The Upper Flight

Image by stevesheriw via Flickr

When we arrived in San Antonio and were moved to Medina AFS to our barracks the upper flight was there to meet us. Most of them were six to ten inches taller than us and seemed to be more mature than us by years. We were in awe of all of them and learned to know fear whenever they were present. One of them was assigned to our three man room as our advisor. He was an OT Second Lieutenant - a one-striper. That is the lowest rank possible in the upper flight but to us he was a demi-god. It never occurred to us until later that the "upper flight" had been there just six weeks more than we had!

Our class was called 69-03. There were normally four classes per year but in 1969 the federal government decided to change its fiscal year end from 30 June to 1 August. We arrived in July and were to be the last class under the old FY system. I remember on July 4th as were were walking into our new barracks an upper classman asked our advisor if we were "03's" When he answered "Yes" the other guy stated "If I were an 03, I'd SIE!" Another down the hall echoed, "If I were an 03 I'd kill myself!!"

We knew nothing and had no idea what was happening. None of us had been in ROTC and I only had the war stories my Dad and Brother had told from the 40's and 50's. I did know that you should never volunteer for anything and when they started handing out the detail assignments the first five that volunteered were assigned to latrine duty. Their job was to make the latrine clean enough for the virgin Mary to eat off the floor. Boy was I happy. I continued not volunteering until there was only one detail left and was assigned to the laundry room. I was also "counseled" about not volunteering. It seems that though I was rewarded I had still screwed up!