Aviation Brief XVIII: Marine Corps Formal Traditions #2

A pre-cruise dinner at NAS Lemoore evolved into a night to remember in a different way. Two Navy squadrons hosted two Marine squadrons and the other Navy squadrons that were part of CAG-11--Carrier Air Group 11. Meant to be a bonding time for the squadrons who would be sharing the confines of a ship for six months, it was put together as a Navy version of a Mess Night.
 

All had progressed as it should up to the meat course. Then, as someone at the head table spoke at the microphone, a lone roll arced high overhead, followed by a return barrage of rolls, some buttered lavishly. Before long, heavy artillery in the form of fully loaded potatoes launched. By the end of the evening, the rolls and potatoes were the least of it.
 

The El Toro based Marine squadrons saddled up and departed in the squadron jets by ten hundred hours the next morning--aviators breaking the ‘twelve hours from bottle to throttle’ rule.
The Lemoore base CO did not see the damage until early afternoon. He pulled in the CAG-11 CO, who dragged in the A-7 COs, who burned up the phone lines pulling in all their squadron officers. 

The Marines from El Toro did not fly back in to help clean up. Their absence was duly noted.
Shortly afterward an official message arrived at MCAS El Toro addressed to the two Marine squadrons:
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
* U N C L A S S I F I E D*
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** **
PT 02 00                        085   1517 06

RT TU ZY UW R HH GG O4 18 0851 M -U UU U- -R UW JG FA 1S
ZNR UU UU U
FM ATKRON TWO SEVEN
TO RUW JG FA/VMFA THREE TWO THREE
RUW JG FA/VMFA FIVE THREE ONE
ZEN/COMLAT WING PAC LE MOORE CA
RUWJGFA/MAG ELEVEN
INFO RUWDVAA/COM CA RA IR WING FOURTEEN
RUWJOHA/ATKRON ONE NINE SIX
RUWOAA/CA RA EW RON ONE ONE THREE
BT
UNCLAS  //NO 17 10//

RETURN DINING ENGAGEMENT
1.    THE OFFICERS OF VA-27 AND VA-97 ACCEPT WITH PLEASURE THE UNSTATED INVITATION FROM SNAKE ONE AND GHOST ONE TO A RETURN DINNER ENGAGEMENT AT THE MCAS EL TORO OFFICERS CLUB.
2.    REQUEST DINNER MENU AS FOLLOWS:
        12 DOZEN LIGHTLY BAKED POTATOES WITH SOUR CREAM
        48 BASKETS OF SOFT ROLLS
        48 ONE LITER CARAFES WINE (CHEAP, RED ONLY)
         4 FIRE EXTINGUISHERS
3. REQUEST FRANGIBLE RESTROOM FIXTURES
4.ANTICIPATE THE REQUIREMENTS OF 8 STEAMOVAC DO-IT-YOURSELF RUG CLEANING UNITS TO BE EMPLOYED AT DISCRETION OF SNAKE ONE/GHOST ONE FOLLOWING FESTIVITIES.
5. VA-27 AND VA-97 SEND
 

The Marine squadrons got the message. The COs of VMFA-531 and VMFA-323 held closed-door sessions with their officers. Significant “voluntary contributions” in the thousands of dollars were extracted and forwarded to NAS Lemoore.

Food fights are a male bonding activity. It’s obvious the guys need the civilizing influence of women who would not have  wanted butter on their evening gown or sour cream in their hair.

We all want to have fun. As a wife the really fun part of being an aviator--flying--wasn’t an option. Darn it. But this party activity would not have been funny to me. The aviator who told me this story thought it hilarious. And it is--the return message by the Lemoore squadrons was a clever and not whiney method of getting the message across. You played--now you pay, or--

Making a mess and not cleaning it up--that is a whole other kind of flight into irresponsibility. I know VMFA-531 jet jockeys thought they had “gotten away with it” by flying off in the morning. But spouses know that “somebody” has to clean up the mess. And too often it is not the one who made the mess who has to scrub the floor and repair what’s broken.

My grown-up self wants to make sure I clean up my own messes. It wants to be the “somebody” who is responsible. Inside of me is my child self that says, “Somebody else will do that, take care of that, comfort them, step up to the plate.”

Which are you? How do we build children who take on the responsibility of being the somebody others need? How do we learn to be our best selves?

Aviator Brief VIII: The Officer’s Club

El Toro Marine Air Station O-Club

Any aviator worth his wings knew when to lock his pipper on the O Club, or Officer’s Club, the predicted impact point of wild and crazy pilot life: Friday afternoon, squadron day done? Tuesday evening, date life slow? On a cross-country to someplace your mother had never heard of? Go to the O-Club and find fellow aviators with whom to drink beer, roll dice, and swap stories. Happy Hour at the O-Club--a mandatory activity for all squadron aviators. The bonding benefits of alcohol were well-documented in male social organizations.

Pilots needed time away from the airplanes to debrief and detour from the stress of flying high-performance aircraft. Happy Hour started on Fridays after the squadron shut down for the weekend, sometime between 1600 and 1630--4 to 4:30 pm. Wives and girlfriends joined their drunken other halves at the club as soon as the babysitters came, typically 1800 to 1900. Single women, looking to play, filled up the barstools and walls by 2100.

In the days before a DUI would end their career, aviators without semi-sober wives at the O-Club just drove slowly on the way home and watched out for MPs, the Military Police. Or not so slowly. Donut discovered orange trees in 1976 cost $3000 to replace when he crashed into and knocked over a prime specimen on his way home from a raucous Happy Hour at the MCAS El Toro Club.

No one knew how to party better than Marine pilots--no one--and they partied best with alcohol and other aviators to compete against.

The lowest rung on the competition ladder was the FNG, the Fucking New Guy. An FNG could be a new 1st lieutenant, but usually an FNG was an Air Force puke, or a Navy pilot, or a ground Marine who hadn’t spent time with aviators. It almost didn’t even count to mess with their heads because they wanted to be one of the boys so badly they’d do anything to be accepted. Also, most of their brains were newly minted and/or not used to playing the game.

What game? Any game. The best games to play with FNGs were games that allowed the FNG to buy all the drinks and all the meals--for everyone. FNGs were never told all the rules. In fact, they weren’t told any rules or strategy except the most basic--“In this game you roll the dice.” While playing Horse, a regular O-Club game, the object was to roll the best poker hand possible with five dice in two rolls. When the FNG chose dice to hold aside, the experienced O-Club aviator deployed the Iwakuni double-tooth-suck (open lips, put upper and lower front teeth together, and inhale briskly) to indicate the FNG had made a bad move--whether the move was bad or not--a strategy meant to cause much second-guessing and doubt. Every pilot knew, ‘He who hesitated, lost’--in any case, he who lost bought the drinks and often the meals.

The FNG was only told a rule when he broke one. “Bummer. You dropped the dice. You have to buy a round.” “Double bummer. You didn’t have the drinks by the time the game finished. You have to buy another round.” “Well, damn. You lost the game. You get to buy lunch for everybody.” At the Kingsville Training Command, that meant the FNG bought lunch for all ninety-nine other students and instructors.

Why did drinking until stupidity kicked in seem so fun and funny when I was in my twenties? Only a few never drank. We looked at them askance--it wasn't really understood if someone 'didn't handle their liquor' or chose not to join in the idiocies.

Now I agree with having a Designated Driver; I don't drink until I throw up; being drunk is not an excuse for bad behavior. However, I am so sad the camaraderie of Friday nights at the O-Club has gone the way of passenger pigeons.