Repurposed

Finally I was sent to Mineral Wells,, Fort Wolters for Pre-Flight training, a four week ‘see-what-you-can-take hell course in spit and polish but nobody is ever polished good enough to avoid abuse.

Then two flight instruction courses, eight weeks long each.

Part 1 taught by contract commercial pilots, taught us how to fly a helicopter, and Part 2 taught by combat veterans, taught us some of the things we could do, will be asked to do, and shouldn’t do with a helicopter.

After graduating at Fort Wolters, next was Advanced Graduate Flight Training at Fort Rucker, Al, another twenty three weeks, and that’s where I learned to fly Hueys. Officially, Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters. In the later stages of that instruction was the most horrifying part of the training. The TA. Stands for Touchdown Auto-rotation.

The instructor shuts off your engine without warning, and you fall out of the sky, hopefully to a jarring emergency landing. If you performed the auto-rotation correctly, you survive and only your ass, jaw, and teeth ache afterwards. If you fail to perform the maneuver correctly, everyone aboard dies. We practiced it dozens of times, a total unexpected very inconveniently timed surprise every time. Our instructor claims he’s done TAs, or been aboard with a student making a TA, more than ten thousand times.

I supposed to him, he must be pretty used to it by now.

Never can get used to it, terrifies him every time, he admitted.

I took ten days leave after Basic and ten days leave after Ft Wolters. Thirty days is accrued every year. Sixty nine weeks have elapsed since I was sworn in, almost a year and a half. I have forty days leave available so I take half of them before I ship out to Vietnam.

Marshall and I have been husband and wife, married for that same almost year and a half. Counting these last ten days of leave before deployment, we have only had ninety nights together during these five-hundred plus days. Thirty days was leave. The other sixty days, are stolen moments whenever we could. Training was too intense even when they allowed wives to join husbands, to risk the distraction. Marshall flew to meet me on weekends if I had a pass. Precious stolen moments. She shops in the PX often. She also likes the ‘O’ club. Officer’s Club. Wives of Officer’s is another exclusive club she likes belonging to. Privileged wives of every color and size.