My War - Installment 4

There was no picking and choosing at that point. Each unmarried WOC escorted whatever girl was in line coming off of the bus.

There was no set rule that said that you had to stay with the girl you escorted in, but it seemed that in general this turned out to be what happened.

The girl that I accompanied from the bus was gorgeous. She was unbelievably attractive. She did not look any older than the other girls so I was terribly surprised when she told me that she was one of the chaperons. I figured that there was no future for me in a relationship with her, even though she was a knockout. I could not have very much fun with her, because she would be spending all of her time keeping an eye on the girls. I ended up tending bar during the party. Many of the men struck up what became, long term relationships that night.

The following Monday we met our military IP's and entered our advanced primary phase of training. Our conversations with our new IP's always seemed to be dominated by references to Viet Nam.

After our phase change we started to get to know each other better. During the early segments of training, basic and phase "I" of primary flight school, it seemed as if the TAC's were on us continually. With the combination of hazing and studying, the time we had for getting to know one another had been very limited. With the more relaxed atmosphere, things seemed to stabilize and smooth out. We really started to get to know and appreciate the other men in out flight teams. I got to know Buddy Holmes, a young guy from Washington, Pennsylvania, fairly well.

Almost as soon as we started this second phase of flight training, we were instructed more and more on cross country flying and navigation, both in the aircraft and in the classroom. We were beginning some short night flights and night cross country. These cross country flights, which originated and terminated at the same location, were commonly referred to as round robin flights. Night flying was a different experience, but personally I felt it was easier to navigate in the dark. There were so many lights from towns to use as reference points. The feeling of flying at night has never changed for me. It looks like you're gliding above a black velvet cloth sprinkled with luminescent pearls.

There can be a number of different problems to contend with in night flying. A lot of the problems are perceptual in nature, like loss of depth of field and limited night blindness. Peripheral vision also can be affected. I thank God that I had not been plagued with any of those problems.

Stan had some troubles in training. He had always been able to deal with his problems until he came to night flying. Unfortunately, Stan washed out of the program. One day when I returned from the flight line, he was gone. I never even had a chance to talk to him before he left. We had entered the service under the buddy system. That system was limited by the program we had entered. We had not really spent much time together, not even talking, because we were in different flights.

It was apparent that a number of other men had similar problems. Our class, reduced in size by wash outs (called normal attrition), needed fewer rooms in the barracks. I moved into a room with some older fellows. Anyone over twenty was old to me then. One of them was from New York, Sully Sullivan. The other, Gary Kalinski, was from somewhere in the Midwest. Both of them were personable and we got along fine. Sully had been flying as a civilian pilot for a number of years and was familiar with some of the airports in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As we got to know one another, we tentatively made plans to do a little fixed-wing flying on some of our free weekends. Fixed-wing flying was a forbidden commodity during helicopter training. Perhaps they felt we would become confused with the aircraft controls if we strayed from rotorcraft even for a short time.

"Sully, I've done some fixed-wing flying myself, not as much as you have. I've got a number of hours but never got my ticket. I figured it would be cheaper to get it in the Army. I just couldn't afford it otherwise. If I had stayed around to get a civilian ticket I would have been drafted anyway."

"Well," said Sully. "We'll go over to Fort Worth, like I said, and go for a spin one of these weekends. You have a car here, right?"

"Yea," I said excitedly. "We can drive over, no problem. Maybe we can get someone else interested and they can help foot the bill."

"Hey, Gary. Hey, Sully. Did either of you hear what happened to Montoya on the round robin the other evening?"

"No! Not exactly. I've heard a few rumors, is all. Can you fill us in on any details?" they asked.

"Well," I said. "From what I heard he got mixed up and thought that the lights on the outskirts of Fort Worth were actually the lights of Wichita Falls, Texas (a navigational check point) and headed toward them."

"I don't see how he could have been so mixed up on cardinal directions," said Sully. "Wichita Falls is almost due north of this area and Fort Worth is nearly due east."

"Back to my story," I said. "He ended his flight by seeing some runway and taxiway lights and landed, of all places, in a security area at Carswell, Air Force Base in west Fort Worth."

We all laughed.

"It’s really no laughing matter. They were immediately put under arrest by the security police at Carswell."

"I imagine he's in some deep shit now," said Gary.

"I haven't heard the outcome of that one yet. It’s not as if it were entirely his fault. I don't know who was sandbagging with him, but you'd think that he would have noticed something strange and told Montoya about it,” I said.

Besides the disorientation problems that some of the student pilots had during night flight, the IP's would try to induce vertigo, a state of disequilibrium and disorientation, where the person experiencing it does not even know which way is up. My IP was especially fond of trying this with me. Fortunately I never did succumb. I think my youth had something to do with it. He would have the student, at night, bend over and put his head down between the knees as low as possible. Then he would put the helicopter into some ridiculously awkward attitude and calmly say, "You got it."

I was very fortunate in that I seemed to have gained a knack for navigation, whether at night or during the day, and could hold the helicopter using my legs and one hand while using the other to manipulate the flight slide rule so I could make corrections for wind drift etc. I was told that my ability would serve me well in the future.

As I said, things seemed to be easing up and we were becoming better acquainted. I am not sure that "ease up" is right. Maybe we were just becoming more accustomed to the "Mickey Mouse" bull crap.

Those of us that were left in WORWAC 66-11 all seemed to be doing all right in our flying and classroom work. It looked like those of us who remained would graduate together and go on to Fort Rucker, Alabama for advanced training in tactical flight, tactical instrument training and weapons training. In addition we would be flying more sophisticated aircraft and taking classes in survival.

Speaking of classroom work, we had always been told "If you feel sleepy in class, stand up at the side or at the back of the classroom." One day weariness from the long hours caught up with me. I quietly took my place at the side of the room, where I was partially obscured by a "Coke" machine. The reasoning behind standing was that certainly a person would wake up and remain so if he was forced to his feet in a classroom. To my chagrin there was a loud noise that startled me. Where had the noise come from? I looked around. I had apparently fallen asleep in a standing posture and bumped into the bottle rack while unconsciously shifting my feet during the snooze.

As we continued our training, all working hard at polishing our flying technique and readying ourselves for check rides, all of our idle time was spent in the pursuit of carnal pleasures of various types. Buddy was pursuing one Katie Shore, a Texas Women's University student from Stuttgart, Arkansas. Of course Buddy was not the only one who was still courting one of the girls from our phase party. I was not one.

Classmates considered me one of an elite group of persons, at least in the younger group. My popularity came from having a car on post. Having a car just made me one of the willing chauffeurs for the guys looking for rides to Denton to woo their newly found loves.

At that time a lasting relationship with a beautiful young lady was very far from my mind. It seemed that with each passing day the likelihood of going to Viet Nam became more of a reality. I did not want to become emotionally entangled with a girl. I thought that it would not be fair to her. I never ruled out the possibility of a girl friend though. Secretly I would have liked to have had one but I was trying to be logical. I didn't have to worry on that account because there were no girls that were even the slightest bit interested in me. It just appeared to be my lot at that time, just as it had been in high school.

Even blind dates, arranged by what I am not sure I should call my friends, were abysmal disasters. I had a blind date one weekend with a TWU girl. She and I were to double-date, my car of course, with a friend of mine and his girl (not Buddy, he was busy visiting Katie and there would not have been room in my small car for all or us). We were to go to a James Bond movie in Denton.

My buddy and his attractive girl friend came from the dorm and I helped them into the back seat of my car since it was a two-door model. We waited and waited and waited before my date appeared at the door of the dorm. When I saw the girl I said to myself, "Surely, she can't be my date. If she is, my luck has not changed one iota." She was about six foot three inches tall; I'm five foot ten and one half inches tall. She had long straight hair that was matted to her head. It looked as if she had just gotten out of the shower.

Being the kind person that I am, I helped her into the front seat and we drove to downtown Denton. As I drove, many thoughts raced through my head. This was not a one bag date; she was definitely a two bagger. Let me explain. A one bag date is where you take one grocery bag to put over your date's head if she is ugly. A two bagger is one for the date and one for yourself so you won't be recognized if her bag falls off.

As we continued our drive into town, I definitely had second thoughts about the whole affair. Someone seemed to have played a cruel joke on me. I had been running different scenarios through my mind as to how I could gracefully leave. No graceful methods came to mind. It would have been impossible to feign being sick or having forgotten to do something, so I decided to play it by ear and do something drastic, if I had the chance.

I pulled up in front of the theater and in a gentlemanly manner helped everyone out of the car. At that moment, while helping the girls out, an idea shot into my head. The street was jam packed with cars parked for blocks in all directions.

"I'll park the car and meet you inside," I said. "Here is the money for Bertha's ticket, John. I jumped into the driver's seat and ungracefully roared away into the sunset, not to return to meet them. After waiting a reasonable period of time, I sneaked back to the theater and crept to a hiding place to see James Bond in action by myself.

Needless to say my chances for dates at Texas Women's University were blown all to hell after that evening. John said to me, later, that he did not blame me for my actions. The only time I returned to TWU after that, was to give others a ride there to visit their girl friends.

From there on in I resigned myself to spending my leisure time in pursuit of other less emotional activities. Things like boating and fishing at Possum Kingdom Lake, flying fixed-wing aircraft, and carousing with the guys like Sully who was not too interested in lasting relationships with girls.

Primary Flight school was fast moving to a close. The weeks seemed to zip by full of the activities of flight training and classroom work, and weekends went even faster. There were also evenings playing volleyball and other activities such as shooting pool in the day room of the barracks.

Buddy was definitely hooked on Katie and wished that he would not have to leave Texas at all. Sully and Gary and I were content with our girl-less activities and restaurant hopping.

As graduation drew closer I became ever more excited. Most of us were looking forward to moving to Alabama and advanced training at Fort Rucker.

The entire time that we were in primary training the "conflict" in Southeast Asia had been escalating. American involvement was also moving forward with increased numbers of our troops becoming involved. President Johnson had fully committed the United States and its resources. This was a far cry from what Lyndon B. Johnson had said in previous years:

"I hate war. And if the day ever comes when my vote must be cast to send your boy to the trenches, that day Lyndon Johnson will leave his Senate seat to go with him." Unsuccessful campaign for U.S. Senate Texas, 1941

"Our one desire--our one determination--is that the people of Southeast Asia be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way." Washington, D.C. August 10, 1964.

"Some others are eager to enlarge the conflict. They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do. They ask us to take reckless action which might risk the lives of millions and engulf much of Asia and certainly threaten the peace of the entire world. Moreover, such action would offer no solution at all to the real problem of Vietnam." New York, New York August 12, 1964.