spent four years on active duty in the Air Force. I was in the Strategic Air Command and was stationed all four years at Dyess AFB, TX just outside Abilene. I was in the 940th Strategic Support Group and part of Second Air Force. My life at home during that time was incredible. We had two children during that time, made some of the best friends imaginable, enjoyed time with all of them almost on a daily basis. played golf, went to events at the Officer’s Club, swam in the pool at the O Club, worked out at the gym, played racquetball, pick up football…had bar b ques and parties with all of our friends. These were great times and they were basically what I remember most. While all of this socializing was going on I did have a job and duties in the military.
In the beginning I was what they called a Squadron Section Commander. The First Sergeant worked for me and I was responsible for overseeing the 400 members of the Supply Squadron. Had to deal with the barracks, all kinds of discipline, including letters of reprimand, administrative discharges, leave approval, court martials, counseling, barracks inspections, anything and everything that involved these 400 enlisted men. It was a daunting task. Thank God for my First Sergeant
As a junior officer I was put on several duty rosters. One of those was to perform the duties of a CQ or Charge of Quarters. You would have to perform those duties on a recurring basis about every 45 days. On the days you were scheduled you reported to Base Headquarters, made sure the flag was lowered with 2 Air Policeman. Stay on duty all night and take any phone calls to the base that night, handle anything that would come up that night and then raise the flag in the morning, again with a detail from the Air Police. Fortunately, for me, nothing noteworthy ever happened on my watch. Another duty roster was conducting inventory on the nuclear bombs on the base. There were these earthen bunkers at a remote spot on the base. Inside those bunkers were the nuclear bombs. Each bomb had a serial number and I had to go, again with an Air Police escort to those bunkers and make sure that all of the bombs were still there. These things were huge and sometimes you had to climb on them to read the serial numbers. No big deal but an important job. Again, nothing eventful ever happened. The other list that I was on was for serving on Court Martials. This was extremely interesting. Even in cases where the person charged was simply AWOL, many times the mitigating circumstances made the Court Martial very interesting. One of the junior officers who was a JAG officer was a guy I played poker with on a regular basis. He was usually the defense attorney on these Court Martials. He was an amazing individual and it was great to see him at work. He was creative and extremely sharp. I actually looked forward to serving on those Court Martials.
Our wives were charged with duties as well. I remember one year a new Base Commander was assigned to our base and Kathy hosted a tea for his wife. It made the base newspaper and the local Abilene Paper. She looked beautiful and the event was a big success. I know when they reached out to her for this job, she was a bit shocked, but she did an awesome job. At the end of the day, if you were an Officer’s wife you held the same rank and were expected to fall in line like everyone else.
At Dyess we were a SAC base. That meant that the host command for that base was the Strategic Air Command. Our tenant was the Tactical Air Command. Being a SAC base meant that the primary mission was to support the B-52’s. This was during the Vietnam War and at our base the flight crews for the B-52’s were like Gods. Every spot on the base had parking right by the front door set aside for the flight crews that were on alert. I don’t know exactly but I think they were on for 5 days at a time. They would live on the base during that time in special quarters for the flight crews. Whenever there was an alert, the crews would go to the flight line. Board the B-52’s and run them up and taxi down the runway. It was all good as long as they didn’t take off. Thank God they never took off. If they had that would mean that they were on a mission to drop their nuclear warheads somewhere. It never happened, but you were always wondering if this particular alert would be the one. We also had C-130 troop carriers on the base. I used to watch these planes take off in groups of 6 and return later in the day as a group after having trained that day. They would circle the base and come in for landing one right after the other. It was very cool to watch. Both the B-52 flight crews and the C-130 flight crews would go on rotation to Vietnam. The B-52 guys would run sorties in Southeast Asia and the C-130’s which were like trucks carrying everything everywhere in the war zones. Each of those C-130’s had big guns mounted on them to provide cover when they had to drop stuff in dangerous areas. One of my neighbors at the time was a pilot of a C-130 and he brought back videos of some of the areas that they flew into and they were little more than a dirt area that had been cleared in the jungle and metal chaf had been put down on the ground so that a plane theoretically could land. Most of the time they simply opened the back of the plane and dropped pallets on the “runway” and keep going without actually landing. Many times, they were taking fire. Crazy stuff…I guess you could say it was a job like anything else. The crews flying the B-52’s when they would run sorties were usually about 40,000 feet above ground. They would blanket bomb certain areas. One of my best friends was a navigator on one of these B-52’s. They would get videos of their bombing runs after the fact. Bill would have to watch the videos and it really got to him over time. Fortunately, that was then and this isn’t going on today as far as I know. The missions today are much different and a lot of the wars today are run remotely using drones. The bombing is much more strategic and very much pinpoint bombing not the blanket bombing of the past. It is still scary stuff no matter how you look at it.
Being in the military during war time was interesting. I was certainly insulated from what was actually going on in Southeast Asia. I never had to go to that area. I was able to enjoy a simple way of life on the base in west Texas. On occasion you would get briefings which reminded you that we were at war and that bad things were happening. I was a member of the Combat Support Group and dealt mostly with the needs of the base and its inhabitants. I know my role was important because we made sure that all the needs for the base personnel, their families, the hospital, all of the services on the base and the aircraft were taken care of.
One final thing. One day me and a couple of the other procurement officers on the base went to Fort Worth to visit the General Dynamics facilities. They had a production line that was about a mile long. Parts would go in one end and completed fighter jets would come out the other end. It was really something to see. While we were there, we met with some procurement officers who were working at the General Dynamics Plant. We wanted to find out what they did and we shared what we did. Basically, we were responsible for everything from the womb to the tomb at Dyess. We literally bought everything for the base. Our annual budget was around 10 million dollars. We are in a room with three Captains. They each had a desk. We wanted to know what they did. Each of these guys were responsible for buying spare parts for the fighter jets that were being manufactured. Each of these guys had a budget of 7 million dollars annually. For buying spare parts. Unbelievable. It makes you feel really small when you hear those kinds of numbers. I think what we did was more important in many ways. Obviously spare parts are important but it really gives you a reality check on how much money the government spends on some of these warfare systems. Those three guys had a combined budget of over 20 million dollars. We had to run a base with about 5,000 people with aircraft and all of the services, had about 30 people both military and civilians in the procurement office and only spent 10 million dollars a year. Maybe we were just better money managers.
Which brings me to one other thing before I leave the subject of money and the military. I was on the base budget committee. We had regular meetings to see how we all were doing against our budgets. I remember one year we were about 5 months into the year. Everyone for the most part, were doing their share of managing their budgeted dollars. One of the people reported that they had spent all of their money. I thought, how dumb, you are so screwed, then I find out that all of us who were managing our money well were ask to give up some of our funds to cover this idiot who over spent his budget. From that point on I never really thought about keeping any money back for a rainy day. I figured if this jerk could get a pass, then why should I worry. In this case one bad apple can definitely spoil the entire bushel. We did decide to change the budget allocations to prevent some yahoo from abandoning all good sense and spending all of their budget before the year is half over. We couldn’t let this kind of irresponsibility have a negative effect on all the rest of us. Lesson learned.
