Arriving at Dyess AFB as a Second Lieutenant was amazing to me. At the ripe old age of 21 I was not prepared for the power of those gold bars. There is an absolute pecking order in the Military and because I was an officer I was treated differently. I was given instant respect by any enlisted men regardless of their rank. It took me by surprise and I didn’t really believe I deserved It, but that was simply the way things were done here. I decided to take it slow and not get too caught up in this new paradigm. I was offered a 3-bedroom home on the base, free furniture to furnish the home and quickly met SMSGT Sanger, who was serving his 28th year and, to me, suddenly became one of the most important people in my new military life. He was the first sergeant for the 940th Supply Squadron and he worked for me. I watched, listened and learned all I could from him. He shared everything and helped me become a person that I was proud to be. I hardly made a move without his counsel. He really knew what needed to be done and made sure that I did things right. I was responsible for inspecting the barracks, and mete out any punishments needed. We had around 400 enlisted men in the squadron. It was my job to counsel them on domestic abuse issues, not paying bills, getting in trouble for being drunk, being AWOL, smoking pot, you name it. I issued letters of reprimand and completed administrative discharges and even brought charges for court martials. It was a new world for me and unfortunately my view of the world and the people in it became somewhat jaded. In fact, I was dealing with most of the eight balls in the squadron. I did eventually cross train into procurement and became a Procurement Officer after about 18 months and spent the rest of my 4 years in Procurement. Enough on my military duties. I want to move to the one negative area that I remember.
We lived in a nice three-bedroom home in Capehart Housing on the base. It was actually one of the nicest homes I had ever lived in. Our house was positioned on the perimeter of the housing area and there was a chain length fence which separated our yard from the golf course. There was a large open area near our house. What we found out was that there were a lot of mice in those open areas and they came into our house. We hadn’t been on the base too long and our first child had recently been born. Our daily ritual went something like this. Each night I would set mouse traps. Every morning I would dump the traps with the night’s catch and we would do it all over again the next night. This got to be ridiculous. We found out that we were not the only family dealing with this. We had a crib in one of the bedrooms where Bobby slept. One day Kathy saw mice droppings in the crib. That was it. She had had it with our rodent problem. I didn’t know what her next move was but I soon found out. She violated all protocols and called the Commander of the Civil Engineering Squadron directly, and had him come to our house. She showed him the crib and told him that she had seen mouse droppings in the crib. His solution was that we purchase pie pans and put the feet of the crib in the pie pans and fill those pans with water. His explanation was that the rodents wouldn’t cross the water to get to the leg of the crib and Bobby would be safe. When I got home, she was beside herself. She told me that she had called the commander directly and that he had come and gave her this solution. Now we were both upset. That hardly seemed like a solution to us. We actually purchased some pie pans and, in fact, put one on each leg of the crib and filled each with water. I cannot believe that we did that. We stopped doing that almost immediately. It seemed crazy to us. We reasoned that the answer was to continue to kill mice. Maybe get more traps… whatever. No pie pans and water going forward. Maybe put grease or Vaseline on the legs, when you are desperate nothing is off the table.
One night after I set the traps and we went to bed we were just about asleep and we hear a trap snap. It sounded like it was coming from the kitchen. In that house the washer and dryer were in the kitchen. We kept hearing this banging coming from the kitchen. Kathy said that I needed to go out to the kitchen and see what was going on. I told her that it would die. Well, it didn’t die. It just kept banging. I decided to go out to the kitchen to see what I had caught. I was crouching down low trying to see what was behind the dryer and just about that time I felt a touch on my shoulder. I practically jumped out of my skin. Kathy had crept up behind me and touched me on the shoulder. She denied that she had crept up, but I certainly didn’t hear her coming and she scared the bejesus out of me. I was so upset that I think I stood up, lifted the dryer in one move, grabbed a broom and killed that mouse about 10 times. Kathy and I laughed about it for a long time after, but at that moment I was in a scary zone. I don’t know what I thought had touched my shoulder. Maybe a huge mouse or rat wanting to get even for all of the mice I had killed. I don’t know. I do believe that at that particular moment I was not capable of putting together a complete sentence. I am sure my eyes were glazed over with rage and I was only slightly coherent. Time passed and the daily killings continued. We never ask Civil Engineering for any other suggestions and dealt with the rodent horde on our own.
To say we were on edge was really an understatement. We were in a constant lather about these little pests. I remember vividly one night about 9PM, Kathy was taking a bath. I was in the kitchen. I could see down the hallway. The bathroom was to the right and opened into the hall. Kathy screamed that she had just seen a mouse and it was running out of the bathroom. I was again a jumble of nerves. I am looking for that rodent. I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I had seen him. We had Formica counter tops in the kitchen. As I am scanning the hallway for the mouse, one of the kitchen cabinets falls open and a bag of macaroni starts to empty on the counter. It was unexpected and very loud hitting on the Formica counter tops. I am, jumping around like a crazy person because I don’t know what is actually happening. For all I knew the mouse had somehow made its way to the cabinet and was, I don’t know, emptying the bag of macaroni on the counter. It sounded like a machine gun to me. Kathy finally comes out of the bathroom and saw me hyperventilating and ask what was wrong. “What was wrong?” “You screamed there was a mouse, and then macaroni fell on the counter and I thought it was the mouse coming to do me in.” It was terrible and at that point, extremely funny. We must have really looked ridiculous. It took a while for us to share that event with our friends. We thought that we might never hear the end of that one. Finally, we shared what had happened and rather than making us the butt of all mouse jokes they actually showed some compassion for our plight. It was funny and looking back was probably the culmination of all bad things associated with the huge rodent population. I actually believe that they may have moved on to other inhabitants and took mercy on us.
