A2K MEMBER VOCATIONS

My God Danon! I thouht only us enlisted men carried on like that. I tell people I got high in "71, and came down in '73. I was an amatuer! I am unworthy Master,... I am unworthy.

Booman, I could tell you some really funny stuff, like the banana tree just outside the O'Club front door that had to be replaced about three times per year. Or the every Sunday lawn parties we had that lasted to the wee hours including doing PLF's (parachute landing fall=drunk jumping off roof) off the roof onto the grass!! Sneeking in certain rooms late at night with TUBS of water to dowse someone. Driving jeeps through no-mans-land just to visit a neighboring units club then when there we unstrap all our guns and "hide" them in the jeep. LOL Or, staggering out of a club to find our ride has departed and simply taking another jeep back to the unit - returned the next day of course. During mortar attack sandbagging newbies door. (One time Dirty Joe, Duck and I did that and next morning not a sound still had come from the LT's room - we started to get worried about mid afternoon - so we undid the sand bags and went in. Seems he had fortified himself under his bed - for almost 12 hrs!!!! Boy, did he get ribbed after that. We called him Moby because he was on the heavy side.)
Speaking of mortars, every swingin guy in the unit was really upset went one of the rounds landed on the roof of the EM Club, went through and hit the regulation sized theater popcorn making machine. Man, that was enough to make you want to start a war - but understanding that one had been started already we sent our best unit scrounger all over country to locate a replacement.

Whew!

Hey, Booman, don't get this picture wrong though. Those same men on a daily basis would go out and do an outstanding job that at the time needed to be done. This is a taste of the down time, the other larger side of the picture was serious business.

One of our favorite pass times when I was stationed in Morocco was to go to the beer hall with some guys and drink for hours, and build a pyramid from the beer cans. Our goal was to reach the ceiling. We made it a couple times too! This was back in the late fifties. c.i.

Sorry for the misimpression, danon. I was an enlisted mechanic on the birddogs and beavers for somewhat over a year at Ft. Meade, from which I was rudely snatched and sent back to Rucker for training on the OV-1. I still have my (martin-baker) ejection seat qualification card. The ships, of course, went to Vietnam. I was sent to Germany and never worked on an army aircraft again, though did end up drawing propay based on 4th echelon expertise in all fixed wing aircraft.

Such is the basis of Military Intelligence as oxymoron.

roger, My mistake, you did get to ride in those birds though didn't you? They were all fun to take up and play with. Oh, yes, Martin-Baker!! Literally sitting on a quarter of a pound of TNT!!
Love that oxymoron. :-D

c.i., I always wanted to visit Morocco. I bet that was a fun place.

Un-uh. All I got to ride was the seat, mounted in a cockpit simulator, with non detachable telescoping cylinders. I did get all the back seat time I ever wanted in the birddog, courtesy of an invitation from a NG pilot who turned out to think that an hour of touch and go landings was the same as flying.

Oh-My-God!! You poor boy. Now you must have really loved to fly to torture yourself like that. Should have been my crewchief - I made it a point to take each one up regularly. They were all appreciative too.
I know the "seat" !! Been there, seen it, had it 'done' to me. LOL

I know you flyboys will enjoy this one. I worked with nukes, and we were responsible for loading those suckers on B52's, B36's, and B47's. One way we initiated new guys into our squadron was to have them speak into the urinal on the B47's (we didn't tell them it was the urinal) - telling them to tell the people on the ground we've finished with the instrument checks. Most of them fell for it too! c.i.

CI - My da, an AFCapt., was in Morocco in (I think) 1958-1959. Don't have the exact dates but he brought home amazing stories and photographs and films of Bedouin weddings, wonderful, frightening guns & highly decorated knives, various brass plates and leather goods, along with an English Ford filled with contraband French wine.

Holy cow, c.i., B36's and 47's ?? Those old birds were really nice weren't they. Especially the 36's with the engines pushing instead of pulling. There were a lot of them around Ft Worth, TX, did you get around that part of the country??

Pifka, Do you know if your da was stationed at Ben Guerrier? It was about 30 miles north of Marrakech, and we use to go into town on weekends. On one weekend, some of us met up with some French paratroopers, and we partied all day on wine. We didn't speak French, and they didn't speak English, but we had the best of time. By the time evening came around, we had their insignias on our uniforms, and visa-versa. The MP's picked us up, and brought us back to base. Unfortunately, they took all our French insignias. I bet they kept them too! On another occasion into Marrakech, we got stoned drunk, and ended up at the hotel where they filmed "The Man Who Knew Too Much" with Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day. Remember, "kay sera sera?" We flipped coins to see who would get to sleep in the king size bed, and I won. When I got up in the morning, a strange guy from another unit was sleeping in my bed! c.i.

Pifka, I forgot to add one more thing: A guy from our squadron married a Moroccan woman, and we went to the wedding. It was about a three day affair, and I remember he had to have a circumcision before the wedding. I don't know what ever happend to that guy, but we didn't connect after our one year stint in Morocco. c.i.

danon, Never got around to Ft Worth, but I my last base was at Walker AFB in New Mexico. Had a chance to catch a flight on a B29 to March AFB in California once. Now, that was a thrill. c.i.

danon, There are so many wonderful memories, although I hated the service. Those B36's had a long tunnel between the front and back with sleds. We used to slide on those things all the time for fun. They usually stored some milk in the bomb bay, and they would be half frozen. They were the greatest tasting milk. c.i.

Wow, c.i., what a grand experience all that must have been!!
A thrilling adventure!! And then they wouldn't let you keep the patches. Drat!!
Oh, and the planes!! LOL

And our counterpart A2K'rs do what for a living?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?

CI - my da's been gone almost a decade, so I can't ask him. I do remember that he had rented us a villa on the beach near Rabat Sales, but there was some sort of alert and civilians were no longer allowed to come to Morocco. This was a cause of much regret for me and my sister who had been enthralled with the promise of a gardener, a houseboy and a cook. He was a radar specialist who came back to McChord to retire... in those intervening years he used to inspect the DEW lines in NW Canada. Kamloops, I remember, was one station. He retired when I was 11.

Our son was stationed near Tacoma many years ago, and he lived in a apartment in Federal Way. He got married in Seattle, so we flew up to his wedding, but he's since been divorced. Seems so long ago. c.i.