A Whole Different World

When I got into Denver that windy December of 1971, I had no idea what to expect when I checked onto Lowry Air Force Base. I had no uniforms yet, only some paperwork the recruiter had given me. I signed-in, they assigned me a ROOM in a barracks.............a ROOM! Wow......barracks life in the past never consisted of having an individual room!

I was hungry from the plane trip, so having found the messhall, I walked in there for supper and thought I'd accidently walked into the OFFICER's Mess or something......but everybody had stripes on their sleeves...........so.........

It was BEAUTIFUL!......Four to a table, no "picnic"-type benches, TABLECLOTHS, napkin holders, the chowline itself was nicely laid out. You could recognize the food, it even SMELLED good. REAL PLATES, instead of metal trays...........and there was PIPED-IN MUSIC! NO FOOLING!!..........."Lord have mercy" I thought...."These flyboys know how to LIVE"

For the next 20 years, I would never see a box of C-Rations.

I got my uniform issue, although I felt strangely out of place in it. I'd gotten out of the Marine Corps an an E-5, but since I'd been out a couple of years, I had to enter the Air Force as an E-4, but it was better than starting from scratch.

The weather was turning cold and before long, snow would be on the ground in the "Mile High City", but out on base, I was in a warm, snug classroom with 10 other guys, learning how the Air Force Supply System works. It was a fairly unique class. All eleven of us were "prior-unlisted" people. There were a couple of former Army guys, I was the only Marine, and the rest were prior Air Force. All had gotten out, then decided a few years later for whatever reasons, to come back in.

Time passed uneventfully, and upon graduation 3 months later, I was assigned to McChord AFB, Washington..........just across the border from where my folks lived in Oregon.

Washington is beautiful. It's green. It ought to be, because it rains all the time, or it sure seemed like it anyway! My "barracks was a huge red brick complex up on the hill, that everybody called "the Castle." It was three stories, all offices on the bottom, and barracks rooms on the second and third. I lived up on the third floor, just down the hallway from the First Sergeant's office and the dayroom. The messhall was also inside the "Castle' so if you were hungry and it was cold and rainy outside, no biggie.

I worked in a supply area down in Hanger 4, with some good folks. One of the guys down there, Don Dixon, ALSO played guitar, so I had somebody to pick with from time to time.

After I'd put a few bucks together, I bought a '63 Chevy 2-door Impala, so I could get out and around a little. It was one of those cars that when I look back today-----I wish I'd have kept.

Bremerton Navy Yard is on the other side of Puget Sound (Seattle area), and when I'd heard that the USS Missouri was mothballed there, I HAD to make the trip. I'm sure ALL of you out there know this, but for the two or three who might NOT, the USS Missouri was the battleship the Japanese surrender of World War II was signed on. It was "sort of" open to the public....that is, you could go aboard and walk around on the foredeck, but everything else was sealed-off.

The Missouri was the third of the four "Iowa Class" battleships that were built during the War........the LAST battleships we would ever build, and all four still survive today. They consist of the Iowa, the New Jersey, the Missouri and the Wisconsin. Between the end of World War II and TODAY, each of these magnificent ships have been brought out of mothballs at one time or another to fill a Naval need. Although they are "dinosaurs" by today's technology, there are still no other ships in the world, that have their firepower and heavy armor.

To a 23-year old "gun guy", walking around the Missouri was like winning the lottery! Although the entire ship bristles with twin 5-inch double turrets, and 40mm boffers anti-aircraft guns, the main attraction are the big 16's. Nine in all, mounted three turrets-----2 turrets forward and one aft. The barrels are 66 feet in length, and can shoot a 1,900 lb projectile ACCURATELY at a range of 24 miles! The BORES are SIXTEEN INCHES in DIAMETER! The ship is 887 feet long, 107 feet wide, and weighs over 45,000 tons. The Armor plating is over a foot thick! (I'm running around with a 44 magnum at the time, thinking I'M some kind of "bad.") Yeah, right!

The Missouri is a beautiful design, yet extremely imposing. There is a big plaque that adorns the spot where the Japanese surrender was signed, on September 2nd, 1945. VERY fittingly, the Missouri is anchored on permanent display today, at Pearl Harbor, fairly close to the sunken Arizona, where the war STARTED for us.

Out on the base, I found myself spending some of my spare time out along the flightline, watching the C-141 cargo planes come in and out. There was also a detachment of F-106 Delta Dart interceptors there (the 318th). But the ones I liked best, were the C-124 Globemaster II's that came in occasionally. A "2-story" 4-engined propeller-driven airplane, it looked like it could never get off the ground, but it always DID. It was nicknamed "old shakey", and guys who flew on them used to say that if it ever QUIT vibrating, THAT'S when you were in trouble!

By the early winter of '72, my first wife was expecting, and we had orders to Mountain Home, where I would begin my first of FOUR tours here!