War Stories 20

[ikar]

The place of departure was Travis A.F.B. California. I caught a brand new L-1011 non-stop from N.J. I couldn't believe this plane. After only having flown in 727s a few times this thing was incredible.

We landed at S.F. airport and I caught a shuttle bus to Travis.

When I got off I walked to the terminal and the first thing I see are a few Green Berets outside, just leaning against the building, talking and still wearing their Tiger Stripe fatigues. All of a sudden me in my 1505 tan uniform and with only one stripe suddenly felt a bit unsure and some what out of my league or in over my head. They hardly even noticed me as I walked by with my bag to check in.

I was in luck, only about 4 hours until we boarded the stretch DC8 and nothing to do and being restricted to that part of the terminal, nowhere to go.

When we finally get into the air I spend the first of many hours with nothing to do but look down the long tube that made up our cabin, sleep, or look down at the ocean that didn't seem to end some 30+ thousand feet below.

It was some time after dark that we started to make our decent to Hawaii for refueling. We were off loaded and told to stay near the aircraft until the transit crew were finished. I got to see a couple palm trees, the terminal, and a few lights. So much for picturesque Hawaii.

Next stop Clark A.B. the Phillipines. They took us off, stacked our luggage and shuttled us to a old concrete guy that looked like it was left over from WWII. They had a place not far away where we could eat and then we were basically confined to the rows of cots that were waiting for us. They woke us up in time to allow us to get washed up, have breakfast and then hustled off to the flight line where our aircraft was ready and waiting.

Back in the air for the last leg, I found myself sitting next to a pilot. We talked for a couple minutes but mostly it was back to looking tdown the tube and watching the water for the next several hours.

At one point, the pilot mentioned that something didn't feel right and walked toward the cabin I couldn't make out what he was up to until he came back and told me that he checked the inspection certificate near the attendant's area. He said that the aircraft was only a couple years past its inspection date.

As we finally approached our destination the pilot announced that they would have to go out and circle for a few minutes while the base launched some aircraft. After about 10-15 minutes we came in over the over run and the plane settled down with a thud and did a slight bounce. The thrust deflectors swung out and slowed us until we made the turn and parked. Soon the passenger door opened and a blast of hot air poured in with the wonderful smell of our new home. We were already starting to sweat when a man came aboard and explained what was going to happen next.

We would all be taken to the Airman's club for a quick briefing and then turned over to our respective squadrons. At the club we were given some cool towels to help with the sudden change in climate and soda or water, no alcohol. When we were done, the police rep. loaded us into a duce 1/2 and took us to their supply where we were given two pairs of jungle boots, and two pairs of jungle fatigues and cammoflage fatigues each and then taken to the commander's hooch for a meeting. While there a couple local women walked in and started to measure us and take our fatigues. It was explained that they would make them fit better and put on all our stripes, name strips and squadron patches and get them back as fast as they could. The price would be automatically deducted from our next check, or could pay upon delivery.

After the meeting we were told when we should report for our in-country training and taken to our barracks and assigned a cube with five others. Our barracks just happened to be across from the club and across from the base clinic. We were then free to stay out of trouble, find the dining hall, not get lost and be on time for training the next day.

A wonderful cycle of events for our first day of the war.