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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