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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