Lost and Found Baggage

 Lost and Found Baggage at a military airport wasn't exactly an exciting job, but it sure beat loading and unloading baggage on passenger planes.

We did have quite  few flights in and out of McChord AFB when I first arrived there. We were close to Fort Lewis and saw a lot of draftees being shipped off to Viet Nam. Mostly they were kids not too long out of high school being unwillingly shipped off to war. I wish they all made it back, but I am sure some were seeing there last glimpse of the United States.

650 Miles from Home

 Spring of 1971 and I was off to my first real USAF assignment. I wasn't too fussy about where the Air Force would send me, but it would have been nice to be sent overseas, maybe somewhere in Europe.

The Air Force decided I was needed in the 62nd APS (Aerial Port Squadron) at McChord Air Force Base in Washington state, about 650 miles from home. I was excited about going there, even though it really wasn't the distant overseas location I was hoping for.

My AFSC (Air Force Specialty Code) was 605x0, and that meant I was an Air Passenger Specialist. In other words I'd probably work in a MAC Terminal (military airport). 

After arriving on base and processing in I was assigned to the baggage handling section at the MAC Terminal and I would be part of a crew that loaded and unloaded baggage from flights. It wasn't a glamorous job and the baggage compartments on the planes definitely got hot inside.

We had mainly DC8's going to and coming from Korea and Vietnam, with 727's to Alaska and back. Every now and then we'd have a military plane come through that would release passenger seats.  I did not care to load baggage on C5A's. At that time we had to carry luggage up a tall aluminum ladder when loading baggage on the C5A's.

The baggage section was more or less a first section to be assigned to in that MAC Terminal. If it turned out another section needed a new person they would take one of the newer people from the baggage section. Why the newer people? The newer people would be more likely have more time before they'd be sent off to a new assignment.

I suppose I'd been stationed at McChord a month or so when an opening became available in Lost and Found Baggage and I was transferred to that section.

Basic Training and Tech School

 I had my first plane ride, it was at government expense and brought me to Texas.

Texas was where the USAF put me through basic training and decided what type of job I might be suitable for. I had been hoping to be eligible for something in electronics. Towards the end of basic training our Technical Instructor passed out our orders telling us what our career field would be and where we would go for basic training.

I waited anxiously for my name to be called and when it was finally called I learned I would be something called an air passenger specialist. The TI (Technical Instructor) had no idea what an air passenger specialist was, but he guessed I'd be on flights taking care of passengers.

That sounded great to me. However, his guess was wrong. It turned out that an air passenger specialist's duties are varied, but mainly involve working in military airports.

Air Passenger Specialist school was in Texas, and it was a six week course. 

I looked forward to completing my schooling and getting my first permanent assignment. I had learned that my job had what was called an overseas imbalance. That meant that a higher number of air passenger specialists were needed overseas than in the states.

I was sort of expecting to be sent overseas, and hoping I wouldn't get sent to Viet Nam.

Before the Air Force

 During my high school years the Viet Nam war was going on and the nightly news always covered the latest events from the war.  The gym teachers in high school pushed us to do more all the time, telling us we'd be drafted after high school and wanted us to be as physically fit as possible to increase our odds of surviving Viet Nam if we went there.

I really didn't want to be drafted into the army and had thoughts of joining the Navy or the Air Force. The Navy appealed to me because life on a ship and constantly traveling sounded great. The Air Force sound appealed to me because I thought it would be nice to be stationed somewhere overseas and stay in one country or another for a year or so (hopefully not Viet Nam). Someplace in Europe would be nice, I thought.

I decided that I wanted to join the Air Force, it sounded like a good alternative to being drafted into the Army and sent to Viet Nam.