The TI, training instructor would be gone for the evening. He had given clear instructions for anyone wanting to gain access to the barracks.
The instructions were: the person who was trying to gain access to the barracks was to slip his identification card between the screen door and the door frame. The barracks guard was to take the card and hold it up to the screen door and compare the photo on the card to the person trying to gain access. If the photo matched the person, then everything was in order and the barracks guard would open the screen door to let the person into the barracks.
Under no circumstances was anyone inside the barracks to step outside. It was the barracks
guards job to follow those instructions and carry them out. And we were to give due respect to any NCO approaching the barracks to gain access.
It was a mild Texas summer evening that evening and you could hear the crickets chirping, you could see the moths flying about the light outside the door to the barracks. It was a nice evening and as it happened there were some goings on at the rear door to the barracks.
I was on the first floor of the barracks doing routine stuff; shining brogans, packing my locker, tidying up uniforms on the rack. The barracks talk was back and forth. Was the smoking sign on? I don't recall. But someone came by and made mention that someone at the back door trying to gain access to the barracks. I paid little attention and the person who reported that went to the back of the barracks from where he came.
It was ten to fifteen minutes later and again someone came by and said there was someone trying to gain access to the barracks and he encouraged me to go to the back door of the barracks to see what the commotion was all about.
I went there but all was quiet. At that moment he barracks guard came out of the latrine area and I asked him if everything was in order. He told me there had been an unruly NCO who was trying to come into the barracks and he wouldn't follow instructions.
I looked out into the darkness and saw no one. Still, it was all quiet. I started to question the validity of the barracks
guards opinion, but as I did the barracks guard said, "Here he comes again!" And he said it with a tone of exasperation in his voice.
Sure enough, I looked to the barracks screen door and there appeared an NCO with five stripes on his sleeve. Our training instructor has four stripes, so this guy had some rank.
The NCO comes right up to the screen door and shouts, "Let me in!" and he sways from side to side in a drunken manner, then steadies himself.
"Sir, I can't let you in until I see your identification," our barracks guard says to him.
The NCO fumbles in his pocket, pulls out his billfold and some of his change falls to the ground.
"Sir, you dropped some money," says the barracks guard.
The NCO pays no attention. He opens his wallet and cards and whatnot fall to the ground.
"Sir, you dropped something," the barracks guard repeats, and I
chime in, also saying similar words.
The NCO sways drunkenly once again, still paying no attention to what has fallen to the ground. He pulls his ID from his wallet, holding it in his hand and says, "See! Here it is!"
"Sir, you have to slide it through the screen door and give it to me," says the barracks guard.
"Oh no! You'll steal it. You'll take it and won't give it back," the drunken NCO says.
The barracks guard tries to assure him that he will return his ID card and tells him once again of the money and cards he had dropped on the ground. The NCO picks up the stuff he dropped then turns his attention once more to gain access to the barracks.
"Let me in! Let me in!" he shouts, and he takes the outside doorknob and pulls on it back and forth shaking the screen door on its hinges. We on the inside try to steady the door.
"Sir! Sir! Don't break the door," says the barracks guard.
"You're not getting in if you don't hand your ID card over," I tell him.
"Who are you?" the NCO shouts at me, shucking off his drunken image. Now he is all NCO. A kick ass. A bad ass. An, I'll chew your ass out you little Airman Basic nothing.
"Sir, I'm Airman Faira."
"No! I want your full name and rank!" he shouts at me.
"Sir, I am Airman Basic Faria, David.l"
"Well, mister Faria, open this damn door!"
"Sir, I can't do that." I tell him.
"Open this damn door, or I'll rip it out!" and he grabs hold of the door once again and starts shaking it. The screen door rattles and shakes. I hold the door on the inside trying to steady it.
The NCO changes his demeanor once again. This time he takes on an air of surprise or it could be amazement. He opens his eyes wide. His facial expression changes. It is almost a face of fear and
surprise. He holds both his hands out! Palms forward! And then he starts walking backwards into the darkness of the evening.
It is a total surprise to me! It is the same manner and movement of the bastard priest when he cursed me! But his face was one of anger and hatred while holding both hands out! Palms forward! And then he starts walking backwards into the darkness of the room. But how could it be?
I become angered and some words slip out, but I quickly catch myself and no harm is done. I had almost failed the drunken
NCO's test.
Monday, May 02, 2005
The Offer and the Drunken NCO; an explanation
The drunken NCO
coming to the barracks in the evening and trying to get in, acting drunk, acting as if afraid, hands outstretched and then taking steps backwards; it was all a sham. And it shouldn't have been done.
Lackland Air Force Base is a military training base and everything is supposed to be done by the book. It is training,
discipline, taking commands, marching, doing drill, learning military code, military standards, and it is no place; I
repeat no place for any acting drunk and game playing.
First, singling me out of the whole squadron, (one hundred enlistees, about), and sending me to the barracks door. Then the set up by the NCO. The NCO demanding my name and rank. He then knows I am the correct target. And then he brings something from out of my past that was catholic bullshit. The whole scenario had
absolutely no place on that military base.
The NCO acting drunk, then acting as if in fear and afraid, hands outstretched, taking steps backward into the darkness of the evening. It was all a little charade. And I was the target.
Furthermore, that offer of the desk job; well, that too was out of place. The offer shouldn't have been made. I nor the other enlistee had completed our basic training, so we were not supposed to be placed anywhere. It's first things first, and basic training is to be completed first. No offers, no side deals, no nothing like that. It was all bogus bullshit and shouldn't have been even attempted. But at that time, those
NCO's could pull any crap they wanted, all within their supposed guidelines.
But I would like to point this out; the catholic bastards who had been stalking me in Fall River had a very long reach. They set up where I went, from Massachusetts to Texas. The church is the universal church, and they have parishes in just about every town, city and county in the country. They were slowed, yes. It took them about a week and a half to set up and get contacts on the military base. More importantly, the church bastards now had to deal with the military to get at me, and that posed them some
difficulties. Difficult but not impossible. There are plenty of catholic bastards in the military. I would soon learn that.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Sheppard Air Force Base Texas
Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas: August 1959
After four weeks of basic training all the enlistees in my barracks had completed the first phase of military training. About half of us were to be shipped out to various training bases for technical training. The others would continue on at Lackland for four more weeks.
I was to be transferred to Sheppard Air Force Base just outside of Wichita Falls Texas. The day of the move I and about one hundred other airmen stood around in the morning sun with our duffel bags packed and waited for the buses that would take us to our new base.
We boarded the buses and had a day long trip through the hot summer of Texas, stopping at a small town for lunch. We arrived at Sheppard in the early evening and settled into a transit barracks.
It was like we were set free. After four weeks of drills, marching, barked orders at us enlistees, we were set free. No shackles at all. The base was ours. Freedom!
It was the first time in my life I felt some breathing room. No Jesuits. No church. No religious services. No bleeding Jesus. No Virgin Mary. I could go anywhere on the base. Anywhere.
Another Airman, Price, he and I decided on the Airman's Club, although I had opted for the base service club to go and get a hamburger. Price wanted to drink beer. Yes, even though we were eighteen years of age we could still get beer served to us.
For me it would be forty weeks of technical training in teletype maintenance and then on to another base to do my part as a bona fide airman of the United States of America.
Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas; Spring 1960
I was well into the technical training, marching to school for a half day of class. The rest of the day was routine clean up and miscellaneous. In the evenings there was lounge time in the barracks. On the weekends most people split to various places, towns, cities and on extended weekends, sometimes out-of-state.
It was a weekend evening. There were a few of us airmen in the barracks in a discussion about this and that and it had turned to religion. Who was of this religion. Who was of that religion. I was looking for a Southern Baptist. I had never met a Southern Baptist and wanted to know one. And nobody was fessing up. Surely there was a Southern Baptist somewhere in the group. This was the South, or near the South. Texas is not really the South, it's Texas. And them Southern Baptists they're supposed to shout and sing in church. I wanted to ask a few questions, if that was really true.
I had ticked off some of the protestants by stating that the Catholic Church was the "One True Church". Wow, that upset some people and I was needling them, rubbing it in.
Someone asked me, "What religion are you?"
"Me?.....I don't have a religion." I answered.
You see, I was all through with religion. I had enough religion at my school. It was shoved down my throat. Up my ass. I was whipped while I had to kneel before a bastard pervert Jesuit, the head Jesuit of my bastard school. I was all through with that shit. That bloody bastard shit. I was through with religion.
"Aren't you Catholic?" The questioner persisted.
"No. I'm not Catholic." I answered.
"What's on your dog tags?" The questioner asks.
"It doesn't matter what's on my dog tags. I'm not Catholic."
And how did this guy know what's on my dog tags. Catholic is stamped on my dogs tags-it was over my objection, when I was processing through Lackland but I had little or no say-so of what went on my dog tags.. What mattered was how did this person know that it's labeled Catholic on my dog tags? And who is he? Us airmen in the barracks are all of the ages eighteen and nineteen. This guy, this questioner is in his late twenties or early thirties. He's an older guy. He's got to be a staff-sergeant or something. Us airmen of the barracks are all or mostly airmen third class, E-2. This guy is an E-5 or something. Then I accused him and that really pissed him off. I said ...
"Who are you? You don't belong in this barracks. You come in here and start trouble."
Yes that pissed him off and he left in a huff. And that quieted down the discussion. But the trouble would come back to me big time. That bastard talked to the "barracks chief" who was a new barracks chief at the time. A cross trainee named Barth. Barth chewed my ass up one end and down the other. And that wasn't the end of it. I was placed on KP which was almost unheard of. KP on the weekends. Two weekends. I was on the shit list. Just because I said I wasn't Catholic. Fuck the Catholic religion. Fuck that Catholic shit.
You see people, that was a catholic bastard. A catholic bastard who came into the barracks I was in and tried to put me on the spot. Tried to identify me as being Catholic and the next question would have been why hadn't I been to base chapel for Catholic services. But I was trying not to be Catholic, but the Catholics wouldn't let me be not Catholic. That's the way it works. That's the way a catholic curse works. And the resulting trouble that was caused to me. It was Catholic shit.
