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Air Force Birthday 2024
Today is the 77th Air Force Birthday. So, Happy 🎂 Birthday, and many more!
🪂 The Ultimate All-Nighter 🥱
In the Air Force, you get some weird orders, but you obey them no matter what. ~Gus Grissom
Way back in 1985, I was at Sheppard AFB in Crew Chief school.
Strangely, I had washed out of Weather Observation for a lack of prerequisite manual dexterity, so they decided I’d be better suited to repair airplanes…
Yeah.
It’s long been established that military intelligence is an oxymoron.
Be that as it may, I’m sitting pretty in Wichita Falls, TX, learning how to maintain and repair multimillion dollar aircraft.
A guy who had washed out of Pararescue knew some guys from my BMTS Flight, so we became friends (as one does in the military).
Being an adventurous sort, he sold me on the idea of going to a civilian airfield in Oklahoma for parachuting lessons.
Sounds like fun, in theory. It’s all good, in theory. Meh…
So, we drive out yonder and take a class in the morning. Once all was said and done, we’re all snapped into our harnesses and climbing into a T-wing flying station wagon.
Great. We head on up to 4,500 feet. Great. I’m the heaviest guy in the bunch, so I’m the first one out. Great.
I was young and dumb and, well, you know the rest. Fear was, surprisingly, no part of the picture.
Honestly, I was not in the least afraid of jumping off of a perfectly good airplane. This was the whole point of the excursion, so YOLO.
The instructions given were that you were supposed to lean onto the diagonal strut and get yourself into a sort of position as if hanging from a chin up bar.
Ideally, you’d be in this position when the Jumpmaster would point up. This would be a signal to look up at the bottom of the wing, where the word ARCH was painted.
This was intended to signal you to arch your back, let go of the strut and fly away like Superman in reverse.
Like so many, many, many things in my life, the difference between should have and did was quite stark.
I got out onto the landing gear and leaned on the strut. Well, damn if the Jumpmaster wasn’t already pointing up.
So, I just let go.
No chin up position. No arching. No Superman in reverse.
I somersaulted off the side of the plane and continued tumbling until the static cord pulled my chute.
The sky. The ground. The plane. A bird. The ground. The plane and, voom, suddenly I’m upright.
Okay, now I’m where I’m supposed to be. There’s a radio on my chest and a pair of toggles in my hands.
You see, these were the cool, rectangular ramjet chutes. You can steer and do tricks.
Well, tricks are for kids, as they keep telling that rabbit. Tricks are also for special forces aspirants like my friend.
The lady down at the airfield is spotting and giving us directions. Pull left. Pull right.
It’s absolutely nuts, if you think about it. You’ve got four or five guys floating around in the air and she’s piloting us in for a tight landing.
Pretty wild.
Now, this is all fun and what not, but there are two basic problems.
I mentioned earlier that this is a private airfield in Oklahoma. There’s basically nothing to see.
It’s like astroturf from horizon to horizon. Imagine getting yourself in a harness and a big crane lowered you slowly from its maximum height to an unpainted football field for 5-10 minutes.
Yeah.
So, I could have been Mr. Adrenaline Junkie like my buddy and let her spin me like some thrill ride at Knoebel’s, but I had another problem.
Nobody told me to adjust things.
So, when I was abruptly tugged upright by the deployment of my parachute, I became acutely aware that things were not as they should be.
One of the straps around my legs was also around my manly bits and the full weight of my body was on my personage.
Can you even imagine? You’re on the most boring ride over the most nondescript patch of Earth with your soft parts in a nylon vice.
That’s $100 I’m never getting back.
Even so, it was worth trying and the landing was the best part of the whole deal.
You see, the way these things work is that when you’re maybe five or six feet off the ground, you yank hard on the toggles and a massive gust of wind slows your descent.
It was literally like walking off of an escalator at the mall. Y’all, I just drifted 4,500 feet from the sky and walked away like I was getting off a bus. Crazy.
But not as crazy as it was about to become.
No, sir. As it turns out, I had Dorm Guard that day.
Well, I had gotten up early for the skydiving and it was hardly worth going to bed before Dorm Guard.
No biggie. Just do an all-nighter and I can sleep in on Sunday.
Needless to say, that wasn’t in the cards.
I do my shift and I’m waiting on the next guy to relieve me.
Nobody’s coming, so I ask someone to check the roster and scare up whoever’s supposed to be relieving me.
I’m beat, mind you. I’ve been up early since we went out to the airfield Saturday morning and the only thing I’m allowed to do as Dorm Guard is stand post at the door and check IDs.
They figure out who’s next, but he’s no longer on base. He moved on weeks ago. Gah!
Okay, who’s the next guy. Maybe he’ll split the difference and come in a couple hours early.
Next guy is Airman Rich Wood.
Nevermind. I know Airman Wood.
Great guy. He wouldn’t mind coming in early to spell me.
Problem is, he’s already in Colorado. He’s not going to come in.
Jesus. Somebody call the First Sergeant, will ya?
We’re not calling the First Sergeant. Suck it up.
Fortunately, the guy after Rich Wood was actually on base and he came in early.
Like Gus said, you get weird orders, but you obey them no matter what.
Aim ✈️ High
US Air Force Birthday Video- AFRH-G
My uncles were in the Air Force. It was my one and only plan. I was going to join up and see the world. Have a nice career. Get a pretty wife. Have a nice retirement and BX privileges.
Nah.
Like I said. I washed out of weather school for “a lack of prerequisite manual dexterity” and got shipped off to be an aircraft mechanic. That ended pretty much how you’d expect.
I did get to see some corners of the USA that I certainly never expected to. Exotic places like Rantoul, IL, and Minot, ND. It was fun while it lasted.
If I hadn’t fallen afoul of the Gramm-Rudman Act, I wouldn’t have wound up at Millersville University.
If I hadn’t gone to Millersville University, I wouldn’t have arrived at a certain wedding in Douglasville.
If I hadn’t gone to that wedding, I wouldn’t have met the love of my life.
It’s weird how stuff works out. If you just have a little faith and optimism, what seems like a bummer turns into the greatest blessing you can imagine.
I Had One Less Stripe Than Chuck
As a former Airman First Class in the United States Air Force, like many veterans in America, my military experience played an important part in instilling in me a sense of character and discipline that has served me throughout my life. ~Chuck Norris
I was only in long enough to get one stripe, but it still looks cool on my field jacket.
When I got to college, I had to do some serious work reinventing myself.
As I mentioned above, my one and only goal was to join the USAF like my uncles had and have a long, fulfilling career.
When that fell through, I had to really start over and figure out what Plan B was.
Being an English Major came naturally. Didn’t require a lot of thought.
But, Rob, what can you do with an English degree?
I don’t have the temperament for teaching like Connor does.
I’m not especially nosy, so being a reporter wasn’t really in the cards.
I wasn’t independently wealthy, so I couldn’t be a dilettante novelist. Would have been nice, but there was a distinct lack of wealth.
So, I did what any red-blooded English Major would do. I got a job in a completely unrelated field and got on with my life.
Fortunately, the crossroads of “what do you do with an English degree” and “these computers are kind of cool” came my way at just the right time.
Nowadays, you can do just about anything you put your mind to. As such, I have five novellas for sale on Amazon and a thriving career as a data conversion guy.
I’ve got a beautiful wife, four great kids, a silly dog and a fluffy cat.
I’ve got some funny stories from the service and from college. I got to visit the Soviet Union before it ceased to be a thing.
I’d like to have gotten to more places, but there’s still time for that. All in all, things are pretty good.
That’s it for today. Have a great week and thank a service member for making America great.