Nearing the End of Basic Training

About a week before we were scheduled to depart, a major came around to look at us in our dress blue uniforms.  He told me to exchange my trousers for those two inches larger in the waist.  I thought he was crazy but did as ordered.  At that moment, I weighed 130 pounds.  I have never seen that weight since.  Now I didn't gain weight right away.  Just about a year later, I was asking my friend Winston Cook what I could do to gain weight.  Now I was 6' tall and weighed 135 pounds.  That was too skinny.  He suggested that I workout at the base gym and eat more.  Well, apparently I did eat more.  By the time I got married in 1962, I weighed 190 pounds.  My dress blue uniform still fit but just barely.  On Kwaj I managed to get to 275 pounds, but have managed to get back to 210.

The first phase of basic training ended and we were to be shipped off for our technical training.  Basic training was an intense but reasonably pleasant 5 weeks.  I have always likened it to extended Boy Scouts.  Not all of the people who started finished.  Some were sent home (only to be harvested by the Army later).  A few were held back a week or two for additional training.  A few were placed in another group after testing in Morse Code ability.  I was never tested.  The last day was a Friday.  It was a hurry up and wait day.  We had all of our items inventoried.  I sent a few things home.  We were issued a new item of clothing--a Field Jacket.  It would become quite useful. 

Blue Air Force school buses show up and took us to the airport.  Then I would get sick easily in airplanes.  Not sure why?  I used to be an Explorer Scout whose sponsor was a glider club.  But I was dreading the trip.  I did remind myself that I had joined the Air Force, no one made me.  The trip was uneventful but I was very sick to my stomach when we landed at Lowry AFB in Denver, Colorado.  (I still haven’t managed to get to Biloxi, MS. )  I arrived there late on Friday, October 7^th, 1960.  It was a fine crisp fall day; the leaves had started to turn colors.  I had not yet gotten a glimpse of the Rockies  because the base is on a plateau with some low hills just to the west.  I was growing up.  I didn't know it yet.  There is no one magic day when you stop being a boy and become a man.  I am thankful for my parents encouraging me to read anything and everything and to have my own opinions.  That helped prepare me for the road ahead.  I still had the foolish confidence and energy of youth to propel me into adventures that would allow me to gain  experience and provide a path to wisdom.

Then the Air Force did not have just in time training or scheduling, so we were sent to barracks for Personnel Awaiting Training Space (PATS).  We had no idea what that really meant.  We went to a mess hall and had some very good food.  I was delighted.  We walked back to the barracks instead of marching.  At the barracks, all was not well, there was to be an inspection tomorrow and there was much flurry about getting the building in shape.  (Once again this barracks had been closed and only just opened for us.)   Most barracks have an adequate supply of brooms, mops and other cleaning materials.  We had nothing.  I and another GI went looking.  We tried to borrow some from other nearby barracks and we summarily dismissed.  We found a barracks that housed some civilians.  Apparently, the Colorado State Patrol was having some weeklong meetings and they were being housed on base.  I picked the lock on their door, walked past all of their radios, TVs, money and other valuables.  We took all of their cleaning supplies, relocked the door and returned to our barracks.  The guys got busy cleaning and polishing.  Our leader kept insisting that we had to do more.  At midnight I told him I was going to bed, I didn’t care.  We arose early (Saturday) went to breakfast and came back for the inspection—it went well. 

We then fell into formation where people were sent off on various assignments, mostly KP (Kitchen Police, low level assistants to the cooks).  All but four of us were sent.  I was one of the four.  Each day there would be this assignment, until Wednesday I had managed to avoid being assigned.  Wednesday, October 12^th (also my mother’s 37^th birthday) I got sent to a mess hall on KP.  Not too bad of duty, mostly being a cook’s helper.  He was disappointed in my ability to chop up lettuce, but gave me enough other things to do.  The temperature was in the low 70’s and just an awesome day.  On Thursday, I was sent back to the same mess hall.  Thursday was very different from Wednesday; it was snowing!  Pretty at first, the big half dollar sized movie snow.  But, it kept falling by the time I got off at 7:00pm it was about six inches deep, very slushy about 35 degrees out.  It was very cold considering my Texas conditioning of the past few weeks.  Also, there was no bus, I had missed the last one.  Three miles back to the barracks.  I started to walk.  The deep snow got into my low quarter shoes (I was not wearing the brogans that went with the uniform).  I remembered something a pastor had said in a sermon just before I went into the Air Force, “This too shall pass.”  I thought of that on the cold October night and have thought of it often since then.  I have learned that when some things you cannot avoid come into your life, embrace them—they too will pass.  Just as I resigned myself to the long hike through slushy snow, a bus returning to the motor pool saw me and gave me a ride.

Many years have passed since that snowy night in Denver.  Much has happened in that time.  There have been hard times of course but my journey so far has been wonderful.  I always try to make the best day of my life a day in the future.