My Air Force Days 1968-72 the Epilogue

Epilogue:  

 

Definition of EPILOGUE

: a concluding section that rounds out the design of a literary work

 

Literary Work?  Hardly...but this will conclude my 3 week look back at my Air Force Days....first off however, the everyday basics.

 

We finished out the regular season of Dartball last night...I and we, as a team, went out with a whimper getting swept at Schumm...matching my worst night ever, going just 1 for 11, a lone single, with no RBIs, dropping me down to a pitiful .277 batting average with 17 RBIs...still good enough for 3rd overall on the team in All Star Average, .311. good, or just pitiful enough to make another All Star team.  Needless to say, in my mind, as someone who for several years running had All Star Averages over .600, it's a major let down on my ego. 

 

The all start average is your batting average{.277} combined with your RBI total times 2{17 x2=.34}...paltry to say the least.  The worst full season batting average I ever had was my first season, back in the early nineties of .286....I can blame several things for the season ending slump....sore foot, too much basketball on Mondays, before showing up to toss darts, old age, lack of concentration...I prefer just to say I had a slump...and hopefully will be back towards "normal" next season.  Meanwhile a week and a half off before the post season tournament begins, February 24th, with the All Star Game and Banquet in March.

 

Tonight it's back to basketball, a JH Boys double header at Lima Central Catholic....just 5 more dates remain after tonight, 2 boys junior high tournament doubles to work, and 3 boys JV games, 2 at Spencerville and one more to end the season at St. Marys.

 

My Look Back at the Air Force 1968-72....Epilogue

 

You can always look back at certain points of your life, especially when you age, and the effect they have had on your life....my 3 years 10 months and 11 days in the US Air Force certainly made a major shift in my life and my attitude.  From the 5' 9" 140 runt of a 19 year old when I entered on June 24, 1968, I grew to 5'11" 185 pounds by the time I walked out of Griffiss Air Force Base on May 5, 1972 at 23 years old.

 

I changed from a smart mouth kid from Ohio who knew nothing about life and the world out ahead of me, to a smart mouth kid from Ohio who knew just enough to get by being a smart ass, without getting busted in rank or busted in the chops...I knew when to hold em' and I knew when to fold em'  Smart mouth I might be, but no fool was I...I learned how to buck and fight the system, I knew when to walk away from trouble, and when to confront it head on,  but with eyes open and focused.

I have no illusions...I despised the Air Force.  I despised taking orders, especially from people I thought I was superior in intelligence to.  I wanted one thing out of the Air Force, and that was OUT!  Once I got my discharge, I headed back to the world, and whatever might lay ahead, it didn't matter, I was out of the Air Force and Military, and that was a good thing.   No more forced orders{which I did my best to ignore anyway}I would live my life without taking orders...and frankly I have done just that...in the  40+ years since I have been out of the Military, I have spent the most part working in situations where I was either my own boss or where if I didn't like the work or said orders, I was out the situation {job} in short order.

I pretty much ignored or pushed back in my mind the nearly four years...I even passed my Civil Service Exam, but turned down the Security Postal Jobs offered, because they reminded me too much of the rules and situation I faced in the Air Force....I finally came to terms with my Air Force life back in 1999 when I began searching the Internet for Security Police and Vietnam.  I came across the VSPA site....and that opened back up those four years in my mind and opened up my memory banks to the times, good and bad, in the Air Force.

http//www.vspa.com/

So for now, I have come to terms with those days....and frankly I could write a book, but won't, because that is how much hooking up with old friends and adversaries has brought back those memories.  Looking back over the past 5 1/2 years I have written much about those Air Force days...and as long as I keep this blog alive, I will continue, on occasion, to drop in memories of my days as an Air Force/Vietnam Sky Cop.

back later>>>>

Photos-.38 Police Special, the tools of the trade as far as Air Force Cops....of course we also used the M1 stateside in my early days, then switched to the M16 in Vietnam and during my final years at Griffiss.  Dartball winds down, just the tournament and all star games to go...along with the banquet in March.  Me playing cop at Nha Trang in 1969...my old roommate Richard "Jack" Gates, we roomed at Dover and then hooked up in Vietnam.  Me an Harry Bevan on Patrol at Nha Trang in August 1969, and me and Harry, who went on to become a Philadelphia City Cop, in October 2011 at the VSPA Reunion...not much change, do you think?    And below Howie Pritchard and me, we had not talked or seen each other since the Spring of 1969 at Dover, until he found me on this blog and we hooked up late last month near Chicago.....the Air Force days are alive in my memory banks, the good, the bad, and the ugly....?