Here's Where I Took My AF Tech School... So Sad...

[High_Plains_Drifter]

... in the winter of 1979-80, Chanute AFB, Rantoul, ILL. White Hall... what it looked like right before they tore it down... makes me feel 100 years old...

https://vimeo.com/94426681?ref=fb-share&1

[Elessar]

Dad was at Chanute when I was a very wee lad.

[Gunny]

My father retired at Chanute.

If you look at Homestead AFB housing (or where it WAS) you can still see the shadows on the ground where our houses used to be.

[Elessar]

My father retired at Chanute.

If you look at Homestead AFB housing (or where it WAS) you can still see the shadows on the ground where our houses used to be.

Dad was at Homestead too, before I was born.

We joked at Mom's funeral that Dad told the tale of her shooting an alligator in the back yard...
Then calling for help! Dead gator!

[LongTermGuy]

....Love the pic`s It is sad memories ...But I Love old abandoned places and checking them out..

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Wow... other Chanute stories, cool.

Yeah I volunteered to wax and buff the barracks floors each day after everyone else left to go MARCH to school, in the COLD, and SNOW. Meanwhile, I got a system down where I could buff the floors spit shined in nothing flat, so afterwards I could go over to the TDY barracks and have a nice breakfast, and then RIDE to school in a buddy's truck that I had met, a nice WARM truck. I had a lot of people ask me if I wanted to let them do the floor buffing each morning to which I always replied, NOT A CHANCE. I got a "STRAGGLE PASS" too that dismissed me from marching.

They tell you NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING, but, sometimes it works out to your advantage.

Chanute was just a short bus ride up to my home in WI, and the bus would pick you up and drop you off right on base. I got to go home for Christmas and New Years. I was glad to leave Chanute though when tech school was over. Went home for about a week then off to Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV. Ya, and I had orders for Shaw AFB right up until about 2 weeks before graduation, then they changed them to Nellis. We had a "base trading" day for people that have the same job... I didn't even go... and I still had people asking to trade me for Nellis. NOT A CHANCE again... ;)

[Gunny]

Wow... other Chanute stories, cool.

Yeah I volunteered to wax and buff the barracks floors each day after everyone else left to go MARCH to school, in the COLD, and SNOW. Meanwhile, I got a system down where I could buff the floors spit shined in nothing flat, so afterwards I could go over to the TDY barracks and have a nice breakfast, and then RIDE to school in a buddy's truck that I had met, a nice WARM truck. I had a lot of people ask me if I wanted to let them do the floor buffing each morning to which I always replied, NOT A CHANCE. I got a "STRAGGLE PASS" too that dismissed me from marching.

They tell you NEVER VOLUNTEER FOR ANYTHING, but, sometimes it works out to your advantage.

Chanute was just a short bus ride up to my home in WI, and the bus would pick you up and drop you off right on base. I got to go home for Christmas and New Years. I was glad to leave Chanute though when tech school was over. Went home for about a week then off to Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, NV. Ya, and I had orders for Shaw AFB right up until about 2 weeks before graduation, then they changed them to Nellis. We had a "base trading" day for people that have the same job... I didn't even go... and I still had people asking to trade me for Nellis. NOT A CHANCE again... ;)I was out of the house and ESPECIALLY my dad's house by the time he went to Chanute. I went back to Miami when he went to Keflavik. No F-ing way was I going there even if they'd let me. I think it was a unaccompanied post.

We were forever going to Monterey, CA and San Angelo, TX. My dad was a linguist so he kept getting orders back to DLI. Then he had a course in Crystal City, in Arlington, VA,Why we lived in DC beats the Hell out of me.

When I get unlazy and want to focus, there are pics of Iraklion Air Station on the net of how it looked when we were there, and the graffiti'd up ghost town it is now. That was kind of sad. The pics focus more on the AF there, naturally. Not Dependents so I recognized very little except the main gate and the NCO club. There were no pics of housing.

Speaking of, the housing we lived in on the Presidio of Monterey in 66 and 72 got bulldozed flat too. NOTHING on Lackland is what it was when I was a kid except the commissary and BX. Why that, who knows :laugh:

Oddly, I only lived on base as a Marine when I was a boot living in the barracks. Once I got married I never did. The ex and I were both active duty and we made out better living off base. So we thought anyway. Closest I came was I had gotten assigned a house in Wire Mountain (SNCO housing) on Camp Pendleton but decided to retire the next month so had to turn it down and pull my name.

[Black Diamond]

Dad was at Homestead too, before I was born.We joked at Mom's funeral that Dad told the tale of her shooting an alligator in the back yard...Then calling for help! Dead gator!
everglades.....

[Gunny]

everglades.....Right across US1 back then :)

[Gunny]

everglades.....Oh yeah .... South Fl is criss-crossed with canals to drain the land. There are canals on the base. One big one goes to Phantom Lake, southern part of base, where the AF training area was. It was like going back in time going down that canal to the lake. It was SWAMP.

Gators freely use those canals to get around, and if they decide to get out in your yard, hope you got a tree fort :laugh:

[Gunny]

High_Plains_Drifter

Then:

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11278&stc=1

[Gunny]

http://www.debatepolicy.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=11279&stc=1

[Gunny]

That ain't me in the "now" pic. That's the AF dude that went back to Iraklion and got someone to take the pic.

[darin]

you are not alone in those feelings. I'm younger than you - however i feel such a sense of loss when places that shaped my history seemingly go extinct. As long as those places exist, its as if I exist. At least a little bit.

[Gunny]

you are not alone in those feelings. I'm younger than you - however i feel such a sense of loss when places that shaped my history seemingly go extinct. As long as those places exist, its as if I exist. At least a little bit.The more I got to looking around, the stranger it got for me. I just didn't feel like digging around trying to post all the pics. One thing I found was a website for military brats. THAT was strange.

I was a military brat, and it IS a different life than most of you know. Even different than being IN the military. The only people I know that I have known all my life is my family. I have no childhood friends. I've "known" people on this board longer than I have anyone in real life. People come and they go or you come and go as a service brat. There one day, gone the next.

I can point to the house on Iraklion where our housing was on an areal map. It's one of the few still standing, and of all the ones, that would have been close to the last I would have picked. I remember a couple of kids' names from there, a face or two, and then we were gone. Never saw them again. On the lists of names I looked at, I saw none I recognized because the memories are from the active duty/parents, not the kids'.

Just one of those "Wonder whatever became of ....?" moments.

I also didn't realize at the time almost all of the commands we were at were Joint Services commands. My father was basically a Cold War eavesdropper. He was a linguist. To this day if you get too close to where he worked on what was then Kelly now part of Lackland AFB the guards carry loaded weapons. It does explain we spent half the time living on Army and Navy bases. He never said what he did. I figured it out after I was an adult based on where we were and who he was assigned to.

If you drive off of Lackland AFB and go east on Military Drive toward "town" (SA), you'll drive right over top of where the house was on E. Kelly AFB where we lived when I was born. :laugh2:

[Elessar]

We were forever going to Monterey, CA and San Angelo, TX. .

My son is doing his Doctorate Internship at the newer VA Hospital/Clinic at was
once Fort Ord.

I was in Monterey for a day while on a familiarization tour. The Group there (now just
a station) is situated in a gorgeous building and grounds.

[Gunny]

My son is doing his Doctorate Internship at the newer VA Hospital/Clinic at was
once Fort Ord.

I was in Monterey for a day while on a familiarization tour. The Group there (now just
a station) is situated in a gorgeous building and grounds.I only lived on Ft Ord once. Housing was NICE.That was in 68-69. 66-67 and 71-72 we lived on the Presidio of Monterey. That housing was basically a huge apartment complex. Walking to and from school was just "wonderful". 45 degrees downhill to school, and 45 degrees uphill home. :laugh: Both those housing areas are gone.

[Elessar]

I only lived on Ft Ord once. Housing was NICE.That was in 68-69. 66-67 and 71-72 we lived on the Presidio of Monterey. That housing was basically a huge apartment complex. Walking to and from school was just "wonderful". 45 degrees downhill to school, and 45 degrees uphill home. :laugh: Both those housing areas are gone.

Virtually all plowed over and under now.

Was your father ever in Plattsbugh NY, Davis-Monthan in Tucson AZ?

[Gunny]

Virtually all plowed over and under now.

Was your father ever in Plattsbugh NY, Davis-Monthan in Tucson AZ?Neither place. Funny, we moved a lot, but mostly to the same general areas. Monterey, CA, San ANgelo & San Antonio, TX, Key West and Miami, DC, Eastern Med. we lived on the Marmara Sea in Turkey and Crete, in Greece which for radio activity are pretty close. He was at Keflavik Iceland which was an extension of his commnd at Cardsound Key (Miami)' All of those are Security Service, Linguist/code related bases.

Kansas and IL were the odd men out. Kansas he was with SAC, and I don't know about IL. I didn't ever live with him there.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Neither place. Funny, we moved a lot, but mostly to the same general areas. Monterey, CA, San ANgelo & San Antonio, TX, Key West and Miami, DC, Eastern Med. we lived on the Marmara Sea in Turkey and Crete, in Greece which for radio activity are pretty close. He was at Keflavik Iceland which was an extension of his commnd at Cardsound Key (Miami)' All of those are Security Service, Linguist/code related bases.

Kansas and IL were the odd men out. Kansas he was with SAC, and I don't know about IL. I didn't ever live with him there.
Like you @Gunny (http://www.debatepolicy.com/member.php?u=30), I was married when I joined the AF, so I never spent much time living in the barracks. I was divorcing the woman and never had her with me but that didn't matter. I only lived in the barracks at Nellis AFB for a couple months. I didn't know I could move off base as an AIC until I got to talking to someone who was living off base. He said if you're married you can move off base, so I did. Got Variable Housing Allowance, Basic Allowance for Quarters and Basic Allowance for Sustenance. Course I got a roommate but still, we had a great apartment in Vegas, even had a wet bar. That roommate, by the way, is dead now. Tim Lidstrand from Omaha. Called him up one day and his mother answered and said Tim is no longer with us. I did not know he was bipolar, but I did know he liked to drink. Well, between the bipolar and boozing he shot himself one night... sad. Tim was good people. I was B shop, he was A shop, radar, radio, IFF, that stuff, coded the jets every morning with a new IFF code.

[Gunny]

Like you @Gunny (http://www.debatepolicy.com/member.php?u=30), I was married when I joined the AF, so I never spent much time living in the barracks. I was divorcing the woman and never had her with me but that didn't matter. I only lived in the barracks at Nellis AFB for a couple months. I didn't know I could move off base as an AIC until I got to talking to someone who was living off base. He said if you're married you can move off base, so I did. Got Variable Housing Allowance, Basic Allowance for Quarters and Basic Allowance for Sustenance. Course I got a roommate but still, we had a great apartment in Vegas, even had a wet bar. That roommate, by the way, is dead now. Tim Lidstrand from Omaha. Called him up one day and his mother answered and said Tim is no longer with us. I did not know he was bipolar, but I did know he liked to drink. Well, between the bipolar and boozing he shot himself one night... sad. Tim was good people. I was B shop, he was A shop, radar, radio, IFF, that stuff, coded the jets every morning with a new IFF code.My first roommate got blown up in Beirut. I never got too close to any Marines much after that. He was also my "bunkie" in boot camp.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

My first roommate got blown up in Beirut. I never got too close to any Marines much after that. He was also my "bunkie" in boot camp.
You mean when that Marine barracks got bombed?

We were put on alert after that. We had to be ready to mobilize within an hour. We almost went over there. I was ready. Hell I wanted to see our F-16's in action, but we had this one tall drink of water troop in our shop that SPLIT. Scared him so bad he packed up his wife and kids and DESERTED... unreal... what the hell do these people think they're getting into when they join the MILITARY... HELLO... THE MILITARY... WE FIGHT WARS... we had a guy jump out of the barracks second story window one night in basic too, broke his ankle. Got an Article 15 and a dishonorable discharge. Pussies... no matter what... chicken shit pussies.

[Gunny]

You mean when that Marine barracks got bombed?

We were put on alert after that. We had to be ready to mobilize within an hour. We almost went over there. I was ready. Hell I wanted to see our F-16's in action, but we had this one tall drink of water troop in our shop that SPLIT. Scared him so bad he packed up his wife and kids and DESERTED... unreal... what the hell do these people think they're getting into when they join the MILITARY... HELLO... THE MILITARY... WE FIGHT WARS... we had a guy jump out of the barracks second story window one night in basic too, broke his ankle. Got an Article 15 and a dishonorable discharge. Pussies... no matter what... chicken shit pussies.Yeah, I knew a couple of Marines that died in Beirut when they blew up the barracks.

We were sort of on alert as a just in case. I was in III MEF at the time. Okinawa. Our priority there was Asia-namely-North Korea. II MEF out of Lejeune was the ones in Beirut at the time. I don't know which MEU it was. They were called MAF and MAU then. The "A" for "amphibous" got changed back to "E" for "expeditonary" around 87 or so. Which is weird because during Desert Storm they combined I and II MEF into I MEF, then the ME became I MEF's after the war was over and we did all the ME pumps to the Arabia Gulf. II MEF went back to Atlantic and Med duty.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

Yeah, I knew a couple of Marines that died in Beirut when they blew up the barracks.

We were sort of on alert as a just in case. I was in III MEF at the time. Okinawa. Our priority there was Asia-namely-North Korea. II MEF out of Lejeune was the ones in Beirut at the time. I don't know which MEU it was. They were called MAF and MAU then. The "A" for "amphibous" got changed back to "E" for "expeditonary" around 87 or so. Which is weird because during Desert Storm they combined I and II MEF into I MEF, then the ME became I MEF's after the war was over and we did all the ME pumps to the Arabia Gulf. II MEF went back to Atlantic and Med duty.
Yeah they've changed so much in the AF since I got out, all I can talk about is how it USED to be. I was still wearing olive drab when I got out in '87. The changed the MSgt stripes to one up and five down instead of all six down, hanging or whatever, and now I believe the AF wears the same BDU's as the Army and Marines.