I’ll start off with a plug for my brother Tim. Here’s the link to his interview with “The Blaze”. It’s a bit lengthy, over an hour, but it’s interesting and entertaining and well worth the time spent!
Last week a wrote a bit about the beginning of my career on active duty so I think it fitting to talk about the end of it.
In 1983 I was stationed at beautiful, tongue in cheek, Ellsworth AFB, SD. Millions of Americans have made the pilgrimage to the Black Hills of South Dakota to visit Mt. Rushmore, and Custer State Park, and Deadwood, and Sturgis, and a myriad of other tourist destinations. Not to mention stopping at Wall, SD, the most overrated tourist stop in America, for free ice water. Folks comment on how lovely the tree covered hills are but that’s only because, on the way there, they hadn’t seen a tree for 400 miles! So, while millions of people have fond summer vacation memories of Rapid City, my take is a little different.
First off, tourist destinations mean high prices on everything, including restaurants and gas stations, during the tourist season and the locals have to pay the same prices. I discovered during my first summer there that I was allergic to just about everything that grows there and, because the wind was always blowing at 25 miles an hour stirring up the allergens, there was no escape. The Air Force would give me Sudafed and tell me to stay indoors in air-conditioning as much as possible. Great, trapped inside when the weather was good but as soon as the snow started in August I could go outside and freeze to death. And, yes, it did snow in both June and August while we were there! Alright, I’m done whining. I did get one wonderful thing in the state of South Dakota, my beautiful daughter Erin.
Since there was precious little else to do there, Peg and I jumped into volunteering at church and I was able to move up quickly in the flying squadron. By the spring of ’82 I was a flight examiner and on the “S-01” crew which was the top crew in Stan/Eval. It meant a lot more office work but, by regulation, we only had to sit alert 70% of the average alert time of the regular crews. A huge deal. So there I was, in a plum job. I had done all of the career developing steps. I had worked hard to get a great reputation and the next step was to maneuver myself into my next job at my next base. My only desire, that it wasn’t anywhere colder or drier.
At the time, the FB-111 was still in service in Strategic Air Command. It was a supersonic, variable geometry wing bomber with a crew of two and, after talking to a couple guys in the squadron who had flown it, I decided it would be a good fit for me. I had been fighter qualified out of pilot training so I met the requirements. I got letters of recommendation from up the command chain, put my application package together, submitted it to Higher Headquarters and then waited or the selection board to meet. But then I got “the phone call”.
I’m not very good with names. If you asked me to write down the names of more than 5 guys I flew with in 1983 I probably couldn’t do it, but there is one name I will never forget. One name that opened my eyes to what unbridled, unchecked bureaucratic power can do to your life. The name is Kent Rindy. And I say Kent Rindy with all of the derision with which Seinfeld said “Newman”. Kent Rindy was an Air Force poster child. He had left the active duty Air Force, was unable to hack it in the civilian world, so he came back in with his tail between his legs. They made brochures and posters featuring him telling us that life on the outside wasn’t fulfilling and that staying on active duty was the only sane decision we could make. He didn’t just drink the Koolaid, he invented a whole new flavor. It was Kent Rindy who called me.
The conversation started off pleasant enough. He said, “Our records show that it’s time for us to start the process of moving you to your next assignment. Here’s what’s going to happen”. Notice the lack of interest in what I would like to do. He continued, “We have an excess of B-52 pilots right now and I need to fill some instructor slots at pilot training bases so I’ll be putting you in one of those.” I was curious to see where he envisioned my career going so I asked, “So after three years of being terrified by students, where would I, potentially, go after that?”. “Well”, he said, “since you haven’t had a northern tier assignment yet, we’ll send you to either Minot ND, Grand Forks ND, or Loring ME.” In the Air Force’s eyes, South Dakota is equivalent to Florida. Needless to say, I wasn’t impressed. I answered, “I actually have some other ideas. I’ve applied for the FB-111 selection board and if I don’t get that I’d like to instruct T-41 students at the Air Force Academy so I can work on a Masters in Aerospace Engineering. I’m also filling out an application for test pilot school (Although I later found out I was too tall!)”. I thought I had presented a convincing case for myself but I wasn’t prepared for his response. The phone went quiet and then he said, “I see here, in your records, that your wife just had a baby. It would be a shame if you had to spend a year in some cold lonely base in Korea away from your little girl. I’m sure you won’t get into the FB-111 program, T-41s aren’t available to YOU and you’re going to take what I give you or suffer the consequences.” “CLICK”. That was it, end of discussion.
The next month I went TDY to California for 6 weeks to participate in the contract validation program for the first full motion/visual B-52 simulator. I called back to the squadron one week into the TDY and asked a buddy to check my squadron in-box. Sure enough, there were orders for me to report to Del Rio, TX to become a T-38 instructor. Old Kent knew I would be out of town so he cut the orders so I wouldn’t be able to turn them down by resigning from active duty. I thoroughly enjoyed the TDY because I knew, since the orders weren’t presented to me personally, I would have a week after my return to make up my mind. I walked into the squadron the day after I returned and there, displayed prominently on the bulletin board, was a poster begging pilots to volunteer to teach T-41s at the academy. I took my orders and the poster to my squadron commander and told him the story. he took it to the wing commander who called Air Force Personnel Center and was told that it was too late. I should have told my career counselor I was interested in the position. Go figure! Also, after many calls by the Wing Inspector General to Headquarters SAC, it was determined that some “unknown” person had removed my name from the FB-111 application board database. Had my name been in the database my orders to Del Rio couldn’t have been published until the board results. Hmmm, interesting!
And there you have it. My first experience, but certainly not my last, butting heads with bureaucrats who are way too big for their britches. Remember, one of the answers in the top ten list of lies is: “We’re the government and we’re here to help.” What percentage of dollars spent on welfare programs actually makes it to people? 27%, where does the other 73% go? You figure it out!
hoveringoversend 