11. September 2007 by Elwood.

All quiet on the southern front.  Still hot and dry, had some thunderstorms, but nowhere near enough rain.  Still taking care of the little old ladies in my family, but at least everyone is healthy.  Took a weekend trip up to Michigan to see the oldest of my two younger brothers, nice relief from the 90’s and 100’s, only in the 80’s and clear skies, no haze.  Doing well and enjoying the single life, like me.  My youngest brother, who is approaching retirement from the Air Force after a 20 year career as a crew chief and flight engineer, is looking hard for a new career and working on a master’s degree in Business Administration.  He’ll retire as a Tech Sergeant, such is the life of enlisted aircrew.  He knew that if he stayed as a crew chief, he’d get promoted more, but he wanted more travel and excitement in his life, and boy did he get it.  At one point, a couple of years ago, he had the most days TDY for his KC-10 squadron than anyone else, and that’s pretty hard to do for an AMC squadron.  If my memory serves me right, he had 421 days TDY over a two year period—and this was during the time when they were suppose to limit TDY’s to less than 400 days over a two year period.  He’s just gotten tired of the enlisted harassment program (similar to the old aircrew harassment program we used to experience on alert.)  The morning after he submitted his retirement application (done over the Internet these days), he was called into his commander’s office and asked why he didn’t tell them he was going to submit retirement papers—no question of why he was retiring, what he was going to do, or any sources of disaffection. I hate commanders like that.  His experience was obviously different than mine, an enlisted guy versus an officer, but he’s going to have a great future in any event.  He’s already had inquiries stimulated by his resume from companies like Norfolk Southern and US Airways about his experience in logistics movements and training (he’s a KC-10 flight engineer FTU instructor at McGuire AFB.) 

Our family research into our genealogy has traced our ancestry back to 1792, to Joseph Blackwood who died that year in what was then called the 96 District, of which Spartanburg County was a part.  He was my great-great-great-great-great grandfather (8 generations, 10 if you include my son and grandson.)  I’ve also been doing a lot of reading about the history of Spartanburg and South Carolina.  No historical figures stand out except the SC governor, I. C. Blackwood (a great-great uncle), during the Great Depression. 

Chuck, I like your article (actually, I like all your articles).  I remember that the aircraft commander was responsible for everything that happened on the aircraft, and we knew that as we got higher in rank and responsibility, we were going to be held accountable for everything under us, and we accepted that.  We didn’t like it, but it kept us on our toes.  That’s why pilots got promoted in SAC (oh, that’s going to piss off the nav’s), our willingness to accept the responsibility and respond properly to it.  I made mistakes, but the chain seemed to always pick up whether it was an error in my training or an attempt to break the rules and disciplined accordingly.  I’m hoping that Gen Raaberg has that good sense—I knew him at JSTPS when he was a Lt Col and I was a Major, and he always seemed to have a good head on his shoulders.  Does anyone know if it was a Barksdale aircrew or Minot aircrew that flew with the weapons?  I know it was Minot who prepped the weapons and loaded them, but then I think of the chain of events and where the error could have been detected and stopped.  The missile prep crew made the big mistake, not properly preparing the missiles for transport, but none of the commanders and supervisors along the way were asking the right questions, or any questions.  I was never surprised to see a white-top car in front of my aircraft during an alert swap-over.  We’d scoff that they were covering their a**, but we made sure we dotted the i’s and cross the t’s.  It was the right thing to do—you can trust your people, but you still need to get out of the office and check things yourself, whether you’re a colonel or a MSgt.

Pontification over, peace out, as Reed says…

Elwood

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11. September 2007 by The Chuck.

All, Reed beat me to the punch this month.  I was up early this morning, writing on other things.  I’ve got an idea for a website . . . hopefully I’ll be sharing it soon.  

Hot days, with occassional heavy rains here in LA . . . or is that La?  Does it ever rain in Palmdale? Good luck with the job, Reed. This is certainly an infamous day.

I know we could all talk in detail about where we 6-years ago.

I had hoped to have some good news to share with everyone about a position I thought I was going to have.  However, there have been some interesting twists to the plot, so I’m still in a wait-and-see posture. If nothing else, I was mistaken enough following a telecom with some HR folks that I offered in my resignation with the local company I was working with.  I went from in a rush to get the house ready to sell, sell it, and move to, “oh, uh oh, well, hmm, okay.” Still, the house still needs the work, so I scrapped old gout with a neat little triangle tool and then applied new gout in the master shower.   I’m looking forward (ugh) to doing something with the floors in both bathrooms, maybe tile, very soon.  If I don’t have stroke doing that, things have to get better. 

Also in the line of handyman stuff, I made some beds for my grandsons.  That was a cool project.   It was an early birthday present, I had thought (for a minute) I wouldn’t be in town for their birthday.  Can you believe they’re going to be two on 7 October?

I’ve written a newspaper article that was inspired by the lost nukes.  I’ve having some trepidation about submitting it.   There are people still in the system that might get inconvenienced.  Of course, not as much as the rest of us would be if some bad guys get a nuke the easy way.   Sometimes when I share an article before I submit it, it gets jinxed, and they don’t publish it.  I’m not superstitious, so I’ll just toss some salt over my shoulder and paste it here for your comments about whether it is too mean or out of line. 

Oh yeah, I collected another rejection slip for my novel . . . 

Take care, and never forget the 11th.

The  Chuck

(I’ve edited my draft article and posted it in the proper category)

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11. September 2007 by Ponch.

ALl,

Another September 11th. a good backdrop for our Band Of Brothers e-mail chain. I have been giving allot of thought to our past adventures together as I prepared for a job interview out at Edwards AFB.  It’s tough to try and condense the experience you gain from the life style we lived for those short years as military aviators. The more people I meet day to day and have conversations with both professional and casual, the more I realize how much we did that was beyond the ordinary. Also it amazing to see how small the world is and that the good people we worked with and around the various bases and places have left lasting impact on all they touched.  I say this as part of the interview process I got to ride in a pickup on Edwards main runway with a young active duty Major.  We got to talking and we discovered that we had both been on Diego Garcia at the same time.  He was there with LTC Tom Jones as part of a Cobra Ball deployment.  Many of you remember Tom from Castle AFB.  He relayed that he and Tom had stayed in touch and that Tom had retired and was now a minister. Yes Tom was and is good people, like you’ all. Things in Lancaster are cooling off after our two weeks of scorching heat wave.  I can’t complain as that’s about all the hot weather we have had this summer, despite all the global warming rhetoric.  We spent the worst of the days on the coast at the beach near my parents house, and Andy …no the bathroom is still not completed yet.  We made the mistake of ordering cabinets from Home Depot.  That was over a month ago…still waiting. I guess all the bad press they have had on the TV is warranted.  By now most of you have heard the news about the cruise missiles that got shipped on a Buff from Minot to KBAD, with nukes added as an exciting extra bonus.  I’m still completely floored by this.  I work with Buea Forgier, former KBAD and WAFB crew chief.  Neither one of us can fathom the number of mistakes it would take to inadvertently load a bomber with real nukes.   It’s something right out a Hollywood movie (James Bond, Thunder ball I think).  Parker W Northup III is the Ops group commander as well as Greg Bell as vice wing.  Those of you that have contacts involved let us know the fallout from this mess.  Parker is good people and I hope he doesn’t get splattered.  Bell…on the other hand… well Andy and I have similar views on that subject.  Chuck and Andy how is the summer there in Shreveport?  Sounds like you been gett’n hit with allot of rain.  Has it flooded again?  Andy, should make for a great Duck season this year. Well its late and I gotta get a report out.  Been on the night shift for a few weeks.  Guy I replaced is out sick with hepatitis.  I’ll let you know about the job thing next month.  If thing go right there will be a job opening here at Palmdale for a B-2 TD and I will get to go back to doing what I love most in the world.

Peace Out! Till next month. 

Ponch

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