From Amarillo, Texas, I flew to Midland,
Texas and then to New Orleans. From New Orleans to Biloxi, Mississippi, I
rode in a Southern Airways DC-4 prop plane. From my window seat all the
way to Biloxi I watched a bolt work itself loose from one of the engine cowlings.
It didn't quite fall out.
Keesler AFB was a large sprawling base with a town outside the gates. Unlike Amarillo, Mississippi was green. The Gulf just outside the base was a turgid washed out pale blue. I was assigned to a flight in a two or three story concrete barracks, two men to a room and then a week of KP (Kitchen Police). All new trainees did a week of KP before starting classes. KP went from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m. with a break in the middle of the day for a couple of hours. On November 2nd, my 21stbirthday I left the chow hall at 7 p.m. and had a drink in the Airman’s club, the only time I went there.
Those first days we were known as Pings. Everyone at Keesler had their hair at a decent military length but we still had buzz cuts from Basic Training. Ping was for ping pong ball.
Class was all day long. We learned Morse code and the basic rudiments of radio operation. We didn’t know it at the time, but no military in the Western world used Morse code. It is a cheap and efficient way of communicating over long distances and was used extensively by the Eastern Bloc. We didn't know it but we were being trained to listen to the Russians and their friends. We listened and never sent.
Since I had joined the Air Force Cathy, my fiancée now, sent me letters every day and I wrote her back. If we had been in love before, the letters exacerbated it and made it much more intense. Both of us were raised Catholic and we hadn’t made love yet. We groped each other in the letters and we talked about getting married as soon as we could.
I was at Keesler five months and then got orders for England, RAF Chicksands near Bedford, a very secret base for which the Service Club base information corner had no information. At the beginning of 1968 the North Vietnamese launched their Tet Offensive and threw the American effort back on its heels. The War was more than a sideshow and it lasted another five years before we accepted defeat though that word was never used. While at Keesler I read a copy of Mao Tse Tung on Guerrilla Warfare from the base library. From my reading Vietnam was going very well for the Communist in 1968 and right on schedule for final victory. Going to Europe was an incredible stroke of luck.
It wasn’t just me picked to go to Europe. Our whole class was assigned to Europe. The Air Force made assignments by classes. The class behind us went to Pakistan and then Vietnam. Another class went to South Korea and then Vietnam. My class stayed in Europe. It was a three year tour and that’s what we had left in our enlistment.
I went home on leave April 3rd. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4th.
Washington D.C., Baltimore and Louisville, Kentucky erupted in riots. I was on my way home after seven months in the service and I was getting married.
In December at Keesler the service club had staged a play, a Fibber McGee and Molly episode. I had never seen the program but tried out for a part. I never could memorize by rote memory and I was a disaster with a speaking part as a visiting minister. Fibber was played by another airman we called Stretch and Molly was a young woman from town who came to the service club. Charlene was coming on to Stretch during all the rehearsals but the afternoon of the play, December 24th, Stretch apparently rejected her and she turned her attention on me.
After the play I went home with her and we listened to records in her living room. She showed me a book of poetry she had, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We began to make out and she said, “Wouldn’t we be more comfortable in bed?”
I said, “Yes,” and followed her into the bedroom, scared to admit I had never done this before.
Keesler AFB was a large sprawling base with a town outside the gates. Unlike Amarillo, Mississippi was green. The Gulf just outside the base was a turgid washed out pale blue. I was assigned to a flight in a two or three story concrete barracks, two men to a room and then a week of KP (Kitchen Police). All new trainees did a week of KP before starting classes. KP went from 3 a.m. to 7 p.m. with a break in the middle of the day for a couple of hours. On November 2nd, my 21stbirthday I left the chow hall at 7 p.m. and had a drink in the Airman’s club, the only time I went there.
Those first days we were known as Pings. Everyone at Keesler had their hair at a decent military length but we still had buzz cuts from Basic Training. Ping was for ping pong ball.
Class was all day long. We learned Morse code and the basic rudiments of radio operation. We didn’t know it at the time, but no military in the Western world used Morse code. It is a cheap and efficient way of communicating over long distances and was used extensively by the Eastern Bloc. We didn't know it but we were being trained to listen to the Russians and their friends. We listened and never sent.
Since I had joined the Air Force Cathy, my fiancée now, sent me letters every day and I wrote her back. If we had been in love before, the letters exacerbated it and made it much more intense. Both of us were raised Catholic and we hadn’t made love yet. We groped each other in the letters and we talked about getting married as soon as we could.
I was at Keesler five months and then got orders for England, RAF Chicksands near Bedford, a very secret base for which the Service Club base information corner had no information. At the beginning of 1968 the North Vietnamese launched their Tet Offensive and threw the American effort back on its heels. The War was more than a sideshow and it lasted another five years before we accepted defeat though that word was never used. While at Keesler I read a copy of Mao Tse Tung on Guerrilla Warfare from the base library. From my reading Vietnam was going very well for the Communist in 1968 and right on schedule for final victory. Going to Europe was an incredible stroke of luck.
It wasn’t just me picked to go to Europe. Our whole class was assigned to Europe. The Air Force made assignments by classes. The class behind us went to Pakistan and then Vietnam. Another class went to South Korea and then Vietnam. My class stayed in Europe. It was a three year tour and that’s what we had left in our enlistment.
I went home on leave April 3rd. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4th.
Washington D.C., Baltimore and Louisville, Kentucky erupted in riots. I was on my way home after seven months in the service and I was getting married.
In December at Keesler the service club had staged a play, a Fibber McGee and Molly episode. I had never seen the program but tried out for a part. I never could memorize by rote memory and I was a disaster with a speaking part as a visiting minister. Fibber was played by another airman we called Stretch and Molly was a young woman from town who came to the service club. Charlene was coming on to Stretch during all the rehearsals but the afternoon of the play, December 24th, Stretch apparently rejected her and she turned her attention on me.
After the play I went home with her and we listened to records in her living room. She showed me a book of poetry she had, Lawrence Ferlinghetti. We began to make out and she said, “Wouldn’t we be more comfortable in bed?”
I said, “Yes,” and followed her into the bedroom, scared to admit I had never done this before.
Charlene and I lasted another week or two. Her life
was complicated. She was married to a GI in Vietnam. His best
friend was watching out for her and sleeping with her when he could. She
hadn’t wanted to get married but her mother or her mother-in-law forced
her. I never got the story straight. She had a child.
For all of that she was a nice girl. She had once danced ballet with a
New Orleans company. She wasn’t much as a lover I learned later but she
gave me what she could.
By the time I got married, my short experience with Charlene was a fading memory. It should have remained that way. Cathy Bruemmer and I did a full wedding with the church, the priest, a reception and a long list of guests. It was all put together in three weeks from the time I got my orders and it was wonderful.
I was 21, she was 20. We drove to San Francisco for our honeymoon. I was nearly a virgin. She was. Making love to her was wonderful. I had six weeks leave and we got back to LA and set up in a motel apartment for a week before I left for England. She was going to follow after her school term at Mt. St. Mary’s was over.
We played house. I had my sister over for dinner and we drank champagne. I drank as much as I could. At that time I had a considerable capacity for alcohol, mostly beer but wine and that night champagne. We had a wonderful time. I was feeling high from life, close to Cathy and everyone. Things were right and in my drunken stupor I had to share a piece of writing I did, a piece about Charlene.
In my drunken stupidity I was just thinking about how good the piece was and sharing it with my best friend. That is probably the most stupid thing I have ever done in my whole life.
Of course, the shock of it was terrible. Today I know men are stupid and I know we can never explain to our partners how susceptible and oblivious we can be when it comes to sex. It was incredibly stupid not to even think about our relationship under the circumstances and then to think the whole affair was something insignificant to us. Alcohol didn't help. I did learn to avoid the situation, but I didn't that time. I knew it was inconsistent with the love I felt for Cathy and sober I had enough sense to keep it to myself, but those weren't sober years.
I left for England the next day. Cathy was supposed to join me in a month. She stayed in LA and struggled on her own. I know she thought of not joining me. She wrote me a letter that she slipped in a book she shipped to me in England. She joined me and like the Irishman and the drunk I was, we never discussed it, never cleared it, never apologized, never repaired the damage done.
In a short time, we began to enjoy life. Things were good. Cathy became pregnant at the end of the summer and we had our first son. But I don’t think she ever trusted me as she had before. The damage was done.
By the time I got married, my short experience with Charlene was a fading memory. It should have remained that way. Cathy Bruemmer and I did a full wedding with the church, the priest, a reception and a long list of guests. It was all put together in three weeks from the time I got my orders and it was wonderful.
I was 21, she was 20. We drove to San Francisco for our honeymoon. I was nearly a virgin. She was. Making love to her was wonderful. I had six weeks leave and we got back to LA and set up in a motel apartment for a week before I left for England. She was going to follow after her school term at Mt. St. Mary’s was over.
We played house. I had my sister over for dinner and we drank champagne. I drank as much as I could. At that time I had a considerable capacity for alcohol, mostly beer but wine and that night champagne. We had a wonderful time. I was feeling high from life, close to Cathy and everyone. Things were right and in my drunken stupor I had to share a piece of writing I did, a piece about Charlene.
In my drunken stupidity I was just thinking about how good the piece was and sharing it with my best friend. That is probably the most stupid thing I have ever done in my whole life.
Of course, the shock of it was terrible. Today I know men are stupid and I know we can never explain to our partners how susceptible and oblivious we can be when it comes to sex. It was incredibly stupid not to even think about our relationship under the circumstances and then to think the whole affair was something insignificant to us. Alcohol didn't help. I did learn to avoid the situation, but I didn't that time. I knew it was inconsistent with the love I felt for Cathy and sober I had enough sense to keep it to myself, but those weren't sober years.
I left for England the next day. Cathy was supposed to join me in a month. She stayed in LA and struggled on her own. I know she thought of not joining me. She wrote me a letter that she slipped in a book she shipped to me in England. She joined me and like the Irishman and the drunk I was, we never discussed it, never cleared it, never apologized, never repaired the damage done.
In a short time, we began to enjoy life. Things were good. Cathy became pregnant at the end of the summer and we had our first son. But I don’t think she ever trusted me as she had before. The damage was done.
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