My Cold War Years (Part One): The Beginning
- Tracy's Thoughts
- Jan 5, 2019
- 5 min read
Updated: Jan 16, 2019
Before I start telling of "My Cold War Years", I wish to go back a few years earlier. It was 1976 and America was celebrating it's 200th Birthday. The term "The Spirit of '76" was popular then. However I felt it to be more like "The 'Lost' Spirit of '76". As this was the year I consider to be the end of the innocence of my youth. For it was this year in which both of my Grandfathers died and my Parents marriage ended. And by 1979, my Freshman year of High School, my family had went from having a Father, Mother, two Sisters, two Brothers and myself living at home, to just my Mother and myself. I watched as each of my Sisters and Brothers left in what I call "under other than pleasant conditions".
During this time I was living in the small Alabama town of Arab. By my Junior year in High School I had started working at the local Pizza Hut to earn some money for myself and to help my Mother pay bills. I started thinking about my future and just felt that this small town may not have the opportunities I was looking for. I also had a desire to serve my County. So in December of 1981 I enlisted in the US Air Force under the Delayed Enlistment Program. Within two weeks after graduating, in May of 1982, I was headed for Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas for my Basic Military Training. I had signed up to serve a full 6 years active, instead of 4 years active and 2 years inactive. Since I did this, I would end up being promoted to Airman First Class, two stripes or an E-3, upon graduation of Basic.
The first evening at Lackland was a hectic time and now seems almost like a blur to me. But I do remember going through all sorts of in-processing, eating something that was indescribable, but it tasted pretty good. Especially since I was so hungry and it had been a long couple of days. Having spent the previous day in Nashville Tennessee for some initial in-processing at the Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station there after leaving my home in Arab. Those two whole days or so seemed so surreal.
At some point on that first night I do remember having so much fun with all of us Trainees, or "Rainbows", getting yelled at a lot and playing a cute little game called "PICK 'EM UP!!! PUT 'EM DOWN!!!" for several minutes. This is where everyone will pick up and put down all of their belongings again and again until all are doing it at the same time. In the first few days of Basic, there was a moment, when I started wondering what the heck have I done? But after about two weeks I learned that it was really just a "head game" those Training Instructors were playing. They had just 6 short weeks to take 40 to 50 people from different backgrounds, break them down and rebuild them into one of the US Air Force's newest Airmen.
Since I had started Basic in June, I quickly found out just how HOT it got in Texas during the summertime! With me having signed up to be trained as a Security Police, it turned out that my Technical School, the US Air Force Security Police Academy, was also at Lackland. So after Basic, when many of my fellow Airmen were being shipped off to other bases for their training, I just got on a bus and rode a few blocks down the road to spend yet another 6 weeks there in that HOT weather. The last two weeks of Security Police training was spent living in wooden huts at Camp Bullis, not far from Lackland. By this time it was early September and at nights it would cool down to about 70 degrees. During the day it may have been in the 100 degree plus range. Those cooler temperatures at night made it feel like you would freeze. So many of us would completely cover up with one of those good old government issued U.S. OD Green Wool Blankets. It was kind of itchy, but it was also warm. While still in training I got orders for Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota. I remember one of my Instructors began to laugh and he told me that I'd love it there. He said that there was a woman behind every tree.
After graduating this training, I made a quick trip back home to Arab for a short time before heading for that first assignment at Ellsworth. Now just imagine being in Texas from June to September where it had been HOT and arriving in South Dakota where it was already starting to turn cool. October rolled around and it got colder. By the time November came it had gotten colder and even snowed a few times. December arrived, it had gotten even colder and with much more snow. But then around the middle of the month it warmed up to around 50 degrees or so for a few days. There were people out at the local city parks enjoying this warm weather. I was thinking, maybe this isn't such a bad after all. The next week there was a blizzard!
Also when I first got there I noticed that there were some places that didn't have that many trees. I finally got the reason as to why my Instructor back in the Security Police Academy at Lackland had started laughing. Those women behind the trees would be few and far between. While the winter months in South Dakota could be brutally cold with temperatures well below Zero and a wind chill factor that had to always be considered. The months of July and August would see temperatures in the 100 degree plus range. The weather in South Dakota was certainly unusual. There was twice when I was there hail storms with hailstones the size of softballs/baseballs.
[NOTE: This is Part 1 of a 10-Part series of stories about some of my memories of when I was in the US Air Force from 1982 to 1988 and stationed at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City, South Dakota.]
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