The Presidio

The Presidio of Monterey     I arrived at the Presidio of Monterey on 28 August 1991, if I recall correctly. I was assigned to the 3483rd STUS (STUdent Squadron, perhaps?) for the purpose of attending the Defense Language Institute (DLI). Air Force tech school ended up being a lot better than basic training, yet still insanely silly from time to time.
    I think the biggest problem with tech school is that it was run by ATC (Air Training Command) (now AETC, Air Education and Training Command). ATC had the idea that somehow everyone would be better airman if they were treated like grade-school children. Thus, there was a rather idiotic phase program, under which you could not leave base for the first two weeks, then could only do so on weekends and in blues for the next couple of weeks, and after that, had some other restrictions that went away after six months, when you were finally free, or as much so as anyone in ATC is... I don't rightly recall what the other restrictions were, other than that they must have been either very minor or very hard to enforce, for I never noticed them, and I did anything I wanted while on 3rd phase.
    The other really big complaint I had about ATC was the "rope" system, whereby airman who volunteered would be given the opportunity to be obnoxious by virture of having colorful bits of yarn hung upon their shoulders. Some of the people who were ropes were pretty decent, but some of them were also persons who regretted that they were born too late to join the Hitler Youth. Basically, the Air Force put other punk airman in charge of the flights. All too often these airman became obnoxious, and were prone to doing things like calling flight meetings to call us slackers, calling for drill practice before the monthly drill competition (which I never took part in because they needed a specific number of people, and I made sure I was not one of those people by marching badly and blaming it on a bad knee), and writing people up for such grevious offenses as "having raindrops on the window" on a rainy day, or having spilled coffee on your shirt, or other such non-offenses. Personally, I think that the Air Force should have put prior-service NCOs in charge of the flights, as they actully have some right to that responsibility and the experience to do it well. Unfortunately, that probably would not serve the purposes of the leadership of ATC, because prior-service NCOs would never be as obnoxious as an 18 year old with a bit of colorful yarn, and besides, the little airman might actually figure out that ESC (Electronic Security Command, then Air Force Intelligence Command, now Air Intelligence Agency) is a pretty slack organization when it comes to things like ironed uniforms, etc. I think I would have liked the system that the Air Force had in the 1970's and that the Navy still has, where the command to which the people will eventually be assigned controls the associated tech schools. That way, ESC would have run the DLI squadron, and would have been more concerned with making sure that everyone would become a good linguist. ATC often seemed most concerned with making sure that everyone would fall in line with the ATC ideal, which doesn't bear much resemblance to what was really required in ESC.
    Despite this, DLI could be quite a lot of fun. I say this because the actual work day was only six hours long (later extended to seven hours), something that you'd never see in the real Air Force (which while I was at DLI, was defined as that part of the Air Force not part of ATC. There were millions of stories floating around about the "Real Air Force", almost all false.) Even after considering the formation in the morning and monthly PT (held I think to demonstrate conclusively that the Marines and Army were in better physical condition), this left plenty of time for goofing off. Besides, the Presido itself is a very nice base. It has a great view, and alot of nice 1920's/1930's military buildings on it that are still used.

This is a photo taken from the site of the original Spanish presidio. The ship is the cruiser "Texas".
Some people spent all their spare time studying. Fortunately, I'tried to avoid that. For the first six weeks, they had a mandatory study hall, but after that, evenings were free! How much time does it really take to study Spanish, after all? I figured that grammar rules were learned by osmosis in the six hours of classes, the homework I could finish in about an hour, and irregular verb memorization took maybe an hour or two a week. So weekends and evenings were free. And I finished second in my class, so I figure the C.K. Derrick D.L.I. study system worked effectively.
So, what did I do with my spare time? Until I got my car at Thanksgiving, not much. Played video games, mostly, and went out to eat alot on weekends, and went to the E.M. Club on base and drank, but that was about it. Unfortunately, I found that a large percentage of my colleagues in the 3483rd fell into a small number of categories:

Patriotic rednecks, who seemed to think that they were actors in some WW2 epic. They tended to think (if they thought at all) that Gulf War protesters, flag burners, and most other non-redneck elements of society should be sent to concentration camps to save the U.S. from communist nazis, or something along those lines.
People who thought that the Air Force was some sort of extension of High School and the object of life was to drink a whole lot of beer.
Prior service people, who often seemed to revel in their ability to drop cryptic hints as to life after DLI and thereby become respected as sages, or in their ability to recount completely fictional tales about the mission of linguists and thereby become respected as sages until their victims reached their first real assignment, after which they would be respected as excellent story-tellers.
Everyone else (my favorite group).

The marine research center in Pacific Grove, seen from the recreation trail.
    I essentially tried to spend as little time as possible around the squadron. I would go to the gym, or go running on the beach at Pacific Grove, Marina, or Carmel (I used to run about five miles a day), or go out with Navy or Army types. My best freinds at DLI were SSGT Nancy Owens, U.S. Army, SPC4 Eric Clayton, U.S. Army, CAP Ray Helton, U.S. Army, Seaman 1st Class J.R. Dunn, U.S. Navy, and A1C Tony Cortest, U.S. Air Force. We did alot of things, including going out drinking, but not normally to the Club or the Legion, the way most of the people I didn't much care for did. I also spent a lot of time alone, driving places. I went all over California on weekends, as far south as Coalinga, as far east as Yosemite, and as far north as Napa. I'd essentially be gone for the entire time from close of business Friday until the six o'clock flight meeting on Sunday, once I got my car. I saw alot of California this way... I used to go to alot of movies when the weather was bad, and I don't think I ever missed any of the Monterey Institute's International Film Festival screenings. Even so, I didn't miss the Presidio when I PCS'ed. There was always this nagging feeling that somehow, for some reason, I would get in trouble for something silly. As it happened, this only occured once, but it was better once I was elsewhere and this feeling no longer existed. The ATC atmosphere was much more oppressive than it needed to be, and I'm really not sure why the high command felt that it should be.
    The incident in question occured not because of my roommate, but because of rather uncooperative rope. Anyway, he'd been put in charge of assigning the Dorm Guard. Dorm Guard is this dumb thing that ATC came up with where you've got to sit in a chair at the enterance to the barracks for a couple hours for no apparent reason. Well, ATC will give you reasons, but only a fool would actually believe ATC's reasons. I say, no apparent reason because none of the other services did this, nor did the Air Force anyplace but ATC, and it did not really serve any purpose that I could see. Anyway, he decided to schedule slots by random selection, and assigned me for the precise time that my father was arriving at the airport to visit. He refused to change this for any reason, so I warned him that I wouldn't be there, and he still refused to change it. So I didn't show (this is Thursday night), and didn't come back to the squadron until the end of the weekend (I stayed with my father in a motel, though I did go to formation and classes Friday.)
    I arrived back to a sticky note on my door stating that I should see Sgt. Fox. I did, and got assigned CQ duty for the next couple weekends, and a Letter of Reprimand. Heck, on CQ, at least you watched videos and had someone to talk to all night. I'd sooner do CQ for a weekend than Dorm Guard anytime. I even got a Letter of Appreciation for my actions in running off some girl's ex from the barracks. All in all, a good trade off that I never regreted.
    I think I also got a 341 pulled a couple of times. A 341 is an Air Force form that you are supposed to carry with you to give to people when you do something wrong. In the Army they would make you do push-ups. In the Air Force, they take this form, and then you have to fill out another to have with you. So far as I could tell, that was the only thing that happened when a 341 was pulled. I considered 341s a joke of sorts. I found it amusing that people took them seriously. I think I lost a 341 for keeping blankets in my wall locker once. Other than that, nada.
    I guess I could go into many more stories, like the San Francisco Airport at Christmas, or skiing on MLK day, or the Monsters of Rock show in Oakland, but I don't know how much those things have to do with DLI directly. They probably will be Adventures some day, but not yet. Anyway, my time at DLI ended with graduation. I finished out-processing and drove off, into the Real Air Force. The rest of my Air Force time was pretty good. The Presidio was good, too, because I loved Monterey though I hated the squadron.

E-mail me at CKDerrick@usa.net to tell me how great ATC is...

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