Graduation, Super Seniors and Mr. Diable

When we took our last flight as Primary Helicopter students, many things changed. It wasn't limited to missing the Main Heliport, the Stage Fields and the never ending inspections and Battalion reviews. Diable carefully went over his students and gave a speech regarding graduation and the men who would be leaving and those who would be staying.

I was chosen to be a Super Senior who would welcome the new students to Ft. Wolters and guide them through the reception process. I remember that Mike Morris and Richard Ortenblad were with me but we had different billets and didn't see each other during working hours. James Miles, the most senior man in our Flight, was taking leave and asked me to drive his VW to Ft. Rucker. I instantly agreed to do that as I hadn't enjoyed the luxury of driving a car since I'd entered the Army in May of 69.

We had one really big inspection the day of graduation and I knew that it was Diable's attempt to make sure that all in his Flight were spit polished and standing taller than anyone else. We marched to the graduation hall which was only a couple of buildings down from our barracks. We filled up the place and were surprised to have a civilian there as a speaker.

He told us alot about the Mineral Wells area and how important the base was to the general populations. He did so in a very comedic manner and we laughed as  he told the stories about cattle that had been scared and stampeded by young Army pilots who were practicing gun runs on them as if they were the enemy. He also mentioned the countless times that helicopters had flown over swimming pools in the area to see if we could get a view of the girls sun bathing topless. It brought back memories of that Cherokee 140 we used in college to see if we could catch the girls sunbathing topless on top of the girls dorm at Northwestern.

This is the time when my relationship with everyone on the base changed. We were given small red patches to mount on our uniform that would identify us as Super Seniors and someone who had already graduated from student pilots to "temporary cadre". None of the officers on base gave us any trouble at all and in fact, made us feel if we were now part of the Army more than ever before.

Those changes were great but they were nothing compared to the change that came from Mr. Diable. We had a dinner dance that followed graduation and everyone who could, needed to bring a date. I didn't know any girls in the area and I immediately got on the phone and called a number of girls that I had gone out with but I ran out of luck and came up with a zero.

I called my sister Linda and she gave me the number of a girl she'd gone to college with. I had been out with her a couple of times but had more or less forgotten about her as she wasn't really from my gang of friends. Her name was Joyce and I called her to invite her to the ball and she accepted. That's when Mr. Diable really stood up to the plate for me.

He dropped by the reception area where the new students were arriving and told me to come to his car. When I did and informed him that I'd found a date that would fly from Shreveport to Dallas, he asked for the arrival time. When I gave it to him, he told me to get my gear and get in the car. When I did that, we left the reception area and he took me to his quarters that were off base. I was blown away when he told me that I would stay at his quarters that night and take his car the next morning to Love Field in Dallas to pick up Joyce. I couldn't believe my good luck any more than I could believe that my tac officer was taking me by the  hand and setting everything up.

I'm sure that there are many of you reading this that have never been in the military. For those of you who haven't, try to recall movies you've seen where R. L. Ermy changed from that screaming drill Sargent to the experienced combat veteran who was passing on information like a Master Mentor. That was Diable.

Since we had graduated and his next class had not yet arrived, Diable had a free night so to speak and he told story after story about his combat tour as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. I was amazed at the examples he gave where lives were saved by simply paying attention to detail in the cockpit. One that I remember focused on the performance of a turbine engine. He talked about checking the torque readings when the ship was at a hover and then comparing that to the outside air temperature. When you did that, you could look at a log book where those readings were logged and determine if the engine was needing more torque to do the same job.

At the end of my tour of duty in Vietnam, I became a test pilot for the AMOC officer, who just happened to be my room mate. I would make those checks every single time a helicopter came out of maintenance and I failed more than one ship. I always remembered the things that Diable told me about attention to detail and I never failed to follow the rules that he said  had saved so many lives.

The next morningwhen I awakened, Diable gave me the keys to his bad boy Mustang and off I went to Love Field to meet Joyce. You can't imagine what a cool feeling that was like as going through Basic Training and the Primary Flight School was something akin to being locked up. I'll get to the party on the next post as it was really, really a neat thing to attend your first military ball. Stand by, more coming.