Lackland Air Force Base, Texas
The first of March, 1955 I boarded the “Doodle Bug” which was a railroad engine and one passenger car that traveled from El Dorado, Kansas to Kansas City. There were five of us traveling to KC to join the Air Force, we were all from Butler County. Jerry Hayes of El Dorado, Gene Mauck from Douglass who I new from high school days, Wesley I can’t remember his last name from Augusta and a guy whose last name was George also from Augusta. My girlfriend Pat was there to send me off to Uncle Sam, I think she was the only one there as I did not see the other recruits have anyone there.
We arrived in KC and was taken to where we would be getting our medical exams and chow hall. They had two big rooms with cots for us. There were about two hundred plus recruits, and I was assigned to one room and the rest of my group was in the other room. After the exams, they were making three groups of 75 to 80 in each group and my Butler County group came and got me and the officer allowed me to be in their group, I sure was glad. We were then loaded in sleeper rail cars and shipped to San Antonio, Texas. That was the best sleep I have had, it was a steady rocking and rolling.
The next morning, we unloaded into Air Force buses and were driven to Lackland Air Force base, and unloaded at our home for the next eleven weeks. We were greeted by our Technical Instructor (TI), lined up into four lines, then marched (what a mess) to our barracks. The barracks were two stories tall. The bottom story had the showers/sinks and stools for the whole building, also the TI had his private room there. Then one big room with army steel cots stacked two high for about forty airmen. The top floor had a day room with tables for writing and studying. The top floor had a big room for forty cots like the bottom floor. We were assigned cots I was lucky to get a top bunk and we were each given a foot locker to keep our personal stuff and our socks and underwear. We had shaving and shower stuff as well as writing material and shoe polish. I was on the bottom floor and the other four Butler County guys were on the second floor but I didn’t mind as I made friends fairly easily. All seventy six of us were now called a flight.
Over the next few weeks, we learned how to march together, but there were a few guys that had to carry a rock in their left hand to remember left from right, thankfully not me. We marched to everything, pictures, barbershop for a buzz cut, clothes, classes and the firing range. The TI wanted to know if anyone could drive a truck while we were at the range and several hands went up and they left and I thought, SUCKERS. They came back in fifteen minutes pushing three wheel barrows full of ammo, never volunteer in basic training.
After a few weeks, the weather started getting hot and not much shade was available. At times while we were standing at ease on the street waiting for an empty classroom, someone would pass out and they would carry them to the shade and put some water on their head, they would come to and be okay.
There were three movie theaters on base and we could go on the last four weekends of basic. We also could get passes on these weekends to leave the base. I never had the desire to leave the base and a few of the others also stayed on base. Since I stayed on base, I didn’t spend much money and there were a few that spent their money and would come to me to borrow five bucks telling me they would pay me back double on pay day. Everyone I loaned money to always paid me back. I would not loan over five dollars and would not loan to everyone.
We sure looked forward to mail call. The first ten days, the TI would have everyone stand around him and he would yell the name on the letter then pass it back to you. There was no mail for me for several days, what a downer — I thought Pat had moved on. Then, the next mail call, the TI called out “Woodall, Woodall, Woodall, Woodall, damn Woodall you made out today!” (love you Pat).
We completed basic training — two of us from the 76 people of our flight are being sent to Kessler AFB, Biloxi, Mississippi for radar training but first we can go home for a week.
