Return to Texas
Webb AFB was a cultural shock in many ways. Big Spring is a West Texas town in a large treeless prairie. The town’s population was 30000 about half Hispanic (Mexican then) and very poor. It was very dry and the wind blew quite often. The grass was green when I arrived in February and that was quite different from the snow cover ground in Michigan and Colorado. Webb is or was the home of a major Air Training Command's fighter training 
program. It also housed the 331st fighter squadron where I was assigned. The 331st had a number of F-102 fighters defending the US from attack from the south. The only enemy there was Mexico and Cuba.
The accommodations at Webb AFB were a major improvement over those at Lackland. I actually had fairly large room. Initially it came with two roommates, but when you are used to having 70 plus roommates, it is a major improvement.
My roommates were two people I knew from Colorado—they had been in a different barracks there—Peter David Steinmetz and Winston Cook. Winston and I had talked many times in Denver. He was 21 years old and had married a 13-year-old girl named Phyllis. She was from Denton, Texas. He couldn’t wait until they could be together again. She and Winston got an apartment near the base about a month or two after we arrived. My new roommate was David Whitescarver. David was also in the group from Denver. I never cared for David in Denver, we almost got into a fight once. Now here he was my roommate. We did become good friends. There were ten of us here for training on the F-102’s fire-control system. Now fire-control is the air force way of naming the radar system that controls the detection of enemy aircraft (usually bombers) and launches missiles at them. The F-102 is part of what was known as the Century Fighters—these had replaced the old F-86 and F-89 fighters from the Korean War. The F-102 and its younger sister the F-106 were called Delta Daggers because of their swept back wings. The F-102 was the first US aircraft that could sustain flight greater than the speed of sound.
The school we were to attend would not start for several weeks. The squadron’s leader of the fire-control maintenance section (I have always told people that worked on airborne radar systems, which is true, but the Air Force always referred to the systems that located targets and destroyed them as “fire-control”. Now most people here fire-control and they start seeing the fire department or Smokey The Bear), didn’t like the idea of us having nothing to do, but we were not allowed in the ADC portion of the base because we did not yet have security clearances. So we got to clean the barracks, this was a normal duty assignment that cycled through the enlisted men in barracks. This was very easy task as I had one half of one floor to take care of. Here I actually learned how to efficiently clean and wax linoleum—not part of the electronics training I was expecting.
The barracks held about 80-90 people. There were six barracks that were the 331st squadron although one did not have anyone in it and one was used as a chapel annex. Many of the GIs were married and lived in town.
The barracks had two-day rooms. The upstairs had a TV set. The downstairs had a regulation-sized pool table. I became an expert by playing Russian billiards. The barracks had no laundry facility and there was none on base so the first weekend I went to the nearest one I could walk to. The laundry had a sign on it “white people only”. I was appalled. While I grew up in a white neighborhood, I was raised to think of people of all races as being equal. This laundry was the closest to the base. I have no idea where the black airmen went to get their laundry done. After Winston moved out, I would do my laundry at his house. The air was so dry that when I had finished hanging my clothes on the line, I could start taking them down and folding them back into the basket. Now I still had to iron my fatigues and that was a pain. Finally, I contracted with one of the sergeants to do my laundry. It cost a couple of bucks a week and was well worth it. I suspect he made a hundred a week by doing this for most of the guys in the barracks. I never did do my own laundry until I got married and living with my wife and that was still two years away.
The second Sunday I began attending the First Baptist Church of Big Spring. This was a large church similar to the church in Denver. Because I did not have a car, someone would pick me up and return me to the base each Sunday. One Sunday as we were returning, we passed a Mexican walking barefoot away from a mom and pop grocery store. He was dressed in ragged white trousers and an old white work shirt. He had a hat but no belt or shoes. He was clutching three bottles of beer like they were priceless. The First Baptist woman in the front seat turned to her husband, “I don’t really think Mexicans are human.” I was too shy to speak up, but I never returned to the First Baptist Church. I did become a member of the West Side Baptist Church and sang in the choir until I was shipped out. I have learned to appreciate one of Gandhi's quotes, "I like your Christ, Christians not so much."
Training finally began. Now we spent 8 hours a day in small classroom learning about electronics in the F-102. The computers used there was incredibly primitive by today’s standards, but it was very interesting to learn. Because our training materials were classified they had to be locked in special filing cabinets. Out teacher could always open one of these quickly, but the other two took longer. My thought was that was because the first combination was easy. Since the year was 1961, I guessed that the combination was 19-60-1. Turns out it wasn’t but it was something like 18-58-2 and I was careless dialing in the combination. But, it opened and I was in trouble. They wouldn’t believe that I hadn’t looked over his shoulder when he was opening the cabinet. Our training ended in July, we were all promoted and sent off to the squadron to be techs.
About May 1961, my two roommates were driving me crazy they fought all the time, so Peter and I moved out. Peter was a strange and unusual person. He was from Hurley, Wisconsin just across the border from Ironwood, Michigan. Hurley noted for its large number of bars and Ironwood noted for being a dry county. Peter was proud of everything from Wisconsin. He was a struggling Catholic. Whenever he and I would get into a serious discussion about religion, he would attend mass faithfully for several weeks. Peter, David, others and myself would often stay up very late talking about things and playing pool. None of us had a car so we couldn’t travel far. The movies were also a pleasant distraction. I often walked to the Cooks home for dinner—they were very nice. Peter has become a very talented artist. In mid, 1961 Peter bought a set of golf clubs from the BX for about $35. He bragged and complained about golf. My father had been a caddy when he was a boy and knew how to play golf (I never knew if my dad was any good or not.) So I decided to go with Peter to the base's golf course. Note: the Air Force always builds the amenities on a base first and if they run out of money to build a runway, hangers or other infrastructure they ask Congress for more money. The golf course would let you use a set of clubs and charge you a quarter for all day. I got a set of clubs. I didn't have any golf balls so I got a bucket of balls for the driving range. I hit all but two on the range and used the others to play on the course. Peter and I were dreadful golfers but it was fun to be outside in the sun everyday. We worked the afternoon shift and often we would play 18 holes of golf, shower and head for work. Frequently the evening missions were canceled due to high winds, which would let us return to the course. My game did improve but I did not keep playing after I left Big Spring until 30 years later.