for early August at Lackland, TX, I sold my Mustang way too cheaply to a private party.  My Grandpa Sanchez had given Ann and me each a second mortgage that he held.  I closed it with the home owner for $400 and used that as a down payment for my 1973 Camaro.  The price was $4,000 at Cormier Chevrolet.  The Camaro plant had been on strike for months, so I wondered if the strike would end before I had to leave for the Air Force.

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Dennis Zito and his Fiat, 1973

Fortunately, I had remained friends with Den and Beth Zito after the trip back east.  Dennis had finally finished with their six-month training at The Basic School (BCS, or what they would rename, The Big Suck) in Quantico.  They had referred to one another as Lieutenadates (no longer Candidates but still not feeling like full Marine 2nd Lieutenants yet).  Until after they graduated from BCS. 

Beth remained back east with her family when Dennis was assigned to advanced Marine training at 29 Palms, California, in the desert. 

Several weeks before this picture was taken on Cypress Avenue in South Gate, Dennis had told me he was renting a trailer off base.  I drove out one weekend evening to visit him.  My memory is that I still owned my 1966 Ford Mustang GT because I remember parking beside his trailer and taking the top down, staring up at the night sky above the desert as I waited for him to return from an evening at the Officer's Club.

In the photograph above, taken in the summer of 1973, Den is kissing his new Fiat because, as you can see, the bumper is decidedly bent.  He'd hit a coyote on the way to visit me in South Gate and was upset at having killed  a coyote and damage his new car.   

I don't know what we did that day after he arrived; and I don't even recall if he returned to the Marine base later that day, but he probably did.  I believe he parked his Fiat in front of the neighbor's house next door because of the following photograph.

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John "Trey" Robertson III, 1st Birthday, January 23, 1973

They nicknamed him "Trey" so as not to have him confused with his father or grandfather, with the same name.  This was his first birthday party, and they did not own a camera to take any pictures.  I took this picture with the last photograph on the roll of film I brought on the trip.

When I returned to California, even though the two of them were angry with me and made my last couple of days of my visit miserable, even when I came down with some kind of bug the day before I left, I had three copies made of this picture, one for them and one for each set of Trey's grandparents.  I mailed those copies off to them with a note of apology for my having upset them.

It was a casual remark about looming budget cuts now that the Vietnam War was entirely winding down.  I idly speculated that, perhaps, since the army would sometimes perform similar missions as the Marines, that the Corps might be seriously reduced in size or eliminated altogether as a separate branch of the service out of fiscal necessity.  I did not say it vindictively or even very seriously; but John's wife immediately became incensed with me, even telling the infant Trey in the car at the gas station, "Trey, hit him."  I was shocked.

Later, when I tried to clarify what I had meant, John bitterly told me, "You probably said that because you couldn't make it at Marine OCS."  That, of course, was entirely untrue.  I could have graduated with the rest of our platoon had I wanted to, just as John could have had he wanted to.  He and I simply had not wanted to complete the program, for not dissimilar reasons--neither of us wanted to become career Marine officers.  He wanted to be with his family and finish his enlisted time as quickly as possible.  I knew it wasn't for me and had other things to accomplish in my life.

At this point, realizing that what I said had become totally distorted in their minds, I did not even bother to try to further explain what I had meant.  I dropped it.  However, even with sending the three copies of this photo to them so that they would have a memento of Trey's first birthday, as well as including a letter of apology with the pictures, I never heard from either of them again.  Not even a thank you note for sending the photograph to them.

I had gone out of my way to be a good guest during my entire stay.  I had attended a Baptist church service with them even though I no longer attended church and had been a practicing Catholic when I did go to church before that.  I consumed the grape juice and soda cracker during communion because they were devout Christians, and I did not want to offend them.  When John's wife told me that she did not even allow John to lay on the couch and watch TV, as I was doing, I moved to the floor without comment.  When I was feeling bad the day before my flight and asked if I could stay an extra day to recover before flying back to California, I agreed to leave when John explained that they did not want Trey to get sick with what I had come down with because Trey had been sick before I arrived (I stayed in his room the entire time and probably had picked up whatever bug he'd been sick with).  When his wife remained so angry with me and did not look at or acknowledge me while I uncomfortably waited for the taxi in their living room, as I finally said goodbye and thanked her for having me stay with them, she did not even respond with a "You're welcome."  And, of course, without protest, I took the expensive taxi ride all the way to Dulles airport from Quantico even though it cost me about $90, a hefty sum in those days when I was unemployed.       

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John Robertson, his wife and son, January 1973

After leaving Ann Arbor, I flew to National Airport in Washington DC where John and his wife picked me up.  I don't even remember which airline I flew on or which type of aircraft, although it probably was a 727 and United Airlines.

I spent a week visiting them, where I also took those pictures of John and me on the various obstacles at OCS.

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