Learning the rhythm

This picture was taken in a photo booth at the Base Exchange at Lackland AFB, Texas, during basic training. On the back of it, my mother wrote "July 13, 1966." That would explain the baggy fatigue shirt and the brand-new look of the hat. I had been in the Air Force for 20 whole days, and we didn't get uniforms until the beginning of the second week.

It was 6 a.m. CST -- oh-six-hundred, military time -- when we met the man who would govern our lives for the next eight weeks. He was standing on a concrete pad outside the barracks that would be our home at Lackland Air Force Base outside San Antonio, Texas. He was short, stout, fit and sharp. His uniform looked to be custom tailored. His name was Staff Sergeant Dunlop, and he was a career enlisted man. Secretly we called him Dumpy Dunlop. In retrospect, I'd have to say he was adequate for the job -- neither a tyrant nor a pussycat.

He told us he was our Drill Instructor, our DI, and that we should think of him as God.

He called us rainbow troops, because our uniforms wouldn't be issued for a week. Nevertheless, Sgt. Dunlop got us into formation for the first time, tried to teach us our left from our right, and how to space ourselves. And, yes, he talked like you'd imagine a DI would talk -- terse, authoritarian and clearly expecting absolutely no deviation from orders.

He marched us into the barracks -- it was more like a straggle than a march -- and we had our first glimpse of where we'd live. The two-story wood-frame building appeared to be about 20 years old, with linoleum floors and absolutely no decorative touches. At one end of the first floor, near the entrance, were Sgt. Dunlop's office and his sleeping quarters. Also at that end on both floors were a bathroom -- urinals, toilets with no doors to the stalls, a row of sinks and four showers. The majority of each floor was given over to a large open bay of double bunks stretching into the distance. An industrial fan in the eave of the second floor kept air circulating -- but it was outside air and this was late June in Texas. Sgt. Dunlop assigned each of us a bunk -- I got a top -- and a footlocker.

That first day is still a blur. I hadn't slept since Thursday night. We began by learning the basics of marching -- which I liked, because I just settled into the rhythm of it. We had our heads shaved. We took another physical exam. And we learned that there were three ways of approaching any task: the right way, the wrong way, and the Air Force way.

And throughout the day, it was hotter than hot. Lackland AFB is just about 200 miles from the Mexico border. By the end of basic, salt from perspiration had bleached stark white circles under the arms of my olive-drab fatigues.

Except for the constant heat, basic seemed to be bearable. I can follow rules. I can learn how to make a bed, how and who to salute, what the proper response to a verbal order is and how to address an officer who might appear in our midst. I was comfortable with the classroom work, which took up about four hours of each day. I was straight out of college: Air Force classes in military courtesy, map-reading, first aid, the chain of command, and military history were not too great a challenge.

The Air Force recruiting officer had asked me, before I signed the enlistment papers, what kind of job I might like. I told him I was good with animals, so he suggested an MOS -- a Military Occupation Specialty -- with the veterinary corp. In basic training, I pieced out that what I had said had been translated by the Air Force into "medical interest." I decided I could live with that. I also assumed that good classroom grades in basic training would help.

It was the other part of basic training that gave me pause: the physical part. I was never an athlete. I goofed off during most gym classes in high school and college (which wasn't difficult). My assumption, which proved to be true, was that goofing off wasn't going to hack it in the USAF. So I never tried that tactic. Instead, I developed a mentor. He was a boy from Tidewater, Virginia, whose last name -- interestingly -- was pronounced the same as mine, although it was spelled differently. Wayne was in excellent shape. His academic skills, not so much. He wasn't in the top half of any of our classes.

So I tutored Wayne, and he paced me in our runs and on the obstacle course. I got him through the academic parts, and he got me through the athletic parts. I will forever be grateful to Wayne. I believe he went into Air Force logistics and worked at a base in California.

Ours was a no-drama barracks for the most part. Occasionally someone would disappear because of a psychological meltdown. Once in a while, somebody would get dropped back to begin again because of miserable grades. One guy, who slept in the top bunk next to mine, got up in the middle of the night, went to the shower, turned on the water and made a feeble attempt to cut his wrist. He was shipped off before the sun rose.

But most of us made it.

The discipline was tough, although I never did anything to prompt Sgt. Dunlop to chew me a new one. And the discipline made sense to me. You had to be a high school graduate and meet certain height and weight requirements to enlist in the Air Force, but once you passed those standards, all bets were off. There was a war on -- and a troop buildup. We were in a factory that turned out airmen. Our IQs were all over the map. Our backgrounds were vastly different. Most of us had never been away from home before. Our differing cultures constantly surprised us. The discipline helped to make us the same -- and that was the goal. I could live with that.

Late in basic, Sgt. Dunlop gave us one-day passes that allowed us to leave the base. Wayne and I took a bus into San Antonio, toured the Alamo, ate some excellent Mexican food and saw a movie. (I picked "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" Wayne, bless his heart, didn't object to this esoteric selection for two brand new GIs on their first one-day pass.)

I dropped about 15 pounds in basic. I'd have lost more if the food hadn't been excellent. In my four years in uniform, I never complained about the food. It was always good, and there was always a lot to eat in the mess hall.

I'd never fired a gun before, and it didn't surprise me that I didn't qualify on the M14. Weapons were new to me, but I got the hang of grenades quickly -- a good thing. I enjoyed learning about the M14, taking it apart and reassembling it, cleaning it, and the process and positions for firing it. But I wasn't good at aiming. I'd hit the target often enough but never well enough. (I made up for that a year later, when I qualified easily with a .45-caliber sidearm. Other than when I was being tested, I never carried or used a weapon in the Air Force.)

Graduation from basic training was a big deal, both for us and for the brass. Each week, there was a grand parade of new airmen on the drill field. The command structure wanted to show off what it had made of us. We wanted to look good because Dumpy Dunlop would wreak havoc if we didn't. The brass and guests watched from the grandstands. The base commander spoke.

By the end of week seven, there was no doubt in my mind that we were ready. We had bonded. We looked like a well coordinated group when we marched. We had developed an esprit de corps. We had grown into our uniforms. Most of all, our hair had begun to grow back.

Sgt. Dunlop had us assembled informally on the concrete pad outside the barracks the day before graduation. It was an unbearably hot August afternoon. Colored flags flew over the base every day to indicate what level of outdoor activity was allowed, and the flag today was black: no outside activity, not even a march to the mess hall.

"I've got your orders," Sgt. Dunlop told us, and he began to hand them out. In two days, many of us would be off to learn how to be mechanics. Others snagged administrative training. A few were assigned to special weapons classes. I was ordered to basic medical training school at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls, Texas, up near the Oklahoma border.

We looked good at graduation the next day, which was mercifully cooler. We marched past the brass in the grandstands and managed to look like we knew exactly what we were doing and how to do it. We made Dumpy Dunlop proud, and he told us so.

The next day, I boarded an Air Force blue bus for Wichita Falls.