I stood out there by myself in front of the airplane for a few minutes, going over everything in my mind and wondering what more mistakes I could make short of getting someone killed. Im not adverse to a little excitement now and then just to spice things up but I had lost two men in the recent past and was still trying to come to terms with that. One of them had been a long time friend of Riley's and he and I both were trying to come to terms over that while Riley's wife, Linda, was trying to help both of us get back on better terms with each other. But if that SOB called me a jinx one more time I was going to do him some serious dirt and stripes be damned.
While fuming away out there, I saw the shiniest automobile I had ever seen coming up the ramp. It looked like about a 46 or 47 Mercury, lots of chrome and paint gleaming and reflecting sunbeams. It was a Staff car because it had little flags flying from each front fender.
I ran back over to join the other guys. I noticed old Mustache frantically trying to get his El Sombrero guntoters in some kind of formation there in front of the airplane. Stomp was trying to figure out what was happening and not wonting there to be more trouble, was cooperating as much as possible considering the language problem. Mustache was wonting all of us Americans to line up too so Stomp was lining us up there as the flag officers car creeped closer. Our Co-pilot, who seemed to have had a lot more formal military education than the rest of us said we should salute as the car passed by just to show proper military respect. So we were just in the middle of doing that when the car stopped. That kind of screwed up our smooth functioning formation Not knowing the proper protocol, I glanced down toward the more politically correct co-pilot and saw that he had dropped his salute so I dropped mine but some of the guys had already dropped theirs and were in the process of re-loading just as I was un-loading mine. This confused those among us who were looking for their A$$hole sargeant to set an example so the result was a line of guys that looked like they were either swatting flies or directing a band to the tune of America the Beautiful.
Squeaky had this odd way of saluting where he was waving his hand, thankfully it was the right one, around in the general direction of his head with his thumb sticking straight out and I was afraid he would stab himself in the eye. Then he would snap his hand down beside his leg so hard it threw him off balance and he would stagger backward a step then have to jump back up into line. I watched him go thru this maneuver about 3 times out of the corner of my eye and then passed the word downline for Squeaky to cool it.
Us air force types who work on airplanes dont get a chance to practice and remember all these formation and saluting skills often and we know we are not very good at it but at least we can laugh at ourselfs about it. Thats just what we were doing when the door popped open on the staff car. The sound of laughter died down as some kind of El Sombreroian Officer stepped out of the car. He had medals from about his navel up and over his left shoulder. The way it works in those banana republic countries is they have a revolution about every two years. Some generals are executed and some survive. Those that survive are given an extra set of medals to commemorate the occassion. This guy in front of us must have survived about ten purges so far.
Two more officers jumped out of the car and started giving conflicting orders to poor old Mustache which confused things all the more. Finally one of them who spoke good english bluntly informed Stomp that they were there to "inspect" us and wonted to see everything we had on our persons. It was plainly intimidation, making us ugly americans pay for supplying guerillas in their country. Stomp was red faced and bug eyed and I didnt know him well enough to know what his snapping point was but he looked like he was bleeding internally over the humiliation of ordering us to comply with this insult. I was feeling his pain and to protect him from having to come right out and tell us to comply, to feel the pain of having to put it into actual words, I knelt down and started dumping all my pocket trash on the ground. Riley was about two men down from me and I looked up at him and said, "Riley, please." And to my surprise he just dropped to his knees and unloaded his pocket trash and that broke the tension and everyone else started complying.
Tsgt Akers, our Radio tech, on my left was mumbling something about international law and some court in the Hague and I told him to shut up, that Stomp had enough problems without someone doing the guardhouse lawyer gig. Then Riley got to complimenting Jensen, the hydraulic tech, on his cute li'l ol pocket knife and they got to trying to work out a trade and that tickled me so I punched Akers in the ribs and said lets you and me do some trading and pass the word on down the line. Everyone caught on quick and when those two officers passed down the line in front of us we were sounding like a bunch of old ladies at a quilting bee. There was some mighty haggling going on and complaints of someone being cheated, and coins being flipped in the air and yes.....I am ashamed to admit it but there was outright gambling taking place.
After the inspection party left Major Jackson was going around hugging everybody and slapping them on the back and saying, "that was just great, guys, just great." Later, when he and I were off to the side though, it was still eating on him and he said if he were a bomber pilot and had a load of bombs he would know right where to put them.
It was hot and steamy and when Mustache finally got us some water out there, we didnt ask if it had any of that Montezuma's revenge in it, we just guzzled it. All except Squeaky who damanded a coke but didnt get one.
An old P-51 mustang of WW11 vintage lined up on the end of the runway. We probably gave it to El Sombrero after WW11. And it was probably the bird and the pilot that shot up and forced down our old C-123. They have a nice throaty sound to them and those buggers can get somewhere between 300 to 400 miles an hour. Really a beautiful and mean looking airplane. It took off and a few minutes later came back over the field doing an 8 point roll as neat as I have ever seen it done. Jackson and our co-pilot were impressed. Then he made another pass low to the ground and upside down and we really were impressed. Some of us were clapping and old Mustache and the gun toters were smiling real big because we were showing our appreciation for their smartaxxed pilot. Then the mustang cirled low out of sight behind our old bird.
Riley and the others were still working on the right hand engine, with the big old cowling propped up above it when the buzz of the mustang got louder and suddenly ripped right across the top of us with a godawful roar and blast of air. I remember blinking and trying to step backwards and tripped and set right on my butt. Riley damned near got blowed off his engine stand and could have been de-capitated by the big old slab of engine cowling if it had blown down. He was looking up and pointing and yelling, "That SOB is going to do it again!"
Sure enough the mustang was making a big loop over the top of us to get into position for another pass. I pounded up the steps of the engine stand to try and help them get the Engine cowling down but was just in the way as Riley and another guy were working frantically. They got it down just before the second pass. Wham! that sucker blasted us again and it was really a jolt up on that maintenance stand.
That mustang pilot had to know the exact dimension of his airplane. Otherwise, his left wing would have sheared off the tail of our airplane and his propeller would have been chewing into the outer section of its right wing.
The mustang was looped upside down up over us for another pass. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a pleasure to watch such beautiful precision flying. Riley started screaming for everyone to throw rocks, wrench's, sockets, anything we could lay our hands on, into the air on the next pass and we would "shrapnel" that baxtard right out of the air. The Major was stomping around down on the ground saying, "Negative, Negative to that, dont nobody throw anything."
Before I realized it Riley had slithered up over the engine cowling and was up on the wing and was standing up there with his arms raised and was shooting the bird with both hands to the sky, the universe, and face to face with a P-51 mustang. In the back of my mind, my own personal demon was screaming "Oh God no, Linda, Im losing him." And then I heard the mustang throttle back and looked up to see him pass with a softer whoosh at least a hundred feet above us.
I slid back down onto the stand. My legs felt too week to stand and I sat down on the top step.
Riley strutted around up on the wing for a few seconds, shooting a final bird at the mustang as it buzzed off in the distance. "Alright, Alright," he yelled at us lowly human beings at a lower level than himself, "lets pop the peeling on this old greasy engine and get to work. We cant set around enjoying ourself all day." Then he jumped down into the maintenance stand and just had to add, "If we can get old Sgt A$$hole here to move his skinny, unproductive butt out of the way, us working troops will finish this little old job."
While fuming away out there, I saw the shiniest automobile I had ever seen coming up the ramp. It looked like about a 46 or 47 Mercury, lots of chrome and paint gleaming and reflecting sunbeams. It was a Staff car because it had little flags flying from each front fender.
I ran back over to join the other guys. I noticed old Mustache frantically trying to get his El Sombrero guntoters in some kind of formation there in front of the airplane. Stomp was trying to figure out what was happening and not wonting there to be more trouble, was cooperating as much as possible considering the language problem. Mustache was wonting all of us Americans to line up too so Stomp was lining us up there as the flag officers car creeped closer. Our Co-pilot, who seemed to have had a lot more formal military education than the rest of us said we should salute as the car passed by just to show proper military respect. So we were just in the middle of doing that when the car stopped. That kind of screwed up our smooth functioning formation Not knowing the proper protocol, I glanced down toward the more politically correct co-pilot and saw that he had dropped his salute so I dropped mine but some of the guys had already dropped theirs and were in the process of re-loading just as I was un-loading mine. This confused those among us who were looking for their A$$hole sargeant to set an example so the result was a line of guys that looked like they were either swatting flies or directing a band to the tune of America the Beautiful.
Squeaky had this odd way of saluting where he was waving his hand, thankfully it was the right one, around in the general direction of his head with his thumb sticking straight out and I was afraid he would stab himself in the eye. Then he would snap his hand down beside his leg so hard it threw him off balance and he would stagger backward a step then have to jump back up into line. I watched him go thru this maneuver about 3 times out of the corner of my eye and then passed the word downline for Squeaky to cool it.
Us air force types who work on airplanes dont get a chance to practice and remember all these formation and saluting skills often and we know we are not very good at it but at least we can laugh at ourselfs about it. Thats just what we were doing when the door popped open on the staff car. The sound of laughter died down as some kind of El Sombreroian Officer stepped out of the car. He had medals from about his navel up and over his left shoulder. The way it works in those banana republic countries is they have a revolution about every two years. Some generals are executed and some survive. Those that survive are given an extra set of medals to commemorate the occassion. This guy in front of us must have survived about ten purges so far.
Two more officers jumped out of the car and started giving conflicting orders to poor old Mustache which confused things all the more. Finally one of them who spoke good english bluntly informed Stomp that they were there to "inspect" us and wonted to see everything we had on our persons. It was plainly intimidation, making us ugly americans pay for supplying guerillas in their country. Stomp was red faced and bug eyed and I didnt know him well enough to know what his snapping point was but he looked like he was bleeding internally over the humiliation of ordering us to comply with this insult. I was feeling his pain and to protect him from having to come right out and tell us to comply, to feel the pain of having to put it into actual words, I knelt down and started dumping all my pocket trash on the ground. Riley was about two men down from me and I looked up at him and said, "Riley, please." And to my surprise he just dropped to his knees and unloaded his pocket trash and that broke the tension and everyone else started complying.
Tsgt Akers, our Radio tech, on my left was mumbling something about international law and some court in the Hague and I told him to shut up, that Stomp had enough problems without someone doing the guardhouse lawyer gig. Then Riley got to complimenting Jensen, the hydraulic tech, on his cute li'l ol pocket knife and they got to trying to work out a trade and that tickled me so I punched Akers in the ribs and said lets you and me do some trading and pass the word on down the line. Everyone caught on quick and when those two officers passed down the line in front of us we were sounding like a bunch of old ladies at a quilting bee. There was some mighty haggling going on and complaints of someone being cheated, and coins being flipped in the air and yes.....I am ashamed to admit it but there was outright gambling taking place.
After the inspection party left Major Jackson was going around hugging everybody and slapping them on the back and saying, "that was just great, guys, just great." Later, when he and I were off to the side though, it was still eating on him and he said if he were a bomber pilot and had a load of bombs he would know right where to put them.
It was hot and steamy and when Mustache finally got us some water out there, we didnt ask if it had any of that Montezuma's revenge in it, we just guzzled it. All except Squeaky who damanded a coke but didnt get one.
An old P-51 mustang of WW11 vintage lined up on the end of the runway. We probably gave it to El Sombrero after WW11. And it was probably the bird and the pilot that shot up and forced down our old C-123. They have a nice throaty sound to them and those buggers can get somewhere between 300 to 400 miles an hour. Really a beautiful and mean looking airplane. It took off and a few minutes later came back over the field doing an 8 point roll as neat as I have ever seen it done. Jackson and our co-pilot were impressed. Then he made another pass low to the ground and upside down and we really were impressed. Some of us were clapping and old Mustache and the gun toters were smiling real big because we were showing our appreciation for their smartaxxed pilot. Then the mustang cirled low out of sight behind our old bird.
Riley and the others were still working on the right hand engine, with the big old cowling propped up above it when the buzz of the mustang got louder and suddenly ripped right across the top of us with a godawful roar and blast of air. I remember blinking and trying to step backwards and tripped and set right on my butt. Riley damned near got blowed off his engine stand and could have been de-capitated by the big old slab of engine cowling if it had blown down. He was looking up and pointing and yelling, "That SOB is going to do it again!"
Sure enough the mustang was making a big loop over the top of us to get into position for another pass. I pounded up the steps of the engine stand to try and help them get the Engine cowling down but was just in the way as Riley and another guy were working frantically. They got it down just before the second pass. Wham! that sucker blasted us again and it was really a jolt up on that maintenance stand.
That mustang pilot had to know the exact dimension of his airplane. Otherwise, his left wing would have sheared off the tail of our airplane and his propeller would have been chewing into the outer section of its right wing.
The mustang was looped upside down up over us for another pass. Under any other circumstances, it would have been a pleasure to watch such beautiful precision flying. Riley started screaming for everyone to throw rocks, wrench's, sockets, anything we could lay our hands on, into the air on the next pass and we would "shrapnel" that baxtard right out of the air. The Major was stomping around down on the ground saying, "Negative, Negative to that, dont nobody throw anything."
Before I realized it Riley had slithered up over the engine cowling and was up on the wing and was standing up there with his arms raised and was shooting the bird with both hands to the sky, the universe, and face to face with a P-51 mustang. In the back of my mind, my own personal demon was screaming "Oh God no, Linda, Im losing him." And then I heard the mustang throttle back and looked up to see him pass with a softer whoosh at least a hundred feet above us.
I slid back down onto the stand. My legs felt too week to stand and I sat down on the top step.
Riley strutted around up on the wing for a few seconds, shooting a final bird at the mustang as it buzzed off in the distance. "Alright, Alright," he yelled at us lowly human beings at a lower level than himself, "lets pop the peeling on this old greasy engine and get to work. We cant set around enjoying ourself all day." Then he jumped down into the maintenance stand and just had to add, "If we can get old Sgt A$$hole here to move his skinny, unproductive butt out of the way, us working troops will finish this little old job."
