Subject: Memoreis of time on the Hill
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 11:29:52 -0500
From: "Robert Fields" [email protected]

Dear Ollie:

Things I remember:

I remember going to bed at night in wet nylon underwear

I remember being thankful for my height when I saw how tough is was for the short classmates that were a tad heavy.

I remember meeting Gordon Brymer when he came back from the ramp on Sundays. I would bath his feet as if he were Jesus and I was Mary Magdalene

I remember Jack Walsh being so effective at terrorizing under classmen that a kid, on only the second day in school, while being "trained" by Jack and I, dropped to his knees and prayed for help from God and deliverance from all of this. Jack and I both walked away with tears in our eyes. The guy left school the next day.

Jack Walsh was so effective he would cry while chewing a guy out, and then when the guy started to cry, Jack would dry up and chew the guy out for showing emotion. Damn, he was good.

I remember being so envious of Jim Colvig being able to breeze through the academics. He would actually write book reports while marching to school in formation. He was also better at telling jokes, better at sports, and better at drinking beer. He was (and still is) a man's man.

I remember the wives sneaking in candy and cigarettes in boxes of Tide.

I remember the night Denny Foacarini's baby was born. He was a Mormon and I tried to talk him into at least drinking a coke in celebration. I remember what he did, but I won't say.

I remember Gordon Brymers pants were tailored so many times that by the end of Month two, he had lost so much weight his back pockets overlapped.

I remember going to sick call and a nurse telling me that Officer Candidates were the best looking foulest smelling group on Lackland.

My wife was not with me until the final month of school. So on Club Nights, rather than just sit around looking dumb, I would dance with OC Frances P DeLee. I remember she was tall and warm and tons of fun. People began to talk some about it during the week. Once at mealtime (remember how we would have the under class do
"little known facts" or whatever), OC Butera was asked to do something, and he took the salt and pepper shakers on the table and performed a marriage ceremony with me as the salt and OC DeLee as the pepper. He claimed it was the schools first inter racial marriage.

I remember how fast OC Maj Agee could post as Adjutant.

I remember how Carl Kelly talked and looked like he was already a Full Colonel. Big chest, ramrod straight, firm demeanor.

I remember Officer Candidate Snailfrocky, D.G.

I remember doing the base retreat ceremony at base HQ. We had to press our pants, and then stood on a table and be lowered into them, without bending our knees, so the pants would not wrinkle.

I remember watching General Hospital in the Wheel House while waiting for the afternoon formation.

I remember the Military Funeral Ceremony for mice as we flushed them down the toilet.

I remember John Quinn always with that faraway look in his eyes, as if all was well...not to worry.

I remember, and still live by some of the "memory work" we were compelled to do. I have often used "If you work for a man in heavens name, work for him. Speak well of him.....etc ..etc". Good words to live by in the Military or in business.

I remember writing our squadron song, and thinking I must be a closet Irving Berlin because the tune just popped into my head. Years later I recognized the tune as Leroy Anderson's Syncopated Clock. End of music career.

I remember Cooter had bowed legs which made him the only guy that looked funnier than me in shorts.

There was a tall guy in second squadron (6'7") that I used to wait for every night after the evening meal. When he came back to the barracks, I would be in his room. He would throw himself "against the wall", and I would walk up under his nose and look up and ask him who was the tallest man on the hill ( I was 6'5"). If he said his name I would chew him out for being taller than his commander. If he said I was, I would chew him out for lying. I had fun, but I suppose it made his life miserable. Fact is, I liked him a lot and spent time talking with him more civil like during the last two weeks. He wound up on the first group staff as 1st class.

I remember how important it was to mix the liquid starch with HOT water so it would mix good.

I remember how the armpit on a used sweaty shirt smelled after spraying it with starch and touching it with a hot iron.

I remember the first half on 58 as being the best time of my life.

Bob Fields