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1969 and the Importance of Personal Hygiene

1969 and the Importance of Personal Hygiene


1969 was a seminal year for me and a signature year in America and it was following a rather notable 1968 where we saw the Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Democratic Convention protest debacle , and the Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised fist salute at the Olympics.

1969 was at the peak of the anti-war movement. It was the year of Woodstock, Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong's “ giant leap” on the moon. It was the year of the Beatles last live performance (London Rooftop). The year the draft lottery was established. It was the start of PBS and Sesame Street. It was the year of Chappaquiddick and the Charles Manson murders. It was the year Richard Nixon became President, and the trial of the Chicago 7, from the Democratic Convention the previous year. It was the year of Hurricane Camille, the fiercest hurricane to ever hit North America  It was the year of Muhammad Ali's conviction of draft evasion. It was also the year of the creation of ARPANET, the predecessor of what's now called the Internet. It was the year of the Miracle Mets and Joe Namath's Superbowl victory guarantee. And, 1969 ended with Curt Flood suing MLB over the reserve clause.

I began the year by dropping out of school and heading to Toronto Canada to explore options regarding the draft. I was drafted that spring. I entered the Air Force in April and was shipped out after basic training to Keesler AFB in June. Keesler was an AFB training base and I would remain there for the rest of the year. While stationed at Keesler, I experienced Hurricane Camille, went AWOL, did LSD for the 1st time, had an out-of-body experience, and married my 1st wife, Donna.

After basic training I was shipped from San Antonio, Texas to Biloxi, Mississippi by bus. It was just like a school bus except it was painted Air Force blue instead of school bus yellow and instead of carrying kids it was carrying full sized adults. The air conditioner was the traditional school bus type - open the windows. It was a long ride made longer. When we arrived at Keesler we learned there was no room for us so they put us up in temporary barracks. There were also no spaces available in the training classes.

It was summer. It was hot, humid, and we were on the Gulf Coast. One day while standing in formation I felt it lightly raining on me. I looked up and there was not a cloud in the sky. This would happen every now and then. I grew up on Long Island and it was very humid but this seemed to top even that. They had big cockroaches in Biloxi. Did I say big? I meant giant, when they came into the room and asked you to move over you did it.

It was clear to those in charge that we all needed something worthwhile to keep us occupied. Since the base was overflowing with airmen trainees, who all needed to have worthwhile activities as well, these were at a premium. This called for new and inventive work details. One of my personal favorites, and I might add would especially appeal to the OCD types, was raking straight parallel lines in the gravel parking lots. Most of the parking areas on the base were unpaved and topped with gravel. Taking a rake and making nice neat lines in the parking areas was borderline genius since any time someone walked through the parking area or drove a vehicle into or out of the parking area those neat lines would be corrupted and need an airmen on the spot to fix the damage. This was pretty much a non-stop job that lasted the entire day as those areas had people walking and driving through all day long. Another important worthwhile job was “the guarding of the trash cans”. I was never quite sure if we were guarding the trash in the cans or the cans themselves. I did not really understand why trash and their containers needed guarding. Were there military secrets in that trash? I never saw any hint of the enemy or for that matter much of anyone hanging around the trash can area. It was evidently important enough stuff as we needed non-stop trash guarding. I am happy to report that there was absolutely no trash pilfering during any of my shifts! I considered inquiring as to why this trash was of such vital importance but figured the reason was probably one of those “need to know” things and was above my current security clearance level.

After 2 weeks of getting all those things that needed doing done, we all got assigned to our permanent barracks. Training classes were something like 5 or 6 hours a day and there were 3 shifts, morning, afternoon and evening. I was assigned to “B-shift”, meaning that I participated in work details in the morning and attended class in the afternoon. “B-shift” was also the accelerated shift meaning that I would complete the training in a shorter time then the other shifts. How I was lucky enough to be selected for “B-shift” was never disclosed to me but obviously someone wanted me out of there as fast as possible.

The 1st class was, as you would expect, orientation and about the structure of the training we were about to embark on. They proceeded to tell us we were being trained in one of the more advanced career fields.  Lastly we were informed that the Air Force was the superior branch of the military. We were the best of the service organizations. I was impressed and maybe even feeling a little proud for having chosen so wisely. I asked for further clarification. I wanted to know just what it was that made us so good. They told me how the other branches of the military were somehow lower class. I didn't quite get that so I asked in what way we were better. I was not understanding this mysterious Air Force “better class” designation. They went into some big spiel about how we did things and cleaned up and cleaned our hands and how we treated our latrines better or something. To be honest, I was having a little trouble following but from what I could tell it seemed it had a lot to do with our behavior and particularly our personal hygiene.  I was not hearing much about anything of substance but I bet it was those rotten lower class non-Air Force service guys who were messing up those gravel parking lots.  All in all the explanations seemed a tad thin. I was rather sorry I asked.

The classes themselves were not bad and not really hard but they were after lunch. I am not at my peak in the afternoon so as exciting as those classes were I was often fighting to stay awake. One afternoon I gave into temptation, and fell asleep right in the middle of a class. This, as it turned out, was a rather large offense. I was pulled out of class and taken to a small room with a couple of Sergeants (Just realized I have likely been spelling this wrong in previous blog posts, that's me, can't spell for shite). We proceeded to have a nice friendly, if loud discussion. Well, discussion may not actually apply here as they were doing all the talking and me all the listening. They were pretty excited about what they were saying. While I might have had a few suggestions on their presentation style, I learned a few things. It was very un-military like to sleep in class or at any time other than the officially designated sleep times. I was disrespecting and letting both my fellow airman and my country down. I had bad parents and hence my bad behavior was a result of their failure to raise me properly. The 1st two seemed somewhat reasonable but the 3rd caught me off guard. I was unreliable, disrespectful and letting my country down because I had bad parents? Now I was not in a good place with my parents at that time but this was the first time I learned I had had faulty parenting. I had been under the illusion that in spite of our differences I had really good parents. Damn! These guys were good. They were able to quickly figure this out. I don't think they knew my parents and I didn't share much about them. I guess they just had an innate ability in that area. I thought about it and as tempting as it may have been, I decided to skip the opportunity to tell my parents how they'd done me wrong. I wanted to ask a few followup questions but I could see that I had already taken up too much of the Segeants' time and I now realized the more time I spent away from my training the more I was letting my country down and I didn't want my country to suffer anymore that it already had on my account.

I tried hard to be a good soldier and never got caught falling asleep in class again. I did however, have an out-of-body experience in class one afternoon. I don't think this was related to bad parenting but I can't say for sure as I neglected to ask. I was just sitting there trying to pay attention when all of a sudden I felt something in me lift up. I was up above the class but my body was still down sitting in a chair. I could see the top of my head and my backside as well as the rest of the class that was in my row and the rows in front of me. I tried to maneuver to see my face but I could not figure out how to do it. I stayed there for a little while and then drifted further up somehow seeing the whole class. I started to think about some other stuff and I felt like I was going to leave the building when suddenly I returned to my body. The experience was rather short, just a few minutes. I felt very light during the experience and when I returned I just felt like I always did. I have had a few minor para-normal experiences but that was the only time I have actually left my body.

I eventually completed my training and became an Inertial Navigation Repairman. Whenever I see a gravel parking lot I think of Keesler AFB and although I may be a victim of bad parenting my personal hygiene is Air Force approved.

As I mentioned at the top, I had some other significant events in 1969 but those will have to wait for another story to come around.


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