War Story 1: The Perfect Squelch

I joined the U.S. Air Force in August of 1964. I was first sent to Lackland AFB, near San Antonio, Texas, to attend basic training. The course necessarily sucked—KP was the worst—but it was bearable, even in the miserable, muggy heat of the season. This branch of the military was my choice, because it did not require me on the face of it to get killed, no small consideration. My dad was retired from the air force, but in any case, I wouldn't have let sentimentality push aside rationality in such an important matter. As it turned out, the fact that we eventually lost in Vietnam and that there was never any chance that we would not lose, meant that my planning was good, if not hurried (my draft notice for the army arrived while I was in basic).

My flight (a group of airmen equivalent to the army's platoon) was one of the last whose basic military training was split into two parts: the course at Lackland (which is what you think of when you think of basic) and a second part, lasting a few weeks at whichever training school you were sent to. The latter was later done away with, because it was a stupid idea; there was really no point in dragging it over to the training base. Psychologically, when an airman left Lackland, he was done with basic, but orders were orders.

I was sent to Keesler AFB, near Biloxi, Mississippi, to be trained as a morse intercept operator. After each day's school on the morning shift, we spent afternoons on work detail—waxing floors, mowing grass and the like. But twice a week that was set aside and we attended basic instead; it was just a matter of running out the hours to satisfy the requirements. There was nothing really to teach us, and to this day I cannot recall a single thing that happened save one cherished moment.

With nothing of import to teach us, the air force substituted a theme—cleanliness. Naturally it would be expected when falling in for basic, one would have one's footwear shined to a mirror finish and would have just "broken starch" (put on a set of fatigues fresh from the laundry). You would have to be an idiot to get caught messing up there. However a ploy was introduced that had not surfaced even back at Lackland: the training instructor (TI) would come up behind some hapless individual standing at attention, reach down behind the neck, pull up the collar of the T-shirt and examine it for ring-around-the-collar. If he had forgotten to put on a new T-shirt after school, it would be obvious. (Now that I think of it, they couldn't use this tactic on those who had school on the afternoon shift; at morning basic, they would have had on new T-shirts anyway.) So, in addition to the usual sharp, emphasize clean.

One day our TI marched our flight over to the TI office to attend some errand. He left us standing at attention in the parking lot adjacent other similarly idled flights. There were four or five other TIs smoking and shooting the breeze just outside the door. Evidently one of them got an idea, because he soon headed directly for us. Out of the corner of our eyes, we tracked him as he ambled across the neatly-trimmed lawn to our flight. This could not be good.

The formations of this basic were reversed from those anywhere else in the air force—the tallest man was in the front rank. Thus by such a small detail as my height, my fate was determined. The TI-on-a-mission stopped in right front of me, cigarette in hand, and said in a voice designed to carry over to his smoking buddies, "Boy, do you want me to put this cigarette out in your ear?" I replied just as loudly, "Sir, no, sir!" (In the real air force, an enlisted man did not merit one sir, much less two, but you must remember that we were playing at basic.)

After only a short pause, he asked, "Why not?" Obviously, the point of the excercise was to put me on the spot and watch me squirm. It is hard to calculate the paths that might have been taken had I given a typical answer: "Sir, it would hurt like the dickens, sir," "Sir, my ear would go up in flame, sir" and so forth. Miraculously, within the space of a heartbeat, the supremely correct answer popped into my head and I barked, "Sir, my ear is clean, sir!" What could the poor sergeant do? Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Those words embodied the theme of the program and so neutralized his attack instantly. The sergeant must have recognized defeat, because he mumbled "Mumphf," turned around and walked off.

I would have liked to have heard the conversation when he rejoined the other TIs; that would have been icing on the cake.