Hell week at Flight School and "Moving up the Hill".

Since there are so many new readers of the blog, I wanted to say that I hope that most of you have scrolled down to the first post I made in this series called "You must have seen this coming". A few, very important posts are there which are key elements in understanding the scope and point of the series.

It will serve you well if you can do that and rest assured that it won't be a waste of time. Several readers have already noted that they enjoyed that portion of the story because it so closely approximated the experiences they had with their own family. One of the readers, a former Chief Warrant Officer who also served as our tac officer at flight school, read it and asked if we were possibly related because his life and mine were almost duplications.

Having already experienced "Arrival" at Subiaco, Morris, St. Gregory's and Ft. Polk, I already knew the drill pretty well. Being asked to make love to a water cooler because I said that: "I would love a drink of water", didn't really bother me at all and in fact, made a fabulous entry into my experiences as the Army's newest Warrant Officer Candidate. You may well imagine how much I enjoy answering the questions from kids that asked: "When you got to flight school, what did you do"?

Depending on my audience, and in my best southern accent I would say: "Well shucks, I had to make out with a water cooler".................or..............."Heck fire, that's easy, I had to make love to a water cooler". To this day, those that ask, still enjoy that story. I've even had a comment from California from another WOC regarding that specific night.

Shortly after I signed in, I was turned over to someone who was described to me as a Super Senior. This was a Warrant Officer Candidate just like me but he had already gone through Primary, had soloed and graduated. He was just waiting for the class opening at Ft. Rucker, Alabama at which time he would leave Ft. Wolters and begin the Advanced Course for instrument training, Huey transition and combat tactics. .

Once the "show" was over and the yelling stopped, he took me aside and told me that I didn't need to worry because it was day and night different from boot camp and that there was lots and lots of classroom time coming and not nearly as much marching and drilling.

This was the first example of mentoring I had received and, even though it was just a small example, I decided right then and there that when I graduated,  I hoped to be assigned as a Super Senior to welcome new Candidates as they came in to begin their training.

I'll admit that I was initially uncertain about a few things because of my rapid removal from Basic Training at Ft. Polk, one that didn't even allow me to attend the graduation ceremonies. I questioned my incredibly good fortune because I had been taught that "if it looks too good to be true, it probably is".

In any event, once I made it through my first partial night at WOC reception, I was given a heads up on a few things that made me glad I did arrive early. One of the Super Seniors took a few of  us to the embroidery shop where we would be issued new uniforms. Ours weren't good enough as they didn't have "embroidered" name patches and weren't nearly as well "Fitting" as they needed to be for America's newest brand of warriors.

I'd never met a Vietnamese woman before but the one that took my new uniform and began to embroider my name and US ARMY on the blouse, was 100% Vietnamese who spoke a broken English that was understandable but somewhat broken. It reminded me of stories from WW II where the Japanese said: "So Solly".

As a function of good luck, they took us to the PX where we were ordered to get personal items such as shoe polish, shaving creme, tooth paste, tooth brush, polishing cloth, brasso and a number of other things that were mostly focused on personal hygiene and the world of "spit polish" that we were about to enter.

The neatest thing about the PX had to do with the fact that there was a Huey parked on the helipad that was right next to the PX. When we had an opportunity to look, I was the first one there. I'd seen Hueys flying all over Ft. Polk but had never seen one up close.

I was amazed at the cockpit as it had more instrumentation than anything I'd ever seen. Altimeter, airspeed, torque, EGT or exhaust gas temperature for the turbine engine, IVIS which was an instantaneous vertical speed indicator, OAT or outside air temperature gauge, ILS System for instrument landing and a flat panel that was marked: "Press to Test". That does not include a million circuit breakers in an overhead panel or the magnetic compass and a stack of VHF, UHF radios and an automatic direction finder. Looked like a space ship to me.

One of the guys said that the press to test panel had something to do with the "20 minute fuel warning system, metal chip detectors for the main rotor and tail rotor transmissions and other test items that were essential to safe flight. It was really cool and I immediately began to have dreams of flying it.

Instead of a control wheel, as was common place in the Pipers and Cessnas I'd received "Stick Time" in, it had a stick coming out of the floor that was called a cyclic stick. I deduced that it was for left and right turns. There was a control stick on the left side of both seats and I was told that it was more or less used for up and down. It was called the collective.

During the day, as we returned to the reception area, some of the other Candidates began arriving from other parts of the country. I was wondering if we were about to ship out to class and begin flight school but that was not to be.

The next day however, a large bus arrived with 45 new Candidates aboard and the Super Seniors entered the bus as it stopped and began their welcome. From my position just outside the bus, I could hear the screaming that welcomed the Candidates.

"Get your shit together as you have 10 seconds to load up and get your ass in formation". I laughed inside a little bit but dared not to show the Super Seniors that I saw any humor in it.

I was quite relieved to see Jimmy Dunnavant get off the bus. I had gone all the way through Basic with him at Ft. Polk and to me, it meant that everything was probably going to be okay or somewhat normal as it relates to the overall scope of things that happen when you are a newby and are wondering about the things that would happen next.

Shortly after that, I had an opportunity to talk to Jimmy. Right off the bat he asked: "What in the hell happened to you, we thought you had gotten in trouble on your week end leave". I ran through the story with him and remembered that he had something to say about the luck of being related to a General in Army. I don't think I ever convinced him otherwise.

Shortly after that we were told that we were: "Going up the Hill" a term used to describe the trip that removed us from being in the reception area to one where we would become part of the 5th Warrant Officer Candidate Class 70-05. We were excited as we could be and began getting our stuff lined out as best we could for the transition.

That marks the first installment of arriving at Ft Wolters, going through the Reception Area and being told that we were leaving to begin flight training. Stand by for more, Day 1 begins shortly.





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