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I was C-130 aircrew and we would put our beer in the open void in the cargo door, just aft of the ramp. When we got to our destination it would be nice and cold. A perfect way to end the day!
When we were in Uganda for the Rwanda famine relief effort in 1994 we were put up in the Kampala Sheraton and everyone did their laundry in the bathroom sink or tub and hung it on the balcony railing to dry. Management must have been horrified, because a few days later we came back from that day's flight and every room had a clothes line installed over the bathtub. Kampala also got its first public laundromat while we were there, although I'm sure that's a coincidence.
I was there! USAF Combat Camera. I still have all my hotel receipts for that trip in my old briefcase. But, I never spent much time there as I did at Entebbe Airport, camping out in the hangar in our little photo shop. The hijacked airliner and the shot-up old terminal building was still there from the Israeli raid. I got so many humanitarian medals during the Clinton years. Meals on Wheels!
I was there! USAF Combat Camera. I still have all my hotel receipts for that trip in my old briefcase. But, I never spent much time there as I did at Entebbe Airport, camping out in the hangar in our little photo shop. The hijacked airliner and the shot-up old terminal building was still there from the Israeli raid. I got so many humanitarian medals during the Clinton years. Meals on Wheels!
You probably have some pictures of our planes. We had two C-130s with "Alaska Air Guard" on the side. One of the tail numbers was 82-0061. The other one would have been a few numbers lower, possibly 82-0056. One airplane was parked in front of the old shot up tower and the other was in front of the old terminal where the hostages were held. I got to tour the old tower, but there were squatters in the old terminal, so I didn't get to go inside it. We were there most of September 1994.
While in Vietnam and a member of an asslt helo company,there were a lot of "occupation specific" topics.
I went back to my hooch one day and a guy from another barracks was in our room, with a friend of mine.
This guy was jumping into the air as far as he could and when he landed on his feet again would flex his knees.............I said "what the hell are you doing?".........He replied "I'm practicing jumping;I figure if we get shot down and are just about to crash;if I time jumping into the air just as we hit the ground,it will keep me from being hurt as bad......."
Has any kid riding in an elevator not had the same thought?
Once had a guy busted down for running a black market on the ship. Prior to our 6 month deployment he bought many cartons of popular name brand cigarettes and stashed them in a special locker. When the ship’s store ran out of cigarettes he started selling those cigarettes by the pack for ridiculous prices. The guy wasn’t even a smoker.
When a boat has completed a patrol they surface alongside an auxiliary ship, to make repairs and re-supply. Every crewman had a tobacco ration, we were limited in how much tobacco each of us could buy. Our Ship Store would load a pallet of cigarettes intending to sell them to the crew over the course of the next few months underwater.
I always bought my full ration worth of cigarettes. I have never smoked them. And I never sold any packs until after we had been under for at least 2 months, right after the Ship's Store ran out.
I made 17 patrols during my career. On every one of them, there was always a few guys who would only bring one carton for the patrol, telling everyone that they were doing it on purpose to quit on patrol. Any heavy smoker going through DTs underwater is not a nice person to work with.
Ship's stores keep a running tally for each crewman. Anything you bought from the store, and all your poker winnings/losings; cribbage tournaments, dominos, and pinochle. Some crewmen would be big winners by the end of a patrol. After we surfaced, they would send out the bills showing how much we owed to the ship's store, right before the first payday. They wanted to collect all of it before any of the pay-outs started.
On my last boat, I got into making my own mustard sauces. I kept four different mustards in my locker. For each meal, depending on what was being served, I would select which mustard to bring to my table. After a few years of doing that, my mustards became fairly popular among some of the crew.
C-119 Reserve Loadmaster at a SAC/TAC combined base. One of our fun duties was dropping out of date ammunition into the gulf stream. Big splash followed by lots of little ones. Wheee!
Trek through the wilderness near Spokane WA to simulate living by your wits after a shoot-down/bailout situation
Prison Camp - Crawl under barb-wire with simulated weapons fire at night, then get "captured and put in underground huts, with a diet of aged fish heads and rice.
Jungle - Clark AB Philippines
Get dumped into the jungle, wander through rough terrain to "camp" where we experienced a dinner of rats roasted over an open fire with other "delicacies". After several days of this and escape/evasion instruction, we were airlifted by slings into a helicopter hovering about a 100' or 200' above us by rope hoist.
Water Survival -Homestead AFB FL
Ride zip lines into a splash down in a bay near Turkey Point Nuke Plant (active at the time, rumored to be leaking). Escape from underneath a collapsed parachute and other survival instruction/techniques. Paddling around in survival rafts (single man and multiple-place types, which carried about 10-15)
Good times! Turkey Point actually was fun - mostly
Was investigating an espionage case. The source/subject (not that he knew he was the subject) wanted to meet at the Saalburg, in the Taunus Mountains north of Frankfurt am Main. We got to the parking lot and strolled over to his car. He sat in the car with a Glock on his lap, and told us he had other weapons in the car, because folks were hunting him. We calmly told him this was much too open a location for a long discussion and please follow us to the interview site (a hotel in a small city to the northeast).
As we drove, we used our clunky 1970s-style commo to let the agents in the hotel room know the guy was armed to the teeth. When we arrived, we escorted him to the hotel room, where the other agents took over for the interview. Meanwhile, we drove over to the office where our German counterparts were waiting. We told them the guy claimed to have numerous weapons in his auto.
At that point, we learned that the guy was not only involved in espionage, but he was into some major gun running. After the interview, the Germans advised that we had the guy dead to rights on espionage, for which there would likely be an 18-month sentence, probably suspended. But the gun running would net the guy at least 10 years, so could we please let them nail the guy for that?
Let's see: 18 months suspended versus 10 years. We handed them the case. Our lead agent testified in the German trial, and the guy went to jail for gun running. The espionage stopped with his arrest, so it was a successful neutralization and we did get formal credit for that case.
The situation was somewhat stickier than I've described, but thankfully, age and memory have calmed the emotions of that time.
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