"As The World Turns"

And in the country I once knew, things WERE turning into a "soap opera." Meeting Roy Rogers in person would be one of the last images of "America" I would ever see again. Things WERE changing, and certainly not for the better.

One memorable hour or so at the academy, was an economist who gave a lecture in the auditorium. During the main body of his speech, he ran off what was just a "short list" of things our government wastes money on. He read off a myriad of crap, and after each wasteful project costing MILLIONS, he would end each statement with ......."And they don't know where to CUT!"

One of those "particulars" was when he said "They spent nearly two million dollars to study the lost languages of Dakta and Igbu........and they don't know where to cut!"..............

Everyone in the auditorium (all four classes) roared hysterically. After all got quiet again, he stepped out from behind the podium and walked forward to the edge of the stage, looked out at all of us and said, "ladies and gentlemen, that wasn't meant to be funny...........this is YOUR MONEY we're talking about!" he had eveyone's undivided attention from that point on.

This was in the late summer of 1986----------nothing has changed, except they're blowing our tax dollars in LARGER amounts now, and hopefully it WILL get "everybody's undivided attention"..........don't know how much more it's gonna take, though, before that happens.

Anyway, after graduation, I drove back up here to Mountain Goat Airplane Patch, with "Master" sewn on, and found myself out of a job. You don't crew an airplane as a Master Sergeant, so 074 was now in the hands of Jeff Smith, who had been my assistant----------and a most capable young man.

Federhart decided to put me in the "Tiger 3 van" as an Expediter. I'd rather have swept floors and carried out trash. A flightline Expediter has the most frustrating and thankless jobs on any ramp, anywhere. I did that in Korea, and was ready to choke people by the time I left.

To make matters worse, I'd be working for a daytime Pro-Super, who I bucked heads with when I was a crew chief. It wasn't long before we clashed. Every now and then, a crew chief would "Red-X" his plane for a grounding write-up. He'd flag me down, give me the low-down, and I'd radio-in for Hydraulics assist, or Sheet Metal, whatever the problem entailed.

Like "death & taxes", here would come "Tiger-2", trying to lean on ME-----to lean on that crew chief.........to just wipe the leak down, or "don't worry about it until the airplane got back.

Well.........I never played that "Lie, Cheat & Steal" game as a Crew Chief..........and I SURE AS HECK wasn't gonna do it now! Especially with THESE guys, a few of whom I had TRAINED not to "comprimise" maintenance.

He got indignant on one occasion and says "Why did you let that guy write this up-------we'll fix it LATER!"

"Do you feel that good about it?"

"YES! I just TOLD you it can fly with it!"

I handed HIM the forms and said "OK..........YOU sign it off!................

He just handed the forms back to me and called for hydraulics HIMSELF, then stormed off........

...........uh-huh.............but he would gladly have let somebody ELSE sign it off, and if something happened in flight, hey baby--------ain't HIS name in the forms, and he magically wouldn't know anything about it.

The only thing he and I ever agreed upon, was that I did NOT need to be out there working for him. I walked into Federhart's office the following Monday morning, with (now MAJOR) Parker sitting in there with him, and told him they would have to COURT-MARTIAL me before I would work one more shift out there with "TFR" (a slang term for this pro-super that we won't use here in public).

Unknown to ME, "TFR" had also bent Federhart's ear that HE wanted ME replaced as well--------so I told Dean & the Major........by golly I KNEW "TFR" and I would eventually agree on SOMETHING!

So they grabbed Jim Olds and put HIM in the "Tiger-3" truck, and then asked me what I wanted to do, I told 'em one thing I would DEFINITELY like to do, is get off Day-shift, and the "dog & Pony" world IT was, or just transfer me OUT of Blue to one of the other squadrons, but Major Parker shot THAT down, because I had "too much Aardvark experience" to just transfer me out.

Q.A. (Quality Assurance) had been on a write-up rampage of late, and would pick out airplanes at random to inspect after the crew chief had finished the postflight inspection after the last flight of the day. They would nit-pick discrepancies that they couldn't find legitimately------lots of "nickel & dime stuff"------------sort of like traffic cops in town trying to make their "quota."

Major Parker suggested that I be used to do "follow-up inspections." The way it would work, is that the flight chiefs would pick out a different tail number each day, and after the crew chief had post-flight inspected it-----they would have ME go over that same airplane and catch whatever the crew chief may have missed. I would write it up, but of course, the write-ups would stay IN-HOUSE, NOT in the Q.A. coffers to take to the DCM and say "LOOK SIR......LOOK WHAT WE FOUND!"......as they polished their little make-believe "sheriff's badges."

Whatever BRADBURY wrote up...........the crew chief could take care of, without Q.A. getting involved.

You have to understand, that we had good crew chiefs out there..........but the hours were so long at times, you weren't as sharp and acute to detail as four or five Q.A. guys who would hit your plane all at once, with a full 8 hours of sleep behind them.

Well, not crewing a plane anymore, I wasn't putting-in the long hours. I'd be fresh as a daisy when I came into work, and whichever tail umber a flight chief picked out for me, it would already be ready for me.

Additionally, since most of the flying was during the day, they had ME coming in on swingshift..........which REALLY appealled to me. Out of the limelight and vistors, away from the "pimpshow"..........a guy could just go out there, do his job and be left alone. I was also working for a swingshiift Pro-Super named Van Pearsum.......(or "Van P., as we all called him). Good dude, he was there when you needed him, but he didn't "micro-manage". It worked VERY well. As time went on, Q.A. was finding fewer & fewer write-ups on our birds, 'cause the "old geezer" here was out there going over the planes before the "sheriff's posse" could get THEIR hands on them. I would also be out there with the new guys whose planes I had just written up, going over some of the fine points that Q.A. always looked for, and I would show THEM some things I'd learned over the many years I had been "chained" to this airplane.

I was particularly having fun with this, because in my experience, most Q.A. people were jerks.......some of them were the biggest pencil-whippers I'd ever seen when THEY were "crew chiefs"............ah, but now THEY get to be "somebody."............uh-huh...........I loved to see the frustration on their faces when THEY had to give one of our birds a PASSING GRADE on an inspection.--------"DIDN'T FIND ANYTHING DID YA!!!!!...............jerk.

And it was getting political. "Crew Chief of the Year" had once been a coveted award, but in 1984, a guy down in Yellow Section (I won't embarass anyone here by using any names), won the award. I crewed alongside this same dude in the "Owyhee Round-up" of '85" He basically crewed with a spraycan. Everything was "purty", but in a rare act of justice, Q.A. hit HIS airplane during the "round-up" and wrote a NOVEL of write-ups..........even screws that were barely hanging by a couple of threads. This was also a guy though, who could stand in front of any board in his dress blues and just "dazzle 'em!"-----------Crew Chief of the Year.

1985---------in our OWN Blue Section, we had a WAF who was technically a "431" but not a "crew chief" by any stretch of the imagination. She was so inept, they put her on MID-shift as part of a "servicing crew". When her flight chief nominated HER for "Crew Chief of the Year for 1985", some of us questioned it. He simply said......"Aw, she's not all that bad."

????..A hundred crew chiefs on this flightline and we nominate one who's "not all that bad?"..........well, it may have been "politics" at the time........but within just a few months after her award, she went AWOL! Was GONE for MONTHS until they finally caught up with her.........."Crew Chief of the Year."

Early into 1987, and I'm out there doing inspections, Federhart calls me into the office, shakes my hand and congradulates me..........I had been chosen 366th TFW Crew Chief of the Year for 1986.

I thanked him for the info, got a cup of coffee and just walked back out to the ramp...........big deal. The award meant LITTLE by then.

I've never been a 'Muhammad Ali"..........going around trying to tell everybody how "great" I am. The aircraft I have crewed have always said it FOR me. I always took my job seriously and went the extra mile to make sure everyone who flew my birds got a good safe ride. That was satisfaction enough for me..........all I was looking for now, was to finish up my enlistment and retire. I wasn't looking for another wall plaque to gather dust.

As I later understood it, it wasn't just 074's flying record, but the six consecutive "EXCELLENT" Q.A. inspections as well, that won the '86 award.

All the guys in Blue were good with that, we all knew each other, and 074's stats spoke for themselves. But all up and down the rest of that flightline, the award meant nothing. After "Spraycan Simon"-----followed by "AWOL Amelia"........"ol' Bradbury, whoever HE is, down there in Blue Section probably just stood in front of that same board and licked their boots, like the others.

This was basically all you HAD to do to win it in those days.

I had never SEEN a board, or even worn my dress blues in FOREVER, although it was required at the Award Luncheon. I stood up when my name was called, accepted my wall plaque, then went back to my seat. Big deal.

I'd busted my butt for a lot of years on a lot of flightlines. Dirty, greasy, cold, 12-hour shifts & beyond, I'd gone through enough Ben-Gay over the years to have STOCK in the company!

Crew Chief of the Year. At one time, it would have meant a lot to me, but by the time that it was finally happening, it had been cheapened so much, it didn't mean anything now. The IRONIC thing, was that I ACTUALLY EARNED IT! And I earned it on the RAMP, not in front of some pompous panel. Meant nothing now.......it was just some award they gave away once a year to "whoever."

Oh well............today as I write this, it's hanging on my den wall, gathering dust, with the rest of my career.