es of the tent, along with six single wall lockers and six footlockers. All of the furniture had seen better days. In addition, it appeared that everyone had a lawn chair positioned around a homemade table. The bed that received my bag was pointed out to me, as well as a single wall locker and a footlocker.
“Don’t worry. The guy that did occupy that bed just rotated home. That lawn chair was his too, but he left it for you. Want a beer?” one of the others offered.
I was beginning to see a pattern here, and beer was it. There was one refrigerator in the tent, and it was a community beer machine. You took a beer, and when it ran dry, someone went and bought more beer. No matter how much you drank, everyone chipped in to buy the beer, and Lou could drink some beer, I was finding out. In fact, from the look of the empties, they all could drink some beer.
“Chow time. I hope you like roast beef, because that’s what’s for dinner. Bring a beer,” said one of my new tent mates.
For what they had to work with, Army cooks did some amazing work in fixing meals. It wasn’t Mom’s home cooking, but it was better than most institutional food. Roast beef was for dinner that night, and almost every other night, I came to realize. If not roast beef, then spaghetti with sauce, marinara or something like that. We not only had roast beef for dinner, we had roast beef for breakfast some days too, and roast beef for lunch if you were lucky. When we were flying, we would have a case of C-rations, and they were a welcome respite from the roast beef menu.
As the four of us were eating, more flight crews came in to grab dinner. Being the “new guy,” I was sort of the center of attention. Some attention was appreciated and some not. Right off the bat, the attention from the platoon leader was not appreciated.
Captain Jamison was a rather large man and not fat. “Are you Mr. Cory?” he asked.
I looked up from my tray. “Yes, sir.”
“When I speak to you, mister, you will stand,” he said loud enough that everyone turned and looked as I unwound from my seat.
“Sorry, sir,” I mumbled and stood up.
“When you’re done eating, report to my tent. Someone will show you where it is.” And he walked off to sit at an empty table.
“He’s an ass,” Lou stated in a hushed voice. “Don’t let it bother you. He’s that way with every one of the warrants. Has a feather up his ass.”
“Are you in his platoon too?” I asked.
“Nope, and I don’t fly with him either. Not that I don’t want to, but he doesn’t want to fly with me. See, I’m an aircraft commander and he’s still a right seater. He thinks just because he’s a captain, he should be an aircraft commander. But he can’t fly for shit and no one will sign him off for AC. He thinks the ACs have it out for him, and we do.” Lou was digging out another beer from his cargo pockets.
“How do you get to be AC, and how long does it take?” I asked as I accepted another beer from Lou’s other cargo pocket.
“First you need about four hundred hours’ flight time in-country. You’ll have that in four months easy, unless you’re a dickhead and scare every AC. Then when the ACs think you’re ready, we have a meeting and make a recommendation to Major Dickson. Have you met him yet?” Lou asked.
“No, who’s he?”
“Damn, you are a newbie, aren’t you? Major Dickson’s the company commander, and you’ll be told by the XO or by Captain Jamison when to go see him. I’ve been in this unit for almost a year now and still haven’t reported to him. I’ve only seen him out of his tent maybe four times. He doesn’t fly missions, he doesn’t speak to warrant officers or anyone except the first sergeant and the XO. Even his meals are brought to his tent. Guy’s a real hermit,” Lou stated as he finished his second beer and stood to leave.
We left the mess hall and headed back to our tent with a detour to the “Officers’ Club,” which was another tent with a makeshift bar, refrigerator and tables. The latest Led Zeppelin song was playing on a reel-to-reel tape player. “You a poker player, Cory?”
“No, never learned. Figured if I didn’t lose money gambling, then every time I passed it up, I was making money,” I explained as I opened another Carling Black Label with the rusted seem. Lou introduced me to more pilots that were in the game. Hugh and Dave were both ACs and getting ready to rotate home in a month or so.
“Hi, I’m Chip. Really glad to see you here.” A tall lanky fellow extended his hand.
“Thank you, I’m Dan,” I responded as I shook his hand. “But why are you glad to see me?”
“Because I’m no longer the newest new guy. You are.” The pecking order had just been established. It quickly became obvious that the evening would continue with jovial bantering and beer. However, I still had to go see my platoon leader, so I excused myself and went looking for his tent.
Captain Jamison had a tent all to himself. It was what the Army called a General Purpose Small, and it was the same size as the company commander’s tent. In fact, the platoon leaders, XO, and first sergeant all had “single-man tents” that you could sleep ten men in if need be. After the incident in the mess hall, I thought it best to exercise proper military decorum. Announcing myself, I was told to come in, and I did so, coming to attention and saluting. Captain Jamison sat at a field desk. He smiled and stood, returning my salute.
“At ease. Nice to see a warrant with military manners, Mr. Cory. You’re a first,” he said, shaking my hand. I wasn’t sure what to say.
“I come from a military family, sir, and manners and traditions are big in our house. My dad is Navy, submarines, so from the time I could talk, manners were ingrained in me. ‘Yes, sir’ and ‘no, ma’am’ were expected,” I explained.
“So why didn’t you join the Navy?” he asked.
“The Navy isn’t really in this fight, is it, sir? I wanted to do more than sit off the coast doing mundane stuff on some ship. I was a merchant sailor for about five months and made good money, but I wanted to be here, doing something worthwhile,” I divulged.
“Cory, you may be an idealist, but we can use you.”
Surprisingly, Captain Jamison and I had a nice discussion on what I could expect in the months to come. After about thirty minutes, he wrapped up the conversation and asked if I had questions, which I did not. I was dismissed. He just wanted the warrant officers to extend military courtesy to his rank. I got along with him just fine until he rotated home.