This past Sunday, Ann, the Music Director where I attend church included a short video that expressed thanks to the veterans of our country. This touched my heart, as it has always done in the six decades since my active duty time in the United States Air Force (1954-58). And, as it has done time after time in those years, it has given me pause to reflect on my enlistment time. Just what had I done worthy of thanks?
I expressed this reservation to Ann, and further explained that it was because I’d served at a time when our world was relatively quiet. “The Korean conflict had hit a pause and we’d not yet heard of Viet Nam. I was trained as a gunner, but there were no hostile situations going on. Therefore, while I did lots of gunnery stuff, it was all practice.”
“Isn’t that important?” she asked.
It certainly was, but before I could express agreement, she added, “What were your days like? This practice. What did you do?”
Her question prompted thought, which led to the following article as an answer:
Another Day at the Office
Sgt. Dipper, this night’s Charge of Quarters (CQ), slipped into my barracks room at 0145, precisely the time I'd logged on the Wake-Up-Call List the previous evening. Dip, as most of us called him, was different. He was likeable enough, but he was also shy. And when around someone new, he stuttered. To his credit, he was a career airman and a stickler for duty. Even so, his first name was Vincent, so it was a given that some of the troops called him VD.
He hated that.
I stifled any thought of actual communication with Dip, disparaging or otherwise, and simply conveyed my wakeful state with a nod. Polanski, my roommate, rolled in his sleep and then continued his sonata of two-tone snoring. Dip's departure, vanishing like an apparition, mirrored the stealth of his arrival. I’d long thought that “Spook” would have made a better nickname for him. Hmm. Could spooks get VD? This thought was still bouncing in mind as I scooped up my toilet gear and headed for the latrine.
Steam hung like low-level clouds in the communal bath. One airman held reign on the throne; another was engaged in gunnery practice at the urinal. Gary and Roland, two of my crew-mates, were grumbling about predawn takeoffs as they shaved by rote before mirrors dripping with condensation. I added my thoughts, but my anger wasn’t aimed at our takeoff time; it was that this weekend flight had robbed me of time I’d wanted to spend with Rhonda, a skiing instructor I’d met on the slopes of Mt. Spokane. Our muttering continued, unabated, until we each completed our usual pre-duty routine. None of it, of course, changed our takeoff time.
Clean of body, but still foul of mind, we lumbered downstairs. Our route took us through the ground floor Day Room, the military’s version of a normal family’s recreation room. The pool tables, TV sets, lounge chairs, and magazine racks sat quietly in the darkened room. With an unemotional wave to Dip parked behind the CQ’s desk, we then took the stairwell down to the basement tunnel leading past the barrack’s post office and mini PX, and then to the Crew Mess. Officially, this all-night chow hall was for those who caught duty at ungodly hours; unofficially, those who had just straggled back to the base after a night on the town also used the facility. And, on any other Saturday night, I'd have been of the latter camp.
Sunday at an Air Force chow hall was legendary. That is, there was no guessing about the fare, as the menu never varied, even in the wee hours of morning. If it was Sunday, it was an unidentified meat and gravy mix slopped over toast. The military had an elegant name for this bland concoction. Those of us in the grunt brigade also had a few terms of description, none of which we’d dare to repeat within earshot of Mom at the family table.
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The comfortable route from my room to the latrine and then by tunnel to the chow hall had all been within the confines of an enormous complex. Now, standing at the curb outside the mess hall, we shivered against a light flurry of snow and ten-degree temperature while awaiting arrival of the crew bus that would carry us out to the flight line.
Snow was snow, and ten degrees was ten degrees, whether daylight or dark, but it was the principle that counted. As Gary pointed out, "We ain't at war, so why fly in the dark?" Why, indeed. We stomped our boots against the cold, huddled within our parkas, and continued bad-mouthing the duty that had called us here.
An Old Sarge shuffled from the mess hall, coffee in hand and a yawn creasing his jowls. He worked his way behind the wheel of an Air Police jeep and hummed off into the night. The control tower's beacon swept us with rhythmic precision, spraying the bus stop and surrounding landscape with alternating stripes of white and green. Snowfall slacked before a fresh breeze. With a squeal of brakes, and the rattle of a tailpipe, the bus arrived.
Our behemoth waited at her parking spot, a giant among giants strung along the flight line. The squadron roll listed this B-36D as 098; to us, her crew, she was more---much more. She was Miss Blue. We lined up for crew briefing, chutes and safety gear inspection, and then boarded. Preflight took 45 minutes.
Up front, the pilots and engineer cranked and performed run-up tests on each of the ten engines. The bombardier and navigators reviewed and agreed on headings and altitudes required by our flight plan. In our aft gunnery compartment---The Backroom, to use our jargon---with a green light on each of the 20 mm gunnery stations, Gary, Roland, and I settled into a game of seven-card stud.
Minutes later, Capt. Schilling’s voice crackled in my headset. "098 ready to taxi."
"Roger, 098. Taxi to 35 and hold. Wind 330 at 12. Pressure 29.92."
That meant we had a mild, 20-degree crosswind, but Miss Blue had more than enough power to handle it. We stowed the cards, adjusted our chutes, and fastened our seat belts. Snow twirled like a ballerina in the prop wash as we eased from our parking pad and turned onto the taxiway---a dark corridor lined with blue lights beaming from the snowdrifts to guide us to the runway.
We held at the threshold of 35, a runway nearly 2 miles long. In daylight, this ribbon of concrete was an awesome sight. Now, I could see nothing beyond the sweep of our rotating beacon and the snow gleaming in the glare of the landing light affixed to Miss Blue’s left, main-gear truck.
"098 ready for takeoff."
I squirmed in my gunnery blister and bumped the heater outlet up a notch. As we climbed after takeoff, the outside air temp would fall to 50 below zero or more by the time we reached our radar bombing run altitude usually at 30-35,000 feet.
"Roger, 098. Cleared for takeoff."
“Six turning and four burning,” from our flight engineer. This was crew jargon, which simply meant all ten engines---six prop driven and four jets---were performing well and Miss Blue was ready for the task ahead.
With brakes still set, Colonel Flanigan muttered “Balls to the wall,” as he applied full power. The response was deafening, as these engines screamed in concert while producing thousands of horsepower. The fuselage creaked and groaned, and the tail section began a rhythmic, side-to-side movement, much like the seductive sway in the hips of a supermodel strut-walking the runway at a fashion show.
Miss Blue lunged as the brakes were released. At our weight, rollout to liftoff would take about 30 seconds. I counted as we gathered speed. Yellow runway lights blurred as we raced by. The nose lifted, a move that meant rotation was just seconds away. We’d already eaten a third of the runway and were now moving at over 100 MPH. At 30 seconds, and almost airborne, our main-gear trucks gave light kiss to the runway's point-of-no-return strips. This was where we now had to fly or forget it, as there wasn't enough runway left to abort takeoff.
Capt. Schilling, our copilot, made the rotation-speed call out. "One-twenty, one twenty-five, all green for liftoff."
The main trucks lifted, and we melded with the night sky, a feeling of exhilaration I never tired of. Miss Blue was built to fly, and she did it well. Best of all she was ours, our Miss Blue.
As per our mission planning, we'd head for Salt Lake City and make a high-altitude radar-bombing run on a nearby oil refinery. Next bombing target would be a dinner theater near San Francisco. With that done we’d head well out over the Pacific for gunnery practice, and then we’d set course for a Boeing facility near Seattle for our final bombing target practice. If all went well, eighteen hours after our 0400 takeoff, we'd return home and log another day at the office with Miss Blue.
Note: My last flight in a B-36 took place over parts of three days: January 14-16, 1957. I wasn’t aware of it at that time, but this flight of 42 hours and 10 minutes was part of an elaborate display of military propaganda meant to introduce the newest Air Force bomber---the B-52. Shortly after our landing, three B-52s took off and circled the globe in 45 hours and 19 minutes. The difference in our flight time was just over three hours, but while our B-36 covered 7,200 ground miles, the B-52s covered over 24,000. That was over six decades ago, and the B-52 is still in active service today.
Bob Burdick is the author of The Margaret Ellen, Tread Not on Me, and Stories Along The Way, a short-story collection that won the Royal Palm Book Award.
This past Sunday, Ann, the Music Director where I attend church included a short video that expressed thanks to the veterans of our country. This touched my heart, as it has always done in the six decades since my active duty time in the United States Air Force (1954-58). And, as it has done time after time in those years, it has given me pause to reflect on my enlistment time. Just what had I done worthy of thanks?
I expressed this reservation to Ann, and further explained that it was because I’d served at a time when our world was relatively quiet. “The Korean conflict had hit a pause and we’d not yet heard of Viet Nam. I was trained as a gunner, but there were no hostile situations going on. Therefore, while I did lots of gunnery stuff, it was all practice.” 
