| About a year and a half ago, when Squidnet
Email was our only thread, Baby Mac gave us a treat with
this narrative about his return to Torrejon in '94. Reprinted here for those who missed it, and worth repeating for the rest of us...... |
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| They say you can never go home, though that has never stopped me from trying. I left in late ''79. Perhaps two years later, my Ramstein unit was at Zab the same time as the Squids, and Bill Christian and I sat soaking up rays in the courtyard of the "Q," debating the merits of pulling the upper or lower handle. It would be nearly another decade before I'd make contact with the squadron. In December 1990, enroute "downrange" and to the show, I was stranded three days in a TJ hangar while awaiting an engine replacement to be flown in from the CONUS. The massive ramp was horizon-to-horizon C-5s and other assorted heavies. I managed to escape the confines of our restricted area one afternoon and walked the few knolls to our old squadron building. With no disrespect to you Viper drivers on the net, it was a humorless group that now occupied our house. That long brick building was never designed for the singles crowd. Mid afternoon and the duty desk was empty. There was no laughter, certainly no lies. There were hardly bodies. Only about 8 lineswere scheduled. Only the walls seemed willing to talk. |  |
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In September 1994 I was appointed investigating officer for allegations against Torrejon's last commander. By now, not only had he left, but the USAF base population numbered about thirty and had consolidated its real estate to the old 612th and 613th buildings. The rest of the campus was boarded up and overgrown. I was given an office on the second floor of the 612th house. Across the parking lot, our old fighter ops housed what base support facilities remained. The years had not been kind to the white marble Squid out front--he was missing his head, and I think an appendage or two. Inside, structurally little had changed in nearly two decades. |
| Those NCOs last to leave were real neighborly and gave me the nickel tour. I helped myself to the glass-covered map of the Mediterranean that survived the years on the front left main briefing room wall. Several months later, I was much surprised when the building's last tenants mailed me the heavy 5'x6' "Welcome to the Squids" mat on which we all wiped our boots--it now sits on our back porch and reminds me daily of good times and great people past. But it was the ghosts that met me in our old life support--by now the base post office--that prompted these lines. A scant few of you, those with whom I maintained Christmas contact, heard this story in December '94. |  |
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I tried to remember which was my old
locker. Was always in too much of a hurry to spend much
time there. Was far easier to remember where I sat while
the"withstands-nuclear-holocaust" helmet mold
was poured, or where Starjet set up his ski-tuning
operation. It was while I was walking around, blabbering
to the mailman about what and who had gone before him,
that shadows appeared under the florescent lights and
each locker took on a life of its own. For if I moved my
head ever so slightly to the left or right before each, I
could make out the impression of a stenciled name: Teak,
Bennet, Milne, Green, Emery, Wells, Hodnett, Ellis,
Jacobs, Miller, and many more--I expected their owners to
walk through the door at any moment, bitching about
quarters owed. I believe the stencil job was Flounder's
work--a former Grunt, he was driven by the code to paint
it if it didn't move. So while I had been trying to reach
out and touch the past, apparently the past had found me.
I left the building that day realizing I would never
return, and accepting I could never truly "go home."
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| But it didn't get much better than
that. Check back later for Part 2 ..... |