Bob McCarty Writes

I used to be an Air Force officer and, sometimes, you know, we military guys have a hard time letting go of the past. That’s what this post is about.

It all started in 1985. Fresh out of college, I paid a visit to an Air Force recruiting office near campus. A couple of weeks later, I was offered a chance to become an Air Force officer. The only hitch: I’d have to make it through Air Force Officers Training School – 90 days and nights of rigorous academic, physical and mental conditioning in the sweltering heat of a San Antonio summer.

When people ask me what it was like at OTS, I tell them it was similar in many ways to the movie, An Officer and a Gentlemen, except for the fact that it was the Air Force and not the Navy. For instance:

• In the movie, a lot more officer candidates started the course than finished it. The same was true in real life. Nearly 900 folks started the course, but only 300 finished. I was one of them.

• In the movie, the star got married soon after earning his commission. In real life, I got married only three days after earning my commission.

• In the movie, the officer candidates arrived at the school, looking like slobs and, when they left, they were lean-mean fighting machines. In real life, the same thing happened. Though I was in decent shape upon arrival, I left that place in the shape my soon-to-be bride described as “buff” – V-shaped chest, six-pack abs. In short, I was a six-foot two-inch, 175-pound tower of twisted steel and sex appeal.

Today, I’ve changed a bit. The v-shape has turned upside down; my six pack is now a case; my weight is closer to 200 pounds; and the twisted steel is now recycled aluminum, very pliable. Enough about that, though. Let’s move on.

While in the Air Force, I served as a public affairs officer. On any given day, I might find myself serving as a local spokesperson on a major Air Force issue, spinning the news in favor of my employer, responding to questions from members of the news media, meeting with local VIPs or bending an elbow with a group of fighter pilots. Or I might be managing a crisis.

For instance, one night I received a call, letting me know that one of the senior officers on our base was arrested for propositioning an undercover police officer in the red-light district of town. Let me be more specific: a male senior officer was arrested for propositioning a male police officer in the red-light district of town. True story! To the astonishment of everyone “in the know” about the incident, the senior officer in question accepted an offer of early retirement and had all of his belongings moved off the base before sunrise the next day.

On any given day, I might find myself talking with people who were unhappy with the Air Force because our jets were flying too low and causing their cattle to stop giving milk – true story! Or I could find myself fielding questions from people who wanted to know whether or not our inter-continental ballistic missiles – also known as ICBMs – carried nuclear warheads – duh! – to which I had to reply: “I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear warheads aboard the Titan II ICBMs assigned to the 381st Strategic Missile Wing.” But, it seemed, everyone knew!

Back in the spring of 1987, a group of really active anti-nuclear protesters caused some excitement for me. For several weekends in a row, they rallied outside the two main entrance gates at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita. Now, this was during the Cold War, you remember and McConnell was part of Strategic Air Command – the guys capable of delivering nukes anywhere in the world faster than FedEx.

Rather than have their protests continue forever, I convinced the people in charge – not including the colonel who retired in the middle of the night by the way – that we should stage a little public relations effort. That effort centered around a game of softball.

The protester group’s leaders agreed to play us early on a Saturday afternoon, and I began rounding up the biggest and baddest bunch of all-American-looking softball players I could find on the base. Plus, I arranged for food and drinks – a real picnic, you know – and invited as many members of the local news media as I could get to cover the event.

We promoted the event as a getting-to-know-you activity and couched everything under the umbrella statement: “We very much believe in and respect the first amendment rights of these people to stage their peaceful protests.” The media ate it up, hook line and sinker. Unfortunately, they couldn’t stay for the entire game, what with deadlines and being short-staffed on a Saturday. But that was okay with us. The story that aired portrayed Air Force personnel in a positive light.

What the story failed to mention was the outcome of the game, and that was okay with us. We had drubbed the peaceniks 34-0. Best of all, after the game, I don’t remember the protesters ever showing up outside the base again while I was there.

Next to that of being a pilot – which I wasn’t – my job was probably the best job in the Air Force. After all, in addition to Wichita, Kansas, my job took me to many exotic places around the world – places like Okinawa, Japan; Australia’s Northern Territory; the Republics of Korea and the Philippines; and, last but not least, Valdosta, Georgia.

Okay, Valdosta wasn’t very exotic, but it was unique, and I left there with some unforgettable memories. Probably the greatest Valdosta memory coincides with the opportunity I had to meet and work with Brian Williams in the spring of 1991.

You know him today as host of the NBC Nightly News. Back then, however, he was a rising star, working as evening anchor for WCBS, CBS’s flagship TV station in New York City.

On the other hand, I was serving as chief of public affairs for the 347th Tactical Fighter Wing at Valdosta’s Moody Air Force Base. [Note to file: For you trivia buffs, the base is located about 30 minutes downwind from the site where they filmed the swamp scenes in the movie, Deliverance.]

Operation Desert Shield was about to turn into Operation Desert Storm – a.k.a., the first Persian Gulf War – and Mr. Williams wanted to do an up-close-and-personal story about the folks who would soon be flying their F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft into harms way over the skies of Iraq. The folks at the Pentagon sent him to our sleepy little base deep in the heart of South Georgia.

In addition to arranging interviews with fighter pilots and others at the base, we were told to provide Mr. Williams with a ride in the backseat of an F-16. Before anyone rides in the back of a fighter jet, however, he has to have a physical and complete preflight training that includes learning how to get out of the jet in the event of an emergency. Part of that training was something we called “hang and harness” training.

Hang and harness training is just like it sounds. A person hangs from a harness to get an idea of what it feels like to use a parachute. Standing on a platform several feet off the ground, Mr. Williams had a parachute pack strapped on his back and was connected by cables to a mechanical rigging device suspended from the ceiling.

The gear worn by Mr. Williams included two main straps, each of which extended from his shoulder area, down across his chest and under his crotch where they passed by his “family jewels” – one strap on each side – and continued up his back side where they connected with the bottom of the parachute sack.

Despite being told more than once by his Air Force instructors that he should tighten those straps until they were very snug, the anchor-man ignored the advice. When the time came for him to jump from the platform to the ground below, simulating the feel of a real jump, the anchorman’s less-than-snug straps suddenly became snug – and in an oh-so-painful way.

These days, I can’t even watch him on the NBC Nightly News without thinking back to that painful moment which, by the way, he failed to mention when the story aired. Thanks for the memories, Mr. Williams.