Memoir: Dynamite, Check Six

2013 by Ray Jones. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/29/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0340-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0338-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-0339-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013913761

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CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE

PRE-FLIGHT

PRIMARY PILOT TRAINING

BASIC PILOT TRAINING

ADVANCED PILOT TRAINING

THE 94TH FIGHTER-

INTERCEPTOR SQUADRON

PRE-EDWARDS

FIGHTER FLIGHT TEST ENGINEERING

TEST PILOT SCHOOL ENGINEERING

TRAINING FIGHTER PILOTS

FIFTY-FOUR DAY CAREER CHANGE

TRASH HAULING

BACK TO FIGHTERS

BACK TO VIETNAM

HELICOPTER FLYING

FLAMING DART

BATTLE AT DANANG

ROLLING THUNDER

LEAFLET DROPS

AIR FORCE CROSS

WEEKEND AT TIEN PHOUC

AIRMAN’S MEDAL

ANIMAL WAR STORIES

IT’S A WRAP

ADDITIONAL DUTY: STUDENT

TRAINING TEST PILOTS

FALSE PEACE

LAST STOP

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GLOSSARY

DEDICATION

I served under all of the people below. A few things they had in common were: love of country, dedication to duty, a willingness to self-sacrifice, a tendency to make very few mistakes and a drive to always perform at their best. They were big-time achievers, not just bit players. I admire them all. They all helped me. Except for one, they were World War II combat veterans. I don’t subscribe to this Greatest Generation crap. But how fortunate was it to have been inspired, trained and led by veterans of the most intense aerial battles that will ever be fought on this planet. All six of them are now gone, I hope anyone who stumbles over this memoir in some garage sale will feel that I’ve done them justice. That was certainly my intent.

PROLOGUE

I’m proud of my Detroit heritage. In 1934, I was born at Providence Hospital on Grand Boulevard in heart of the city. My parents had migrated from Rome, Georgia to Detroit during the Great Depression before I was born.

Our family changed residences six times while I was growing up. I was too young to remember the first two, but fortunately the other four were roughly in the same section of the city: In an area north and south between Seven and Eight Mile Roads, and east and west between Woodward Avenue and Dequinder Road. This kept us in the same school district during my early grades.

Except for one semester at Greenfield Union School, I completed my elementary education at Marshall School on State Fair Avenue. Greenfield Union was located on Seven Mile Road next to Brown’s Creamery. At the time, Brown’s was the only Detroit daily door-to-door milk delivery service still using horse-drawn wagons.

Next, I attended our neighborhood’s Nolan Intermediate School a few blocks from my home on Hawthorn Street. Finally, I graduated from Cass Technical High School located a long way down town at the corner of Vernor Highway and Grand River Avenue.

When I was growing up, I loved life in Detroit. I walked all over the city by myself. Or, when I could spare the money, rode streetcars and busses into areas of the city I’d never been in before. The city was filled with industry. All along Eight Mile Road there were small tool and die shops, lined up side by side. John R Street was filled with machine shops of various sizes. In the winter, when the snow clouds hung low over the city, the air was a hazy gray in the factory areas and smelled of machine oil and industrial coolant. In the residential sections, it smelled of burning leaves and fireplace and stove smoke. Detroit impressed me as being a no-nonsense city, and all business.

From the time my father arrived in Detroit until he died, he worked at the huge Chevrolet Gear and Axle Plant on Holbrook Avenue. He started out at the bottom, assembling truck brakes on the production line. After World War II, he was promoted to foreman. That moved our family up from the lower class to blue-collar status.

In those days, blue-collar kids like me worked when we could. As soon as I was old enough to push a mechanical lawn mower, I canvassed our neighborhood looking for lawns to mow. Every Saturday during the summer, I also washed two or three neighbor’s cars in our driveway.

When I turned thirteen, I bought a Detroit Times paper route and delivered papers daily by bicycle to 96 customers on both sides of Orleans and Riopelle Streets between State Fair Avenue and Seven Mile Road.

During my first year of high school, I worked on Saturday and Sunday and two or three evenings a week as an usher at the Cameo Theater on Seven Mile Road. During the summer before my senior year, I worked as an attendant at a Speedway-79 gas station on Eight Mile Road near Woodward Avenue.

During my high school years (1949-1952), Detroit was at its prime—riding high. Its population was peaking above 1.8 million. Earlier, during World War II, Detroit had become known as the Arsenal of Democracy because of the prodigious amount of military equipment and machinery produced in the city and in the surrounding communities. After the war Detroit became known as the Motor City.

In the late 1940s, the big three auto makers—General Motors, Chrysler and Ford—couldn’t produce cars fast enough. Even with factories operating three shifts, 24 hours per day, dealers had long waiting lists for new autos. In 1951, Detroit spent about a year celebrating the 50th anniversary of the motor car.

Even as close as I was to the automobile industry, I was more interested in aviation. Particularly military aviation. More specifically, fighter aircraft. I developed this interest growing up during the war and following the exploits of military aviators daily in the newspapers, books and movies of the era. The field of flight testing also intrigued me. I thought I’d like to be a test pilot. I knew there were military and civilian test pilots but had no idea how they were selected or trained.

When I was about 14 years old, I picked up a brochure at the Michigan State Fair which described the Air Force’s aviation cadet program for pilot training. The brochure really peaked my interest. However, it described a very selective and rigorous training program that left doubts about whether or not I could qualify. Anyway, two years of college were required for eligibility. This seemed doable because I was planning to attend college anyway.

In the Detroit area, there were many jobs in the aviation industry for mechanical engineers. So I decided to try for a degree in that field if I couldn’t qualify for the aviation cadet program after two years of college. My first choice school was the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. So I applied and was accepted.

The technical curriculum I took in high school qualified me to be a detail mechanical draftsman. And trained detail draftsmen were in short supply those days, so I had no trouble being hired for a summer job prior to attending the university. The job I picked was in the Excello Corporation’s engineering department. The Excello division in Detroit made machine tools used to manufacture aircraft parts.

Having a relatively well-paying job allowed me the luxury of taking flying lessons. I became a student in a flying school located on the Detroit City Airport. That summer, I soloed in a Cessna 120 and made considerable progress toward obtaining my private pilot’s license. But I wasn’t able to finish until the next summer after my first year at the university. Fortunately, I was again employed by Excello.

I started my second year at the university, but for no real good reason dropped out after a couple of months. I thought that it would be a good idea to live at home so I could work full time and attend a local engineering school—Lawrence Institute of Technology. That school was located on Woodward Avenue near Five Mile Road next to Henry Ford’s first auto-assembly plant.

At Lawrence, I signed up for a full course load in their day school and planned to find a job working evenings or night shifts. If I had taken a day job, I could only have enrolled in two courses at a time in Lawrence’s night school. And I wanted to move along quicker than that.

The first stop on my job hunt was back to the Excello Corporation. They offered me a production job operating a centerless grinder on their second shift. The good news was that the second shift paid a higher hourly rate than the same job on the day shift. More good news was that operating centerless grinders paid a higher hourly wage than most other production machines in the plant. The bad news was that the higher rate was because centerless grinders were considered to be extremely dangerous.

I took the job. The plant was operating on overtime: Three extra hours per day during the week and eight more hours of overtime on Saturday. Since overtime hours earned an extra 50 percent in wages, the pay was very good.

During the week, I attended my college classes from eight o’clock in the morning until two o’clock in the afternoon. Then I ran the grinder at Excello from 3:30 p.m. until 3:00 a.m. the next morning except for a half-hour lunch break. I didn’t have a lot of spare time.

Somehow, I finished my first quarter at Lawrence with decent grades and started another quarter in January of 1954. In mid-February my plant foreman told me on a Wednesday that my last day of work would be the upcoming Friday. I was being laid off. He said that I was a good worker and the lay-off was not my fault. It was just necessary because Friday would be my 89th day on the job.

The company wouldn’t let me work any longer for two reasons: The first reason was that if I was laid off after 90 days of work I would have been eligible for 26 weeks of unemployment insurance compensation. Excello didn’t want to get stuck paying any part of that. The second reason was that after 90 days I would have earned union representation. That meant because of the union contract the company couldn’t lay me off and then replace me with a new hire without first offering me my old job back.

The second reason was the part that was really unfair. Like almost all of the manufacturing plants in Detroit, Excello was a union shop. So I had to immediately join the United Auto Workers Union. The take-home pay for my first week’s work (including overtime) went to the pay the union’s exorbitant initiation fee. As an additional insult, I also had to pay a full year’s union dues. Yet the union was unable to represent me until after I had been employed 90 days. The money went for nothing. Down the drain. But that’s the way the game was played.

Nowadays, Hollywood and the rest of the media like to depict the 1950s as some kind of ideal era. They think all of the families then were like Ozzie and Harriet’s on the stupid television programs of the day. They say life was simpler, easier and more innocent then. Those were the really good-old days. Everybody was happy. No worries.

Not my 1950s. Not in Detroit. The city was called a Working Man’s Town which it was. But steady work was hard to find. In mid-1954, I found myself unemployed. My expensive UAW union card was worthless.

But then I made an amazing discovery: The Air Force had dropped its requirement for two years of college for aviation cadet eligibility. High school graduates could apply!

PRE-FLIGHT

APRIL 1954–OCTOBER, 1954

So I was an unemployed 19-year-old kid in 1954 and wanted to be an Air Force jet-fighter pilot. And maybe even eventually a test pilot. It was my one very big idea. To me it was aiming very high.

At that time there was only one way to enter the Air Force with a guarantee of going straight into pilot training: the aviation cadet program.

Fortunately, the aviation cadet program was in full swing. The Korean War had ended, but the pilot training rate which had ramped up for the war was still very high. In fact, Air Force pilot production peaked at about 7,200 pilots per year in 1952 and began decreasing after that. But there were still about 6,500 pilots being trained per year in 1954. To obtain this many volunteers the Air Force had to lower its aviation cadet entrance requirement from two years of college to just high school graduation. Since I had only completed one year of college at the University of Michigan and one quarter at Lawrence Tech, that was good news for me.

So the first major step was to be accepted into the aviation cadet program. I had read the latest official Air Force brochure describing the training program in detail, and so I was well prepared for my first visit to the Air Force recruiting office in downtown Detroit in April of 1954.

And that was fortunate because the recruiters wanted to enlist every prospect walking through their front door. So if you weren’t careful you could be misled by what the recruiters told you. The recruiters knew that very few high school graduates would be able to pass the entrance exams for the aviation cadet program. So their main effort was to convince a prospect to first enlist in the Air Force, and then after completing the three months of basic training take the cadet entrance exams. In this respect, lowering the aviation cadet academic requirement served as a ploy to lure high school graduates into the recruiting office where they could be enticed into volunteering for enlisted service.

The problem with following this path was pretty obvious. If after completing basic training, you didn’t pass the aviation cadet entrance exams you were stuck in the Air Force as an enlisted man for three years. Not only that, but even if you passed the exams there was no guarantee the Air Force would assign you to the cadet program until after your initial three-year enlisted service commitment was over. And in practice, the Air Force did delay the entrance of its enlisted men into the aviation cadet program. I found out later that all of the former enlisted men in my cadet class had completed at least their initial three-year tours of duty.

I wanted to avoid this obvious pitfall. So in my initial conversation with the recruiting sergeant, I insisted that I was only interested in being accepted directly into an aviation cadet pilot training class. But that didn’t stop the recruiting sergeant from giving his prepared spiel on the advantages of enlisting before taking the exams. But after patiently listening to the sergeant, I still insisted: Exam first, enlist later.

Before I could be sent to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois to take a battery of aviation cadet qualifying exams, I had to complete three requirements locally. The first was to score high enough on the basic Air Force Qualifying Test. This was the same test everyone entering the Air Force had to pass. A minimum score of 95 was required to become eligible to take the aviation cadet exam and I scored 100. The next test was the Aviation Cadet Qualifying Test which required a minimum score of 95, and I scored 98. The third requirement was to pass the basic military draft pre-induction physical exam. I passed that physical without any trouble.

A couple of weeks later, I was authorized to go first class by train from Detroit to Rantoul, Illinois to take the four days of aviation cadet qualifying exams. The Air Force paid the way. The recruiting sergeant gave me a first-class round-trip train ticket and meal tickets to use on the trains during the trip.

In those days passenger travel by train was common and could be a very pleasant experience. A train trip from Detroit began at Michigan Central Depot—an impressive 18-story structure located about a mile from the center of downtown. It stood just south of Michigan Avenue and hovered over Briggs Stadium where the Tigers played baseball. This was in a very old Detroit Irish neighborhood known as Corktown.

The train I was scheduled to take to Chicago was the Twilight Limited. It was known as the businessmen’s special because of its convenience. A businessman could work at his office all day in downtown Detroit, travel the short distance to the station and then take this overnight train to Chicago. He would arrive in the morning after a good night’s sleep in a Pullman car; just in time for a full business day.

For my trip, I arrived at the depot in the early evening on a Saturday about an hour before the first call for boarding: There was no way I was going to miss this train.

I had a Pullman sleeping-car ticket, and when I boarded the train, the upper and lower berths were already prepared. I went into the parlor car and found a comfortable seat by a window where I stayed until meal time in the dining car.

After using a meal ticket to eat, I returned to the parlor car and sat by a window until about ten o’clock. Then I decided to retire for the evening, so I went to my lower berth in the Pullman car.

I quickly went to sleep and didn’t wake up until early the next morning. I arose and went to the dining car; this time exchanging another meal ticket for breakfast.

About eight o’clock in the morning the train pulled into the Chicago’s historic Union Station right on time. I decided that the train was a truly first-class way to travel.

After a two-hour layover at Union Station, I walked to my assigned gate and boarded an Illinois Central train heading for Rantoul. After arriving at the train depot in Rantoul on Sunday afternoon, I found an Air Force shuttle bus waiting to take me to the BOQ (Bachelors’ Officers Quarters) at Chanute Air Force Base. After the short ride to the BOQ, I checked into the free room reserved for me. The clerk gave me a large envelope containing some forms to fill out, a packet of instructions, a temporary ID card allowing me to eat free in the mess hall during my stay and a schedule of the events for the next five days: four days of exams, and an interview with the commander of the test unit on Friday afternoon.

Monday morning when I reported to the testing unit as directed, I found that about 25 other candidates or applicants were scheduled to take the tests with me.

The first test we all took was the basic Air Force Officer Qualifying Test. This stanine test had a battery of questions designed to evaluate a candidate’s suitability for training and serving in several selected career fields. Of course, two of those areas were for pilot and navigator training. In those days navigator training was also known as observer training, and it included training to be an airborne radar operator. Some other test categories were basic officer qualities, verbal skills and quantitative reasoning.

The rest of the first three days of the week were spent taking various intelligence, aptitude and personality tests. The entire day Thursday was devoted to an extensive flight physical exam.

Friday was the day of reckoning. The testing unit commander, Captain Thomas O’Rourke, chaired a selection board in the morning convened to . . . consider and examine the applicant’s evidence as to citizenship, and his mental, moral, physical, and general qualifications for acceptance for officer training.

Captain O’Rourke scheduled afternoon appointments Friday to meet with each of us applicants individually. There was no list of who passed and who failed posted anywhere. My fellow candidates and I would find out our fate during our meeting with Captain O’Rourke.

I had the third appointment. And didn’t know if that was good or bad. When I arrived at the captain’s office, a sergeant escorted me inside. Captain O’Rourke looked up from his desk, smiled and said, Have a seat please, Mr. Jones.

I sat down and the sergeant left the room and closed the door. Then the captain gave me the good news, Congratulations! You’ve qualified for both pilot and navigator training.

I felt an immense sense of relief and happiness, but then the captain continued, We don’t have many applicants who qualify for all three career fields—pilot, navigator and radar observer. So I’d like to offer you a training slot leading to your qualification as one of the Air Force’s new elite ‘triple-threat’ officers. The program starts with navigator and radar training; followed at some point by entry into pilot training. The reason the program is scheduled this way is because navigator training isn’t open to pilots.

My mind started reeling, but this development wasn’t entirely unexpected. Some of my fellow applicants had told me about rumors that we would be pressured to accept navigator training because those slots were harder to fill than pilot training slots—who would want to be a navigator when they could be a pilot?

So it was obvious that’s what Captain O’Rourke was trying to do: talk me into accepting navigator training. And, of course, there would be no guarantee of ever getting into pilot training. The Air Force certainly wasn’t going to send anyone to pilot training right after they’d just trained for a year to be a navigator: There was a matter of return on investment. Clearly, if I accepted this program, I’d have to complete a three-year service commitment as a navigator. And then I’d be right back to where I was now: applying for pilot training. I’d have to be accepted once more—didn’t make any sense at all.

I had to say something to squelch this idea diplomatically without alienating the captain. So I said, Sir, thank you very much for the offer. But I really have my heart set on pilot training. Delaying it for a year and serving as a navigator would be a tremendous disappointment to me. I’ve done a lot of preparation to become a pilot. I’ve even spent a lot of my own hard-earned money to get my private pilot’s license. So I’m sorry, Sir, but I just can’t accept the navigator training.

Captain O’Rourke looked displeased and he said, Well, I know this is a very big decision for you. Like I said, you can still become a pilot a little later in your career. Why don’t you take a couple of hours to think it over and then come back and talk to me again, OK?

I sensed that now was the time for firmness so I said, Thank you, Sir, but it won’t be necessary. I can only accept the pilot training.

Captain O’Rourke stood up, frowned and said, OK, but I hope someday you don’t regret turning down this unique opportunity… Are you sure you don’t need a little more time to think about it?

No, Sir. I don’t need any more time. I’ll have to stick with my decision.

The captain then leaned over his desk to shake hands with me, smiled and said, All right, Mr. Jones. Welcome to the aviation cadet pilot training program. Stop by the sergeant’s desk on your way out and he’ll finish your paperwork and issue you your formal acceptance letter. Good luck, and I hope you do well in the program.

I replied, "Thank you, Sir… Thank you very much, Sir… I won’t let you down… I’ll work really hard," and then I hurried out of the captain’s office.

I still have my form acceptance letter signed by Captain O’Rourke. For a few moments when I had been in the captain’s office I thought he might not offer me a pilot training slot. But upon reflection, that wasn’t logical. The Air Force already had a monetary investment in me. They had funded my first-class train fare and paid for my meals and living quarters for a week. And I had been found fully qualified for pilot training, so turning down the navigator program wasn’t sufficient motivation for the captain to let me walk out the door without accepting a training assignment.

But I decided that my experience with the recruiting sergeant in Detroit and with Captain O’Rourke had already taught me a valuable lesson: In dealing with the Air Force, things are not as straightforward as they appear to be on paper.

Both the sergeant and the captain had tried to sidetrack me from my goal of directly entering the pilot training program. Because—as they should have been—both of them were mainly concerned with fulfilling the overall needs of the Air Force. And they would certainly do that at the expense of any individual applicant.

So now I knew what to expect in my future Air Force career. There would always be sidetracks and roadblocks to work around, or in some cases blast through. But I was now forewarned. And as my military career progressed, during both wartime and peacetime, I encountered not only sidetracks and roadblocks but many more complicated situations reminiscent of those Joseph Heller described in his novel, Catch-22.

In mid-July of 1954, I received a phone call at home from the recruiting sergeant in downtown Detroit. The sergeant informed me that I was assigned to aviation cadet Class 56-D scheduled to start at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas on the 30th of July.

The sergeant also wanted to know if I could be ready to depart for Texas on the 23rd of July. The annual Detroit-area airshow started that Friday at Detroit Metropolitan-Wayne County Airport, and the plan was to kick it off with the swearing in of the largest number of Air Force recruits ever assembled for that purpose. There were twelve of us aviation cadet candidates from Michigan, but I was the only one from Detroit. We would be sworn in along with about 500 enlisted recruits. The Michigan recruiters had truly been busy amassing this many bodies.

The swearing-in ceremony was to be performed by no other than the Air Force chief of staff, General Nathan Twining. And as an added attraction, all of us aviation cadet candidates were scheduled to meet briefly with General Twining in the VIP tent prior to the ceremony.

I assured the sergeant that I could leave for Texas on the 23rd. In fact, I could have been out of the house and on my way in 20 minutes. I had been eagerly anticipating this class assignment ever since receiving my qualification letter in May.

So early in the morning of July 23, my fellow aviation cadet candidates and I met at the Air Force recruiting office in downtown Detroit. There we boarded an Air Force bus provided to take us to the airport for the swearing-in ceremony.

When we arrived at the airport, I found out we were assigned to stand in a section in front of the large mass of recruits who were being sworn in as enlisted men. It was right next to the VIP tent, but for some unknown reason our scheduled visit with the Air Force chief never materialized.

However, the general did emerge from the tent right on time to give a short encouraging speech and perform the ceremony. After we all took the oath, a military band started playing a rousing rendition of the Air Force Song. Then we all turned around and walked a short distance to where a fleet of C-119 troop-transports were waiting to fly us to San Antonio.

I really enjoyed the trip. It was the first time I’d flown on anything larger than the general aviation aircraft I flew while earning my pilot’s license. And, of course, it was the first time I’d flown on a military aircraft. We twelve cadets had a C-119 to ourselves, so we were each able to spend as much time as we wanted up in the cockpit observing and talking to the pilot and copilot. It was the first time several of my fellow cadets had ever flown in an aircraft of any kind. And two of them responded in an embarrassing—but to me not surprising—manner by becoming airsick. This wasn’t a very auspicious start to a pilot training program, but as it turned out neither of them had the problem again.

Lackland Air Force Base was strictly a training facility and didn’t have an airfield, but it was co-located with Kelly Air Force Base which did have one. So the C-119 made a passenger stop in front of the base operations building at Kelly to drop us off. As I jumped out the side troop door to exit the aircraft, I felt a blast of hot air that seemed almost too hot to breath; I thought my lungs were being seared! The engines of the aircraft were running at idle, and I was directly in the slipstream behind the propeller so I thought to myself, Damn, that hot air is from the engine exhaust, so I sprinted away from the airplane and toward the base ops building.

But when I ran well away from the aircraft, the air was still just as hot and stifling. Then I finally realized that it was just a normal July afternoon in San Antonio. Checking the temperature in the weather station in base ops, I found that it was 108 degrees—the hottest temperature I’d ever been exposed to. And the humidity was high. Fortunately, I had a week to get used to this climate change before my class started.

So now we all had a week off to enjoy ourselves in San Antonio before we had to report in at Lackland AFB for training. We unanimously appointed the oldest of our fellow cadets to be our leader and tour guide. He was a former enlisted man who had been through basic training at Lackland six years earlier and was quite familiar with the area.

We all took a city bus from Kelly to downtown San Antonio and checked in at the historic Menger Hotel. The Menger was the most famous hotel in San Antonio—a landmark. The hotel claimed to be the oldest continuously operating hotel west of the Mississippi River.

It was built in 1858, just 22 years after the battle of the Alamo, and over the years many famous people have stayed there. Local legend says that before the Civil War, Robert E. Lee, who was a colonel in the U.S. Army at the time, rode his horse, Traveller, into the hotel lobby for some long-forgotten reason. However, a quick check of Lee’s biography shows that he didn’t acquire Traveller until 1862 after the Civil War started. But maybe the incident occurred with Lee riding one of his less-famous horses.

President Grant also stayed there after the Civil War and so did Lieutenant Colonel Teddy Roosevelt when he was recruiting men for service in his Rough Riders before the Spanish American War.

But in 1954, the Menger catered to a somewhat less elite military clientele so we had no trouble obtaining rooms. We rented three large rooms, each with four beds and a bath. The rooms weren’t air conditioned, but they had very high ceilings, and a large slow-turning fan hanging down at the end of a long shaft over every bed.

We followed a pretty relaxing schedule during the week while resting up for the three-month ordeal we had ahead of us. But we did do some sightseeing. The big attraction was touring the Alamo which was located almost right next-door to the hotel.

The week passed quickly enough and Friday morning we all took a bus to Lackland AFB. Our orders said to report between 8:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. At our leader’s advice, we arrived about noon. No point in subjecting ourselves to any more punishment than we absolutely had to. The first twelve weeks of the sixteen-month aviation cadet training program was formally known as the pre-flight training phase. The name pre-flight might lead one to believe that the phase was a sort of ground school preparing us for pilot training. But the phase name was a misnomer, the training had almost nothing to do with flying.

As far as I could tell, pre-flight had four major purposes: First, to remove every trace of individualism from each cadet and try to convince him that he and his fellow classmates were all equals by using a process of dehumanization. Second, to apply as much pressure as possible to each cadet so anyone who wasn’t extremely well-motivated, self-disciplined and willing to take a lot of abuse to reach a goal would drop out of the program. Third, to teach the basic military subjects presented in any officer training program like the service academies or ROTC. Fourth, begin to instill a warrior mentality in each cadet. This was exemplified by describing the training as a tiger program and using the motto Every man, a tiger.

The first six weeks spent in the lower class were the real ball-breakers. Cadets had no privileges at all for the first four weeks. We were essentially restricted to the barracks except for scheduled and supervised activities. It was a lot like being in jail for a felony. But, of course, felons don’t have to put up with constant supervision and harassment and just plain hazing. All of this was provided to us lower classmen by members of our upper class; that is, cadets who had just finished their lower-class ordeal the day before we arrived. Or in other words: one day the victim; the next day the harasser.

Friday, the 30th of July, 1954, we twelve classmates from Michigan arrived at the orderly room of the 3741st Pre-Flight Training Squadron. We all signed in and were greeted by an upper-class cadet dressed in heavily starched and pressed khakis. The cadet informed us that he was a white-glove. That is, a member of the detail assigned to be our training officers over the weekend.

Until Monday, my class would be receiving instructions at various times from white-gloves. Those instructors were recognizable because, naturally, they all wore the white gloves used by cadets for formal parades and inspections. But in this case they were worn to distinguish them from the other upper classmen.

The white-glove led us twelve Michiganders out onto a street to join five other large groups or flights of cadets who had signed in earlier. We were then split up and doled out among those five flights already formed. After we were formed up together in ranks and files, the white-gloves supervising each flight explained some of the basic cadet ground rules to us. Of course, there were far too many rules to remember so we were destined to learn them the hard way-by violating them.

After expounding on the rules, the white-gloves proceeded to instruct us in the fundamentals of close-order drill. After about 90 minutes of drill practice marching around on the asphalt road in the hot July afternoon sun, the white-gloves marched us single file into our new home in the barracks.

We were assigned to Aviation Cadet Group II, Squadron C known as Coca Squadron. The squadron occupied one entire two-story wooden World War II-era barracks building. Naturally, it had neither air conditioning nor fans. The building was long and narrow, and on the bottom floor there was an orderly room in the center. The lower class occupied the two wings to either side of the orderly room. My group of 24 occupied one wing; another group of 24 occupied the other wing. The upper class occupied the second floor, and there was a recreation room for their use above the orderly room.

Inside each wing of the barracks were rows of six bunk beds on either side, with a small desk between each bed. So at the start of training, the squadron consisted of 48 lower classmen. The upper class had also started out with 48 members, but after the first six weeks, they had fewer because of eliminations during training.

We were split up into smaller groups and the white-gloves showed us how to properly make our beds. The beds were made in what was then a standard military manner for cadets of every service. About a two-foot length of the lower sheet was tucked under the mattress at the head of the bed, the corners folded at forty-five degrees and the sides tucked under the mattress. Then the top sheet was folded in a similar manner at the foot of the bed.

Next the blanket was put on top and also folded at forty-five degrees at the foot. Finally, the top sheet was folded down to make a collar around the top of the blanket and the sides of the top sheet and blanket tucked under the mattress. When finished, the collar had to be exactly six inches wide and start exactly two feet from the head of the bed. With a pillow at the head, this was the way the bed was displayed normally. But on selected days of the week, a second blanket had to be folded and tucked in at the head of the bed to cover the exposed sheet area and pillow to form a dust cover.

When the white-glove that I was observing finished making the bed, he picked up a ruler from the top of the adjoining desk and measured the distance from the end of the bed to the white collar on the blanket—exactly two feet just as it was supposed to be. He also measured the collar—exactly six inches wide as required. Then he looked around at us and said, And you rainbows will have to learn to make your beds properly without using a ruler, too. You have to get them made right on your first try because you won’t have time to do them over.

Upper classmen called us rainbows because we were wearing all sorts of civilian clothes of varying colors.

Next the white-glove picked up a half-dollar coin from the desktop and tossed it on the blanket. It bounced up about two inches. Then he said, Your beds better be this tight, too.

The white-glove than issued us two sheets, two blankets and a pillowcase. Then we practiced bed making for about an hour. Whenever one of us finished making our bed, a white-glove would walk over with the ruler, measure the two lengths, pull the covers off and say, No good, try again. Nobody ever got their bed made right. The white-gloves never bothered to try bouncing half-dollars. They could tell by the sagging blankets that none of the beds were tucked in tight enough on the sides.

Finally, one of the white-gloves said, OK, that’s enough of this for the day. Make your beds up one more time and we’ll leave it for now.

When our beds were all made up, one of the white-gloves handed each of us a folder full of papers and said, Inside these folders you’ll find items written out that you’re required to commit to memory—something for you to do in your spare time.

Then another white-glove said, We’re through with you rainbows for the moment. Start memorizing the items in the folder and we’ll send the rest of the upper class down to meet you in a few minutes.

The white-gloves started to leave, and we all plopped down on our beds. Then the first white-glove stopped at the door and said in a loud voice, "Well? Well?"

Finally, some rainbow remembered, jumped up and yelled, "Atten—tion!"

We all then jumped up and stood at attention. The white-glove then turned around again to leave and said over his shoulder, "As you were," and we all plopped back down again.

It was now nearing 3:30 p.m. but we all knew our day was nowhere near over. About five minutes after the white-gloves left, other upper classmen started entering the barracks. A rainbow yelled, "Atten—tion!" and all of us jumped up and stood at attention again.

The upper classmen slowly filtered into the barracks. There were about ten of them. At first they didn’t say anything. Then finally one of them said, Well, well. Look at these beds! I thought the white-gloves were going to teach you rainbows how to make your beds today… You must all be slow learners.

Then upper classmen started conversations with individual rainbows and the barracks was filled with a jumble of noise. One of the upper classmen walked up to the rainbow standing at attention next to me and asked, What’s your name, Mister?

Rogers, Sir.

Mr. Rogers, do you know what these two stripes on my shoulder board mean?

No, Sir.

It means that I’m a cadet sergeant… I see your information folder lying on your bed; ranks are listed as something you’re supposed to know on your first day as a cadet. So why didn’t you know I’m a sergeant?

Well, we just got…

What! What! What kind of an answer is that. That’s unacceptable… I’ll try one more time: Why didn’t you know I’m a cadet sergeant?

There was a long pause and then Rogers said, No excuse, Sir.

Listening to this exchange I figured that the proper answer to any question beginning with Why must be No excuse, Sir. And, of course, that was true.

All right, Mr. Rogers, but you better know all the cadet ranks by tomorrow because I’m going to ask you about them again, understand?

Yes, Sir.

Is this the way you always stand at attention, Mr. Rogers?

Yes, Sir.

Well, you’ll have to do better… Get your head up… Pull your chin in… Straighten those arms: They’re bowed away from your sides… And suck in that gut… Suck harder… OK, now stay that way.

Then the cadet sergeant turned and asked me, What’s your name, Mister.

Jones, Sir.

Did you make this bed, Mr. Jones?

Yes, Sir.

Are you proud of your work?

No, Sir.

It looks like you’ve been sitting on it: Have you?

Yes, Sir.

How can I bounce a half-dollar off a bed you’ve been sitting on, Mr. Jones?

I don’t know, Sir.

Well, take those covers off and make that bed up again, and I’ll be back to check on it in a few minutes.

I answered, Yes, Sir, and started tearing my bed apart. The sergeant then walked off to harass someone else. I was glad to be making the bed again. At least I wasn’t left standing in an exaggerated position of attention known as a brace like Mr. Rogers was.

While I was working, I glanced around the barracks. I saw several other rainbows standing in a brace. Some were also remaking beds like I was doing and others were still standing at a normal position of attention apparently yet to be molested.

As I was putting the blanket back on my bed, the cadet sergeant returned and asked, Not done yet, Mr. Jones?

I snapped to attention and answered, No, Sir.

Why not, Mr. Jones?

No excuse, Sir,

Well, you’ll have to work faster tomorrow morning. You’ll only have two minutes to get your bed made in order to get out the door on time… And is that the best imitation of standing at attention you can show me, Mr. Jones.

Yes, Sir.

I don’t think so, Mr. Jones. Mr. Rogers here is doing it much better… So pull in that gut… Lift your head up… Straighten those arms… Suck more on that gut!

Then the sergeant turned away from me toward Rogers and said, OK, Mr. Rogers—at ease… Now you remake that mess of a bed you’ve got.

Rogers replied, Yes, Sir, and started hurriedly remaking his bed.

The sergeant turned back toward me and asked, What’s your service number, Mr. Jones?

I don’t know, Sir?

You don’t know your service number?

No, Sir.

You’ve been in the cadet program all day long and you don’t know even know your service number?

No, Sir.

No? You haven’t been in the cadet program all day?

No, Sir… I mean, Yes Sir.

Do you know what you mean, Mr. Jones?

Yes, Sir.

Do you know how to find out what your service number is, Mr. Jones?

Yes, Sir.

How?

It’s on my orders, Sir.

Well, find it and I want you to have it memorized by the time I get back here.

I answered, Yes, Sir, and started looking thru my suitcase for a set of my orders. I found a set, but predictably before I could memorize the number the sergeant was back. He walked up to me and said, Mr. Jones.

I snapped to attention again and said, Yes, Sir.

Drop that piece of paper in your hand. Don’t have anything in your hand when you’re standing at attention in the barracks!

I dropped the orders and said, Yes, Sir.

All right, Mr. Jones… Now what’s your service number?

AD 16469… ah, ah, ah, Sir.

That number’s too short, Mr. Jones. It needs three more digits. You better know your service number before this day is over.

Yes, Sir.

And that’s the way it went for over another hour; just one thing after another asked by the upper classmen. Some of my fellow rainbows had trouble figuring out the right answer to Why? questions, and continued to try to actually give explanations. After a few wrong answers they ended up on the barracks floor doing sit-ups, push-ups or both.

Finally, an upper classman said, "All right, rainbows, time for dining privilege. Everybody out of the barracks and out to the road… Now! . . . Now! . . . Double time… NOW!

We scrambled around and then we all ran for the door. When we got outside, we double-timed it up the sidewalk to the road where the white-gloves were standing and waiting for us.

One of the white-gloves said, All right… Line up… Same position in the flight you were in for the drill practice… Hurry up! . . . Hurry up!

When the white-gloves had us lined up properly, they started marching us to the mess hall. On the way, one white-glove yelled, "You, rainbows are going to have to learn to sing while you march… There’s some songs in the folders we gave you… You better have some of those songs memorized by tomorrow… For now we’re going to sing When the Saints Go Marching In; everybody knows that song… OK, sing… NOW!"

So some rainbows started singing and everyone joined in. Actually, once we became accustomed to it, we didn’t mind singing while we marched. Singing actually helped us keep in step. When the Saints Go Marching In was almost everyone’s favorite for some reason—maybe because we sang it first. But during the next 16 months we sang a lot of songs. One song from the folder we had to memorize was the Air Force Song. Of course, we all thought we knew that one already because it was played a lot during World War II. It began:

Off we go into the wild blue yonder,

Climbing high into the sun;

Here they come zooming to meet our thunder,

At’em boys, Give’er the gun! . . .

But we were surprised that there was a second verse we had to learn beginning with:

Minds of man fashioned a crate of thunder,

Sent it high into the blue; . . .

Or, damn, even a third verse to memorize beginning with:

Off we go into the wild sky yonder,

Keep the wings level and true; . . .

When we reached the mess hall, there was a long line out front stretching from the door to the street. We had to wait for our scheduled meal time before we could get in line, so we stood in formation at parade rest for about 15 minutes. Finally, a white-glove called us to attention and had us march up the sidewalk to the mess hall in single file.

When the line stopped, we went to parade rest. Then when it moved again, we came to attention, marched forward until it stopped and then went back to parade rest. Upper classmen walked up and down our line to make sure we all had our heads up, and eyes staring straight ahead.

Finally we started going through the mess-hall door, picking up our trays and heading down the serving line. At the head of the line was an upper classman who kept saying, Heads up! Eyes forward! Don’t look down! You’re still in a military formation.

After the servers had filled our trays with food, we were met at the end of the line by a white-glove. The white-glove directed us to a table. He told us to put down our trays and stand at attention behind our chairs. As soon as a table was filled on both sides by us rainbows, an upper classman walked up to the end of the table and put down his tray. Then he said, Be seated, Gentlemen, and everyone sat down.

To me the event coming next—eating—was the most bizarre part of the cadet program. Consider the situation: You’re only allowed to sit on the first six inches of your chair, and no more than six inches away from the table. You’re sitting straight up with your feet flat on the floor, head erect and eyes pointed straight ahead. As a result, you can only see the far edge of your tray with your peripheral vision: You can’t see any of the food.

What you do see is the eyes of the cadet sitting directly across from you. You both have to stare at each other for the entire meal, because neither one of you can even glance away. If you’re called on by an upper classman at the table, you may make no more than three additional chews of your food before swallowing, putting down your silverware, dropping your arms straight down to your sides, turning your head toward the questioner and responding. An example:

Mr. Jones.

Chew… Chew… Gulp! . . . Yes, Sir.

You haven’t touched your meatloaf at all… Is there something wrong with it?

No, Sir.

Do you plan on eating it?

No, Sir.

Why not?

No excuse, Sir.

You thought you could cut it just using your fork, didn’t you?

Yes, Sir.

Well, you need to use a knife and fork on this meatloaf, so after this don’t bring food to the table that you can’t eat… We don’t want to be wasting food, do we?

No, Sir.

. . . .

Mr. Rogers.

Chew… Chew… Chew… Chew… Gulp! . . . Gulp! . . . Yes, Sir.

That was a pretty big bite wasn’t it, Mr. Rogers?

Yes, Sir.

Well, don’t be taking such large bites. I don’t want you choking on me, understand?

Yes, Sir.

. . . .

The Gentleman sitting across from Mr. Rogers… What’s your name?

Chew… Gulp… Anderson, Sir.

You’ve been pushing your tray out toward the center of the table haven’t you, Mr. Anderson?

Yes, Sir.

Why?

No excuse, Sir.

I’ll bet you can see your food better with your tray out there, can’t you?

Yes, Sir.

Well, pull your tray back to the edge of the table where it belongs.

Yes, Sir.

Soon we all learned what kind of food to get going through the mess-hall line. The absolute best choice was food that could be picked up and eaten; toast, rolls or any other kind of bread. Butter was served on small pieces of cardboard, and we could usually get away with picking up the cardboard and smearing the butter on the bread. This can be done totally by feel:

Mr. Jones.

Yes, Sir.

Did you just smear butter on your bread directly from the cardboard?

Yes, Sir.

Would you do that at home?

No, Sir.

How would you do it at home?

I’d use my knife to put the butter on the bread, Sir.

Then use your knife here.

Yes, Sir.

Well, we could usually get away with it, but obviously not always. The only meat we were allowed to eat by hand was fried chicken. I actually prayed for fried chicken. But, unfortunately, it was rarely served. Any other kind of meat had to be cut up and we couldn’t see our trays to do it properly.

Mr. Rogers.

Yes, Sir.

What did you just have in your hands?

Chicken, Sir.

This is baked chicken, Mr. Rogers. We don’t eat it with our hands, do we?

No, Sir.

Then why did you pick it up?

No, excuse, Sir.

Well, you’ll have to cut it up with your knife and fork if you’re going to eat it.

Yes, Sir.

And if you don’t eat it all, you’ll be doing push-ups for me when we get back to the barracks, understand?

Yes, Sir.

Mr. Rogers ended up doing push-ups after dinner. There were some foods we could eat with very few problems. For example, we were allowed to use our spoons to eat fruit cocktail, Jell-O and puddings. We had to be really careful with the fruit cocktail. We made sure to tip our spoons to drain off all the liquid before picking it up. Otherwise, fruit juice might dribble down the front of our clothes—very bad news, indeed. And we could run into other problems:

Mr. Anderson.

Yes, Sir.

You just dropped a spoonful of Jell-O in your lap. Did you know that?

Yes, Sir.

Why did you do that?

No excuse, Sir.

Well, you’ll have to put on clean clothes when we get back to the barracks.

Yes, Sir.

You’re only going to be issued five sets of khakis. How are you going to make it through the week if you have to put on a fresh uniform after every meal?

I don’t know, Sir.

Well, you better be more careful in the future.

Yes, Sir.

Another food we prayed for was ice cream. Individual small cartons were served, and the ice cream could be eaten right out of the carton with a spoon. Mashed potatoes and gravy were great because they tended to stick to the fork. Normally, cut vegetables were almost impossible to eat because we couldn’t get them on our forks; but if we also had mashed potatoes the vegetables could be stirred into the potatoes and easily eaten. But peas were never, ever taken for obvious reasons:

Mr. Rogers.

Yes, Sir.

Are those your peas rolling around on the table and on the floor under your chair?

Yes, Sir.

Why did you take peas?

No excuse, Sir.

Do you think taking the peas was a good idea?

No, Sir.

Are you going to take peas again?

No, Sir.

Well, I hope not. You’ve made a real mess here. When we finish eating I want you to pick up those peas from the table and floor—one by one, understand?

Yes, Sir.

Fortunately, liquids like fruit juice, milk and iced tea were always available at the mess hall. And since they were so easy to consume they become a staple of our diets. In fact, we learned to drink liquids at every opportunity because dehydration was a real problem with the high temperatures and strenuous physical activity.

It wasn’t much fun eating in the mess hall. And for six weeks all our meals were repeats of this one. For some strange warped illogical reason, cadets were forced to call eating in the mess hall enjoying dining privilege. But it was anything but enjoyable.

All of us lost weight during the time we spent as lower classmen. I lost about twelve pounds, but ended up in much better physical shape because of the continuous exertion and formal physical training.

Anyway, after we finished our first evening dining privilege at the cadet mess hall, we marched out in single file and down the sidewalk back to the street. The white-gloves were again waiting for us.

We re-formed into our flight and marched back to the barracks. On the way we sang the first verse of the Air Force Song or at least attempted to sing it. Very few of us knew the entire first verse and the singing just kind of fizzled out toward the end.

That was pretty pathetic singing, Gentlemen. You better all know the first verse for sure by tomorrow morning when we march to morning dining privilege… And like I told you earlier, I want to hear a different song later tomorrow when we march to noon dining privilege.

When we arrived back in front of the barracks, one of the white-gloves made an unwelcome announcement: After you get back into the barracks you’ll have 45 minutes to clean the place up. The floor needs to be swept and mopped; your clothes need to be unpacked and put in your footlockers; and those beds have to be remade up to standard. Then the upper class will be back down to assess your work.

So we filed out of formation and double-timed it down the sidewalk and into the barracks. The first thing I did was remake my bed. It was then that I noticed two deep scratch marks on my bed springs. I hunted up a ruler and measured the marks—one was exactly 24 inches and the other 30 inches down from the head of the bed. I announced my finding to my classmates and after a quick check we found that each bedspring had the same marks. So the mystery about how the white-gloves aligned the bedclothes properly without using a ruler was solved.

We were still working on our assigned chores and nowhere near finished when several members of the upper class showed up to critique and harass us for over an hour.

Finally, nine p.m. arrived—the start of the quiet hour—and the upper class departed. The quiet hour was the last hour before taps, and a time that we had to ourselves. It was the only opportunity we had for doing personal things and preparing for the next day’s activities.

Our first day’s quiet hour was devoted to memorizing some of the material in the folders the white-gloves had given us. This material was known collectively as cadet knowledge, and it formed the basis for most of the questioning by the upper class.

Cadet knowledge was a potpourri of things including: the lyrics of several songs; a listing of the Air Force chain of command; several pages of Air Force historical