Thank You List, Part V...

continues at Homestead AFB, now defunct.  It was destroyed by a hurricane and what parts are in use today aren't active duty Air Force.  I realized I'd left out some people who were influential in my life and deserved mention before moving on to my next duty station.

There was a young female airman who came to work in my office whose name I won't mention.  I found myself in the role that "Fast Eddie" had been before, the teacher rather than the student.  She was a good student too.  But I learned a lot more from her than just how to be a good student.  She and a good female friend of hers moved off-base.  I thought they were just good friends.  I didn't realize how good until I learned that their apartment had only one bed and both slept in it.  In those days there was no policy of "don't ask, don't tell".  If someone was discovered engaging in any same-sex sexual relationship, they were booted out of the service with great haste.  She taught me that the gender preference of people isn't important.  The person is important.

Then there was MSgt Alexander Gonzalez-Rojas, a Cuban immigrant who was the first sergeant of the unit during my last few months there.  He seemed to be an outstanding NCO at first, a good leader who cared about his troops.  Then I learned just how two-faced a person can actually be.  I was a young E-4 Senior Airman who was already on the promotion list for E-5.  As a result, he came to me and told me he wanted to add me to the Charge of Quarters roster, a job only done by E-4 Sergeants and above.  He said that "in my mind, you're already an NCO".  I agreed with the understanding that if I was going to be doing NCO work and held to NCO standards, I wanted just one of the privileges.  To be excused from menial details like mowing lawns, picking weeds and so on.  He said that was his intent all along.

Until we were getting the barracks ready for an inspection and he felt he didn't have enough hands working.  He insisted I go get into my fatigues and spend the day mowing lawns, picking weeds and the like.  I was scheduled for Charge of Quarters that night and said that if I was going to be treated like an Airman, I couldn't do the CQ duty that night.  He went ballistic and got the commander to give me a direct order to perform both duties.  From MSgt Gonzalez-Rojas, I learned that no matter how awesome someone might seem, they may still turn out to be an untrustworthy asshole.  Thanks for the lesson.

I was good friends with a certain SSgt who worked in the Wing's training unit.  He maintained training records on physical fitness training and marksmanship qualifications.  He was a nice guy and was doing well at Homestead until the night he was caught trying to sell 88 pounds of marijuana to an undercover cop.  He compounded his error by claiming to have been an undercover military investigator involved in a sting operation, and it got even worse when the Miami Herald labelled him as a "staff officer" instead of as a "staff sergeant".  From him I learned that you don't do the crime if you can't do the time.  I was never inclined toward illegal activities anyway.

I had a roommate who I'll only refer to as "M".  We were really good friends until he got tired of my playing my stereo (everything in the room except the beds and dressers was mine, the TV, stereo, refrigerator, everything which he used freely) in the mornings while I showered.  One morning he got up and disconnected my stereo while I was showering.  We got into an altercation and after he shoved me, I hit him.  Twice.  He hit the floor.  Fortunately, the aforementioned Hollie W. Meadows intervened, got M out of my room later that morning and made sure nothing bad happened to me.  M taught me that it isn't worth getting into a physical altercation over small stuff.

The Fighter Wing was having trouble making its sortie goals and a new commander was installed to fix the problem.  William A. Gorton was a full colonel sent down from our major command headquarters to take command.  His first order was that a sign be built near the traffic light (there was only one traffic light on base) that would be used to list the monthly sortie goal and how we were doing on a day by day basis.  Then he spoke on the subject and told the entire base population that from now on, when the monthly sortie goal was met before the last weekend of the month, we would all get Friday off.  But if the monthly sortie goal wasn't met by then, then not just the pilots and maintenance troops would work that weekend, we would all work.

We met our sortie goal nine or ten consecutive months after that.  The Personnel office and the Finance office reorganized, to move pilots and maintanance people to the front of lines.  Everyone did what they could to get those people back out onto the flightline and flying sorties.  It was brilliant.  Colonel Gorton retired as a Major General and taught me that if you clearly identify the goal and incentivize the people, they will make it happen.  Thanks for that priceless lesson.

Then there was his successor, Colonel Eugene Fischer.  My first encounter with him was when he was just Director of Operations, although still a full Colonel.  We were performing the annual fitness test (not much of a test in those days, run 1.5 miles in 16 minutes or walk 3 miles in 39 minutes) and he was the very last one to have not done it.  I called his office to try to get his assistant to schedule him and he took the call himself.  We had to be done by first thing on a Monday morning and it was Thursday.  He asked me if there were any chance of doing it on Saturday morning, because he was fully booked on Friday.  Saturday was an off-day for me, but I volunteered to come in on Saturday and administer the test to him.

He showed up on-time, with his wife, and they walked the three miles together.  Then he thanked me profusely for giving up my time off to make his life easier and left.  I forgot all about it.  Until months later, when I was about to meet the promotion board that would consider me for a "below-the-zone" (mil-speak for early) promotion.  He was the board president and after I had reported in, he stopped the proceedings and said "just so you know how hard-core this young airman is, he made me do my annual fitness test on a Saturday morning when I'd been late in getting it done.  He's a star".  Needless to say I was promoted by the board, although it did help that during the questions they threw at me, I was the first of 59 candidates to know the right answer to one specific question.  To this day however, I suspect it was the combination of what Colonel Fischer said, and getting that question right, that garnered me my early promotion.  Colonel Fischer was my CO later on as a Major General and he made Lt. General before retiring.  He's gone now, but he was a fine officer who taught me several things.  Most importantly, when you do things for others freely, they will come back to benefit you in many, many ways.  Thank you General Fischer.  RIP.

There are more from Homestead, but those are the important ones.  Part VI of my list takes us 9,000 miles to the West, to Andersen Air Base on Guam.